Ashleigh's Navy Experience

Fall, 2025

Ashleigh made the trip to California in May 2024 for her first year of internship after graduation from Medical School. After Ashleigh's first year of Navy experience at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, CA, she moved to Connecticut for further training toward special undersea Navy work. She had driven back across the country to Louisiana, and on July 8, 2025 Darla joined her for the trip to New London, CT. We can't keep track of all that experience, but would like to understand the nature of her Navy training.

Ashleigh moved up to New London and found housing in a farmhouse built in 1898. She lived on the third floor with another woman, the two of them being the only females in the training group.

New London, Connecticut, is known as a major center of Navy undersea training as I understand it. The actual training mostly took place across the Thames River in Groton. Living in New London meant that she had to drive northward to the bridge eastward across the Thames River to Groton for her Navy training.

In the Fall of 2025 she was moved to Panama City, FL to another major undersea Navy training center for intensive sea training. Jeff and Darla traveled there for her graduation from that phase of training.

Ashleigh's graduation was on December 10. Here Jeff and Darla pose with her in front of a statue which demonstrates a suit of advanced diving gear.

In the same setting, you can see the emblem for specialty Navy diving on the wall of the building.

Ashleigh with the statue. Note the specialty pin on her uniform.

Ashleigh with a clearer view of the specialty medal.

Ashleigh had reason to be proud of the unique specialty medal for undersea training with the Navy.

After the western trip that Ashleigh and Elyse took in January, 2026, Ashleigh returned to Connecticut for another five week term and rented a small apartment in Mystic, a small suburb east of the center of Groton.

Through the community of Mystic runs the Mystic River. To allow boat traffic at scheduled times through that river is a very remarkable bridge. Ashleigh's comment (9/4/25): "Watched the Mystic bascule bridge go up today. One of the very few counterweight bridges left in the U.S.! Thought you'd enjoy these photos. "

This type of bridge could be called a "counterweight bridge" and these remarkably large counterweights are used to lift the section of the bridge to permit boat traffic below it! More images.

Ashleigh made it back to Connecticut in the middle of a very cold January. So one of her many new experiences was to shovel snow from her driveway before she could get her car out. On her previous period in Connecticut she had lived across the Thames River in New London, but for this five week period she rented a small apartment in Mystic close to the Mystic River.