PART TWO - IT'S TIME TO SEE WHAT THE NAVY IS ALL ABOUT:
Once we landed, all I knew was that we were supposed to find
the military information desk, and they would tell us where to go. My six travel partners had evidently
forgotten these instructions, and I ended up playing tour guide through an
airport I’d never been in. I got us down
to baggage claim, and found the military information desk. I presented the seven of us, and told the man
that we were there to report to boot camp.
He just gave us a disdaining look and motioned us outside to the bus
stop. We walked out into the San Diego
evening, and joined a group of about 50 other scared kids carrying manila
envelopes, and waited for the buses to take us to boot camp.
Ten minutes later, three old, gray school buses rolled up to
the stop, and out came three of the biggest, meanest looking Marines that I’d
ever seen. Well, I'd never actually seen any Marines, but these guys sure looked like I imagined they'd look. The Marines immediately began
barking orders at us.
“Alright recruits – grab your shit and get on a bus. It don’t matter which bus you get on we’re
all goin’ to the same place, and we’ll sort out your worthless asses when we
get there! What the Hell you lookin’
at? MOVE!!”
I grabbed my duffel, made sure I had my orders, then grabbed
a now petrified and unmoving Mark Firman by the sleeve, and pulled him onto a
bus. When the bus doors closed, it was
like hearing the jail door slam shut when you’ve just been put away for
life. This was it – we were here and it
had begun. We were on our way to
becoming sailors now. I must say I was
more excited than scared…but not much more.
I looked over at Mark, and felt instantly sorry for the kid. He was quivering in fear, and the tears were
about to flow. The closer we got to the
base, the worse he got, until we finally rolled inside the gates.
I didn’t have time to worry about how scared I was, I was
just worried about how in the Hell I was going to get Mark off this bus! The three buses stopped in front of a row of
large brick buildings, and they ordered us off.
Everyone piled off. Everyone,
except Mark and I. I was doing my best
to get him up and off the bus, but he wouldn’t budge. Finally, after much screaming by the guards,
I got him to release his death grip from the seat in front of us, and off the
bus. We hurried to take our places in
the line of new recruits, and as we stood tall, a couple of Navy Drill
Instructors came out to check us over.
They yelled and screamed a lot, and generally did a good job of scaring
the shit out of us. As one of them
dressed us down, the other two checked out the buses to make sure nobody had
forgotten anything. Sure enough, someone
had left their duffel on the bus. Now
the shit really hit the fan! The
Drill Instructors began screaming, ranting and raving about what kind of
friggin’ idiot leaves his bag behind on the bus, and so on. All I knew was that I had MY bag, and I was
feeling really sorry for whoever the poor sod was who had left his behind. All of a sudden, I felt a tap on my
shoulder. I looked over and Mark was in
tears, saying
“Oh man – that’s MY bag!”
“Shit”.
I knew that there was no way he’d ever admit to it, so I
decided to take one for the team. I raised my hand and said,
“That’s my bag, sir.”
Then proceeded to walk up front to retrieve Mark's forgotten
duffel. I knew I was going to get yelled
at, but I also knew they couldn’t possibly yell any worse than my Dad ever had,
so I just nodded in agreement, as they told me what a “piece of shit” I was,
and how I “would never make it through basic”.
I just said “Yes, sir” then picked up the bag and returned to my spot in
formation. Mark looked at me and said,
“Thanks man, I couldn’t take that”
“Hey, no problem, but you owe me now.”
I set the bag down by my feet, and Mark reached over to pick
it up. Bad move. The Drill Instructor saw him, and immediately
ran over to where we were standing.
“What in the hell are you doing, recruit?! Is that YOUR bag?”
“Y-y-yes S-s-sir” Mark stammered.
“You made your shipmate take the heat for you?”
“Y-y-yes S-s-sir”
“Does this mean, you’ll expect him to take the bullet for
you, too?”
“N-n-no S-s-sir”
And so on, and so on, and so on. It was one of the most degrading, demeaning
and embarrassing tirades I’ve ever heard, and from that moment on, I never saw
another shred of the “ultra-cool preppy” kid that Mark Firman had been. From that moment until our graduation some 8
weeks later, Mark was the biggest, nerdiest geek I’d ever met – and that was a
lot to say coming from me!
After our little “Welcome Reception”, they herded us into a
big room inside one of the buildings and made sure that we were all who and
where we were supposed to be. They told
us they’d divide us up into the right companies in the morning, then led us to
a big open barracks and told us to get some sleep. It was probably 10pm by the time we got to
bed, and I don’t think any of us did much sleeping.
