I'm standing in front of the Officer's Training School Open Mess (OTSOM). I am wearing the OTS mess dress uniform. We wore these fancy uniforms exactly twice. Once for our Dining In (just us officer candidates and our training officers, who were officially invited to come into the OTSOM). The second time would be for our Dining Out when family and friends were welcome the night before our graduation, after which we would no longer be welcome at the OTSOM as commissioned officers. As commissioned officers, we were no longer able to wear these uniforms but had to buy official Mess Dress uniforms.
Mom wrote on the back of this picture "San Antonio" but this looks to be in the afternoon, well before she arrived.
She was able to get a ticket on a Continental flight from LAX to San Antonio. Once she arrived at the airport in the early evening, she wasn't sure how to get to the base. Ever resourceful, she was able to hitch a ride on an Air Force bus taking new Air Force recruits to Lackland. She called me from Lackland Mainside, explaining that she did not know where she was and did not how to get to the Medina Annex, where OTS was.
Me and the others were getting ready in the barracks for the Dining Out. I grabbed my keys and headed down to my car, having no idea where she might be waiting for me. Fortunately, while we were not allowed to leave the base, Lackland Mainside where the enlisted men and women trained was part of the base to which we were restricted.
I drove to the main administrative building but she was not there. I recalled the place from fifteen weeks earlier, when the four of us arrived from California and checked in there, only to be told where we needed to go for OTS. I drove around the back of the building and there mom was. I loaded her bag in the trunk and we headed back to OTS. I was thrilled to be having my mom at my graduation and the ceremonies the night before.
I sent her on to the OTSOM while I rejoined the others at the barracks before we all walked over to the OTSOM with all of the other graduates.
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