GoArmy.com > For Parents > SPC Jodie Wood

Flash Version

he Woods continued to discuss Jodie's interest in the Army through every step of the enlistment process. This was a big decision after all, and they wanted to make sure Jodie was completely ready for it. She was.

An emotional Buddy and Deb
were right by Jodie's side at
her swearing in ceremony.

“She decided she was
going into the Army, so
we felt it was very
important for us to be
supportive of her.”

— Deb

Letting go was hard for them. For Jodie, the hardest part was yet to come.

In the fall of 2004, Jodie packed her bags for Fort Jackson, SC, and a new life in the Army. At Basic Combat Training (BCT), she spent nine weeks being tested both physically and mentally, facing challenges unlike any she had ever experienced and, ultimately, learning how to be a Soldier.

Deb was also learning, but her lesson was about keeping in touch. She developed a system that ensured her daughter would receive a letter or card every day. BCT was tough for Jodie, as it is for every recruit, so the daily encouragement really helped
her get through it.

In Jodie's letters home, Deb
could track her daughter's
progress: from doubting her
ability to realizing her goals
to achieving success. That
success was on full display
at Jodie's BCT graduation–
a day the entire family will
remember for a long time.

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Continue Jodie's Story >

Deb: To any parent who has a young man, a young woman who?s going to Basic Training, I would say to them: Make sure you do send those letters. Get a system down.

Jodie: I mean, I got letters every day from someone in my family, and it just meant so much to know that I had that backing behind me.

Deb: We ended up with a system where every weekend we would address all the letters and try to write something in each one of them, so every day we could put something in the mail.

Deb: At one point, she had called or written and said, 'they think I need my own post office.? And then the next time she said, 'they think I need my own zip code,' because so many different people were writing to her.

Jodie: They started calling me Zip Code.

Deb: It's really important, and even though we couldn't speak with her and we weren't getting any response back, it was very important for her that we kept sending letters.