The Drill Instructors came in beating on a trash can at
about 4:00 the next morning, and told us to get up and get in line. Sleepily, we made it down the stairs and into
a rough block formation. They marched us
a mile across base, over a bridge, to the chow hall and then ran us through the line. I don’t know if I’d ever seen food so…..brown
before. Everything was brown – pancakes,
oatmeal, coffee, fruit – it was all brown.
Just about the time we all got sat down with our food, and had a good
mouthful the Drill Instructors screamed,
“Alright, that’s enough!
Let’s go, recruits!”
We looked at each other in wonderment, and then got up to
throw away our heaps of brownness. We
had just learned the first lesson of boot camp – shut up and eat fast. From the chow hall, it was back into
formation, then we marched back across the base, over the bridge, to the barracks where we
grabbed our bags and assembled in the parking lot (which we were soon to learn
was actually a marching practice area called a “grinder”). From this point, they divided us up into our
respective companies. All of the guys
from the Denver MEPS got put into Company 148.
When we had been assigned to a company, we were sent to a different area
of the grinder to await our Drill Instructors (who, we were told, were not
called “Drill Instructors”, but “Company Commanders”).
EM1 Tavens and BTC Padan were our CC’s (Company
Commanders). They were a fairly
even-keeled twosome, and balanced each other out nicely. Tavens was the “go-getter”, while Padan was
the “task master”. BTC Padan was also
the first Filipino I’d ever met. It took
me a month to figure out his accent so I could understand what the Hell he was
yelling about. Most of the time, he’d
yell, and we’d all just stand there until EM1 would translate and tell us what
the Hell we were supposed to be doing.
They were good guys, and I’m sure if they’d been given a company with
competent recruits, they’d have been the shining stars of RTC San Diego. Unfortunately for them, Company 148 turned
out to be the “reject patrol”, and the collection of misfits, vagrants and
criminals they assembled has to go down in Naval history as one of the most
motley crews ever.
San Diego RTC - Company 148 (JUL/AUG/SEP, 1988)
We were a company, we had our leaders, and it was now time
to get on with the military stuff. The
first order of business was to get rid of our civvies and get us into proper
military uniform. Off to the uniform
issue center we went. We got herded
through in single file while they measured our bodies and handed us uniform
parts. Dress Uniforms, White Hats,
Dungarees, boondockers, boxers and t-shirts.
They loaded us down with so much gear we couldn’t carry it, and then
they gave us sea bags. We carried our
new clothing into the sizing room where we put everything on, one uniform at a
time while tailors came around and marked everything with chalk. When everything was marked for alteration, we
stuffed it all back into our sea bags, and headed for the Stencil Room.
The Stencil Room was the absolute worst part of boot camp as
far as I was concerned. The Stencil Room
was a small, poorly-ventilated room full of individual stations where you were
to pull out all of your uniform parts, and one-by-one, stencil your last name,
company number and last four numbers of your Social Security number on
them. The problem was - they only gave
you about ten seconds per item to stencil.
Not a problem for guys with a last name like “Lee” or “Ang” or even
“Smith”, but the “Petersons”, “Szatkowskis” and “Vanlandinghams” of the world
HATED the stencil room. It was about 100
degrees in there, and the smell of new uniforms, combined with the smell of the
permanent paint markers we used to write our names on our uniforms made you
light headed almost immediately. We spent three hours in there, with our paint
pen and stencil, putting our names on every one of the 50 pieces of uniform
gear we had. To this day, if I get a
whiff of a paint marker or that new uniform smell, I get instantly ill. I HATED that room!
After we had stenciled all our gear, they had us put on one
pair of dungarees, then put the rest in the laundry to be altered, cleaned and
pressed. The only problem with the
dungarees was that they hadn’t been hemmed or altered yet, and they were about
six inches too long. We all turned our
cuffs up, Tom Sawyer style, and tried our best to look like we belonged. This unique look earned us the nickname “Cuff
Monsters”, and everywhere we went on base, everyone knew we were the new
arrivals. Catcalls and derisive jeers of
“Cuff Monsters off the port bow” were heard everywhere we went. All part of the initiation. A few weeks later, we would be the ones making
fun of the Cuff Monsters, but for now, it was our turn in the fire. They then marched us over for lunch, which we
quickly wolfed down, then it was back for shots, dental screenings and most
importantly, haircuts.
The barber shop was basically just a long assembly line that
looked like a big Australian sheep shearing operation. They marched us in, sat us down and shaved us
bald. The pamphlet we all got before
boot camp told us that they’d leave us “enough hair to comb”. Maybe – if you combed with a toothbrush! Get in, sit down, hold on and buzzzzz. We walked out of there and formed up as a
company again– cue ball bald, wide eye scared, and Cuff Monster attired. It wasn’t hard to tell who the new recruits
were.
