Robert Witham

In honor of Patriot Day 2008 I decided to compile a small tribute to my oldest son, Jonathan. Jonathan is currently serving his country on active duty with the Montana Army National Guard.

I have put together a multimedia presentation that is hosted on Yudu. Yudu is an impressive new digital publication service. The entire presentation is available by following this link:

PFC Jonathan Witham Army Training Collage

Note: Those poor souls with dial-up Internet connections will need to be patient as the pages may take a few few minutes to load.

Comments

Bethany Witham - 11 September 2008

We are so proud of Jonathan! Great Job on the Tribute Rob! Love, Bethany, Rachel, and Bailey O’Vera

PFC Witham in AIT

Jonathan is working with the Army National Guard recruiters though the end of September. He is working on their Special Event Team and traveling throughout the state. This week he they are at the Montana State Fair in Billings. During September they will be visiting high schools throughout Montana.

Jonathan made sure I understand that he is not a recruiter - he is just assisting the recruiters. I promised him that I would not overstate his involvement too much. Fathers simply must maintain the prerogative to brag at least a little bit…

On another news note, Jonathan will be starting college in September at Montana State University, Billings. He will be starting on a General Studies degree while he decides which major he wants to pursue.

Jonathan graduated from Army Basic Combat Training on 4 April 2008. He is now in Virginia for his advanced training. I was able to attend both Family Day (Thursday) and Graduation (Friday).

Jonathan graduated from Army Basic Combat Training on 4 April 2008. He is now in Virginia for his advanced training. I was able to attend both Family Day (Thursday) and Graduation (Friday). I had an absolutely wonderful time with Jonathan while I was there. The 82 degree temperature on Friday did nothing to dampen my spirits after six months of Upstate NY winter either!

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The latest update on Jonathan (and the last update before Basic Training graduation) is here. For those of you who are beginning to wonder - yes, I will eventually post something else on this site besides updates on Jonathan. But hey, it’s my site so I can do what I want with it right? Yeah, that’s the spirit!

Jonathan called me Sunday night! This is the first phone call I have received since he arrived at Basic Training more than two months ago. Needless to say that made my evening!

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I received another letter from Jonathan today. This letter is from 9 March 2008.

Jonathan began this letter by writing that it was Sunday morning, he had just finished eating, and was just waiting to go to church.

(This parenthetical break is a representative, dramatic pause. This pause is correlative to my pause in reading the letter as I picked myself up from the floor and sat back in my chair.)

Jonathan had just returned from a three-day FTX and was behind on writing. They are busy practising ambushes and scenarios which he says are fun. He is counting the days to graduation and says he can’t wait.

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I received another letter from Jonathan this week. This letter is dated March 04.

Jonathan completed his second PT test and said he did “pretty well. So that’s always good.” He is also obviously in a lot better shape than his old man as evidenced by the following:

• 56 push ups
• 68 sit ups
• a 12:55 two-mile run He said his two-mile run was the third-fastest in the entire company. He was hoping to complete the two-mile run in under 12 minutes when he did the third PT test. I think I would simply die…Jonathan said he spent one day last week putting up rolls of razor wire in the pouring rain. “That was an experience for sure,” he said.

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I received a two-page letter from Jonathan today! This is the longest letter yet. The letter is dated 19 February.

Jonathan said he is doing well and is “feeling better” to be at the half-way point in Basic Training. He has been shooting all last week and is doing quite well. They were shooting at pop-up targets. Jonathan said he started out the week shooting a 19 and was up to a 30. The score of 30 qualifies him as a sharpshooter. He was hoping to score a 35 by Friday because that would qualify him as an expert. He really wants to score as an expert.

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