My son doesn't leave for Fort Benning until January, but I'm trying to prepare both of us by reading the forum. Can he not take a phone card with him? A few posts I'v read said that he would have to call collect until he could purchase a phone card so I'm unsure. We had planned to put one in his Christmas stocking.
My son just began basic training at Fort Benning, and he has been using his phone card to call home. I also just sent him two more to use that I had in my wallet.
My son left Nov. 12th for Ft. Benning as well. He called me this past Sunday - what a relief to hear his voice. He was very upbeat and sounded great, I was the one who was a mess even though i didnt let him know that. I sent 3 phone cards with him and i assume that is what he used when he called me. He said he gets to call every Sunday for 5 minutes (i am praying that is the case). If any of you have any suggestions for us new moms of soldiers, please feel free to send any and all info - thanking you in advance!!!
well i'm not a momma i'm a wife but when my husband left he had one phone card and didn't need to use it. he didn't go to Benning he actually went to Fort Sill Oklahoma over there they were really tough on them. He had his phone the first two weeks and called when he could but he had to give it up after a while cause the guys started snitching on each other. But after he gave up his phone we had to write letters cause they couldn't just call out they would have to earn the phone privilege. they dont need the phone cards i really dont think so.
I'd snitch too. They know going in they can't have cell phones. It is also a unit and if one gets in trouble they all suffer the consequences, so it isn't fair to the rest of them.
Be sure to read the fine print on the phone cards. Some of them charge time in 20 minute (or more) blocks so a two minute call can eat up 20 minutes. We looked for several but figured we were lucky if our son got 150 minutes out of a 450 minutes card.
You really don't have time to do it now but, for future reference during deployments, phone cards can be ordered through AFEES (or maybe it was soldier's angels - I don't know exactly which because my wife took care of it) that have pretty good rates.
Also, again for future planning, if your son ends up being deployed to Iraq or A'stan, he should look into SPAWAR when he gets there. The first several months my son was in Iraq he used phone cards and had his calls patched through Ft. Meade or MacDill AFB. There was a very bad delay on those calls and some of them were quite expensive on his phone card (calls through MacDill to my Orlando number cost him three times as much as to my wife's Atlanta number). He switched over to SPAWAR and there was almost no delay in the calls. This is VoIP technology and was very reasonably priced.
I have used the AT&T phone cards. They don't charge minutes, but they do round up to the next minute I believe. We buy them through Sam's Club and it is under 4 cents/minute, not sure about long-distance. Thanks for the info on SPAWAR. I really don't want to think about deployment, though I know he will likely be deployed sooner rather than later.
im a wife and mother of 5. when my husband leave overseas, i do use the phone cards and some times using XXXXX and having Outside links need approval form the home office prior to posting is good to.
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