But as bad as I thought I had it, there was a guy in another
one of the new companies who had it even worse.
He had shown up to boot camp with a foot-tall purple Mohawk. He put up with a lot of crap for his first
day, but when they ran the rest of his company through the barber shop they
shaved everyone….except him! I guess the
CC’s were trying to make an example of him, and left him with his Mohawk
intact! While the other 200 of us new
recruits looked like cue balls, there was this guy and his purple wave. Talk about somebody getting negative
attention. I’ve never seen anyone
drilled as hard as this poor kid. Every
time we turned around, some CC was making him drop and do push-ups. They finally let him cut off his hair about a
week later, after they caught him trying to cut it himself with his fingernail
clippers! I’d be willing to put good
money on the fact that, once he finally got out of the Navy, that guy never
wore a Mohawk again.
CHAPTER SIX: TWO MONTHS OF HELL
Boot Camp PT - Sit Up Time
The first week was the worst. Once we were properly processed, inoculated,
stenciled, groomed and dressed, the training began in earnest. They moved our company from the Receiving and Outfitting side of the base, across the bridge to the Recruit Training side of the base and into our permanent barracks. We were all assigned bunks and bunk
mates. The guy who’s bunk was directly
behind yours (or in front of, I guess) was your bunk mate. You had to help each other out making your
bed, folding your clothes, and all that stuff.
My bunk mate was Eric Makay, a black kid from inner city San
Francisco. He was really the first big
city black I’d ever met, and we hit it off right away. For a very sheltered kid from Wyoming, where
it don’t get much whiter, I learned a lot.
His dad was in prison, and his mom had raised him and his siblings by
herself. He was a tough kid just trying
to make it in the world. The two of us
helped each other through a lot during the course of boot camp, and taught each
other about another side of life we’d never seen.
Throughout our training, Company 148 struggled
to pass all of our required tests. Academics, sports, military drill – it seemed
as though our Company was destined for failure.
For example, during “sports weekend”, when all of the companies got
together for a big Recruit Olympiad, we lost every event. Then we got to the Tug-Of-War. We knew we had the biggest, strongest group
of guys around, and that it should be a cakewalk. The CC’s gave us the instructions,
“Whatever you do, do NOT drop the rope once the knot passes
the line!”
We all nodded in agreement, and they blew the whistle. We pulled and pulled and pulled, and sure
enough, the knot was coming our way. I
was the anchor man, and was leaning back for all I was worth. When the knot finally came across our side of
the line, the ref blew his whistle and signaled us as the winner. It was the first time we had won ANYTHING
since we’d been in boot camp, and the rest of the team immediately forgot the
rules, dropped the rope and started hooting, hollering and jumping around. Except me – I was still leaning back,
straining for all I was worth to keep the rope from hitting the ground, while
yelling at my team to pick up the damn rope!
They kept jumping around, and the ref disqualified us. They all stopped and looked at me fighting
the rope, then down at the rope on the ground, and you could see the failure
register on their faces. Heads hung, and
feet shuffling, we walked back to our barracks losers once more.
Somewhere around the third or fourth week of basic came the
moment I’d dreaded since I’d enlisted – the swim test. Now I know it may sound funny for a person
who had enlisted in the Navy, but I couldn’t swim, and I was terrified of the water! I just
figured that I would be on a big ship, and wouldn’t have to worry about
learning how to swim. If things got so
bad that I had to abandon ship and jump into the water, there were probably
bigger things to worry about than swimming – like enemy planes or subs or
debris from the exploding ship! Growing
up in Wyoming, there weren’t many places to learn to swim. Laramie had no public pools, and the lakes
and streams were all snowpack-fed, and too damn cold to swim in anyway. I knew, though, that sooner or later the Navy would have to
see if I could swim, and swim test day was it.
Before I had left for boot camp, I had confided my swim test fears to my
granddad, who told me a secret – he had been in the Navy in WWII, and he didn’t
know how to swim either! He told me that
if the test was still like it was when he took it, they had about 20 of you
jump into the pool at the same time, swim to the other end and float there for
a couple of minutes. If you didn’t
drown, you passed. He told me to walk
along the bottom of the shallow end and pretend I was swimming. When I got to the deep end, I should doggie
paddle to the far end, then put my foot against the side as I was trying to
float to hold myself up. But, he
said, the secret to it all was to get in the middle of the group of guys where
the instructors couldn’t see you. With
his advice in mind, our company marched off towards the pool to take our test.
