Update: my son graduated Friday. Ceremony was on the field at 11; insanely hot and mercifully short. Parked in Buffalo soldier lot and walked to/from (which is a long walk on a hot day; I was thankful to have my umbrella and dressed appropriately). I did a campus tour through West Point Tours the day before, so had my bearings somewhat. Any correct information I obtained from cobbling together what my cadet knew, and what
@USMAZoo98 and
@UHBlackhawk provided here. So, thank you for that. No one at West Point had complete or accurate information about the graduation; over the course of 2 days I asked multiple people (3 different visitor center front desk staff, the people downstairs processing my pass, the guard stationed at the entrance gate, etc.). They were all without exception cranky about it too; so I went out of my way to be respectful and empathetic. Everyone said some version of "organizations hold events here and tell us no details." There were tons of kids running around the campus in groups for various summer camps; I overheard other parents asking where they were supposed to pick up their children, etc., and receiving less help than I did. After the ceremony I was able to take pictures of my son with his buds and talk for a bit. There was a lot of confusion among the cadets about whether they could sign themselves out and have their parents take them to the airport. My son did not want to do this, so it wasn't a point of stress for us but it was for one of his buds. The issue here is that the ROTC kids were not given all the information that the West Point kids had; apparently the typical response to cadet questions to the black hats was "it's in your email." However these emails were only sent to West Point cadets (who aren't concerned with travel details because they live there). I had a really good time during my visit; the tour I took the day before was fantastic. For anyone else considering going to future graduations, if you have the luxury of being flexible, just hanging out and can deal patiently with chaos and ambiguity, go for it. But if you are on a tight schedule and need information that impacts travel arrangements in a timely manner, and cannot deal pleasantly with stressed out people, maybe give this event a pass.
He was in the first regiment for advanced camp, which ended last Wednesday. He went to 'holdover camp' at Ft. Knox until Saturday, when he flew to Newark. He's been waiting at West Point since then for air assault to start. Do you have a cadet doing something similar? If so, PM me if you want more info.