We made it to the pool complex, and they filed us in and up
onto the bleachers, where they gave us a crash course in how to swim, how to
not die in the water, and how to avoid getting pulled under by a sinking
ship. I didn’t really pay much attention
to the rest of the lecture, I was too busy wondering if they still did the swim
tests the same way they had in 1943! To
my great surprise, and relief, they called us down to the pool in groups of
twenty. I watched the first group go,
and it was just like Grandpa had told me – they made them jump in, swim to the
other end of the pool and float for two minutes. If they didn’t drown, they passed. I was in luck!
With confidence high, I joined the next group of swimmers,
making sure to get right smack in the middle of the row. My hands were shaking like leaves when they
gave the order to jump in. I swallowed
my fear, and plunged into the water. I
then walked across the shallow end making swim motions with my arms. When the water finally got too deep for me to
walk through, I picked up my feet and doggie paddled like a madman until I
reached the far wall. I was exhausted
and terrified, but I knew I had to finish.
I put my foot out against the wall, and held myself there as I pretended
to float for two minutes. Then I heard
the whistle to get out – I had done it!
I had passed the swim test! I
grabbed the edge of the pool and pulled myself out, ecstatic. I had conquered my only real fear about boot
camp – it would be gravy from here on out…or so I thought. Or so I thought, because as we left, they
informed us that they'd see us next week for Water Survival Training. What?!
I was destroyed.
A week later, we were back at the pool complex for Water Survival”
training. I hadn’t expected it – but
there we were. This was the part where
they gave us a crash course in survival, then
expected us to remember everything they had taught us about making
floatation devices out of our dungarees, and show that we knew how to keep
afloat for hours. For most of the guys,
this was a simple test. For me, it was
yet another trip to Hell! I was terrified
of this test. I knew I would sink – and
the test was in the deep end! I tried my
best to suck it up, and when the call came for my group to go, I took my
position at the side of the pool, fully dressed in my dungarees (being the nice
guys they were, they let us take off our steel-toed boondockers before we
jumped in).
I took a big breath, closed my eyes and jumped in the
pool. As the rest of my group nimbly
removed their dungarees and made floatation devices out of the legs, I was
still trying to get them off my legs as I flailed about wildly in the water. I kept sinking, and would struggle to get to
the surface to breathe. Finally, I had
had enough – I gave up and let go. I
felt myself sinking to the bottom of the pool, out of breath and
exhausted. I knew that this was it – I
was going to drown in a Navy swimming pool.
I had finally given up all hope, when I felt myself being lifted back to
the surface. The rescue swimmers they
had posted to save all of us non-swimming idiots had saved my dumb ass. They drug me to the side, where two more of
the instructors pulled me out, spitting, hacking and gagging. I was told that I would have to retake the
test, and that I would be put into a remedial swimming class. I accepted this, and I knew that it was the
right thing to do – I just hoped that my inability to swim wouldn’t be the
reason I flunked out of boot camp! Oddly
enough though, after we left the pool and made it back to the barracks, I never
heard another word about the swim test again.
When I reviewed my service record after the end of basic training, I
found that they had marked me off as “passed”.
I guess I was the beneficiary of a clerical error – but you’ll never
hear me complaining about that one. It
wasn’t the first time the Navy would overlook my inability to swim – something
I find incredibly odd now.
For the rest of the first half of basic training, our
company was pretty much an abysmal disappointment without exception. According to the boot camp “grading system”,
companies were awarded stars for their flag for every event they passed. Every company got one star just for making a
flag, so Company 148 had one star. For
four weeks, we were the division’s
official “lone star” Company. Try as
they might, BTC and EM1 couldn’t seem to turn us around.
The leadership within the company consisted of a RCPO
(recruit commanding petty officer), and ACPO (assistant commanding petty
officer), a Yeoman, and an EPO (educational petty officer). I was assigned to be the EPO. My job was to help the Company study for our
bi-weekly academic tests, and administer the tests on testing day. We spent a lot of time in classroom studies,
learning about shipboard activities such as fire fighting, damage control,
general quarters functions and the like.
Every other week, we had a test over what we’d learned. If the company, as a whole averaged over 90
%, we got a star for our flag. There
were four possible academic stars, and after the first month of boot camp, we
had earned a grand total of zero. Try as
I might, I just couldn’t find a way to get the guys in my company to study any
harder. The CC’s finally decided that
the best way to get a star was to come into the testing room before they handed
out the tests. They promised that anyone who scored a 100% on the test would
get a Big Mac. Now THIS was some serious
motivation. After a month of boot camp
food, a Big Mac was the Holy Grail of food!
There wasn’t a one of us who wouldn’t have given our left nut for a Big
Mac! However, despite all of their
efforts, no one scored 100%, and our company average still hovered around 80% -
the lowest in the division. Scary –
these were the men in charge of nuclear weapons, and protecting our
country! To this day, I can't imagine
how I missed any of those easy test questions, but evidently, I did. I'm still not sure it wasn't just the CC's
way of motivating us a little.
One of the greatest thrills of boot camp came at our daily
mail call. Getting a piece of mail from
home was the best reward any of us could get.
When one guy would get a care package with cookies or brownies in it,
then we all got cookies and brownies.
It was share and share alike come mail call time. The short time we spent reading our letters
was always a welcome release from the grind of boot camp. My Dad sent me letters fairly often, and I
always looked forward to getting those.
Dad’s handwriting could best be described as “Early American
Chickenscratch”, and it would usually take me the time between receiving his
letters to get them deciphered. He
finally took to typing them out and that made it a little easier. Years after I got out of the Navy, I found
some of the letters I’d written home from boot camp at my folks’ house. It was kind of funny to read them and try to
remember what was going on as I was writing them. The biggest, most pressing issues of my day
ended up not really amounting to a hill of beans in the big picture of things,
but at the time, things like an extra 10-minute phone call for having the most
brightly polished pair of boondockers sure seemed like a big deal! One of my most vivid memories of mail call
was the day EM1 found out I was from Wyoming.
He was passing out our mail, a job usually done by the company Yeoman,
and there was one in there from my Dad.
He looked at the return address, and said
“Wyoming !? Who the
Hell is from Wyoming?”
“I am sir” I said, as
I walked forward to claim my letter.
“Well you better give me twenty Wyoming push-ups then”
“Wyoming push-ups sir?”
EM1 went on to explain that he was from Montana originally,
and he told me he had an ex-girlfriend from Wyoming, so he hated Wyoming. As a way of getting his revenge he told me,
he invented “Wyoming push-ups”.
“What I want you to do is get down into push-up
position. Then every time you go down, I
want you to yell ‘Yee’, and every time you come up, yell ‘haw’. Yee-Haw – a Wyoming push-up, get it?”
So there I was, in the middle of the entire company doing my
Wyoming push-ups.
“Yee Haw one, sir!…Yee Haw two, sir!….”
It became my stock in trade for the remainder of boot
camp. I was designated the "King of Wyoming push-ups” for the rest of our time in San Diego.
Another of our favorite diversions was our Sweetheart
Board. The Sweetheart Board was a big
bulletin board in the barracks where we were to put a picture of our
girlfriend, or wife. The guy with the
hottest picture got an extra 10-minute phone call per week. Phone calls were our trading material, and
our form of currency, kind of like cigarettes in prison. You do good, you get another phone call –
screw up, and it was no phone for you!
We treasured our phone time, so anything we could do to get extra time
was something to work for. We eventually
had to call a halt to the hottest picture contest when two of the guys
convinced their girlfriends to start sending nude pictures. The pics were getting more and more explicit,
and we always looked forward to either of them getting a letter. The CC’s posted these pictures up on the
board right along with the rest of them, until a female officer accompanied the
RTC brass on a walk-through barracks inspection one day. The Sweetheart Board disappeared that
evening, and we found our pictures laying on our respective bunks the next
day. The Sweetheart Board never
returned, and rumor has it, we almost had two new CC’s over that one! Leave it to us sailors to take something as
harmless and innocent as a Sweetheart Board and turn it into something obscene
and nasty!
Boot Camp Gas Chamber - 1988
Somewhere around week five, it all started to come
together. I think it was our little
visit to the Gas Chamber that started it off for us. The Gas Chamber was a small metal shed in the
middle of the main grinder, that we’d all been warned about since day one. This was the place where they proved to you
the effectiveness of your gas mask.
They would file you into the building in rows, then
fill the room with tear gas. One row at
a time, they made you remove your mask and say one of the eleven General
Orders. I was in the very last row, so I
got to watch eleven rows of guys take their masks off, say about two words,
then hack and gag and puke their way out of the door. Finally, it was our turn. Since there were only eleven General Orders,
and we were in the twelfth row, when they told my row to take off their masks,
they told us to say the Pledge of Allegiance!
The Pledge was three times as long as any of the General Orders, and
they wouldn’t let us leave the room until we had finished, so we hacked and
gagged our way through it. As we were
leaving the Chamber, we looked over by the door, and saw our CC, BTC Padan,
standing there, gas mask in hand, as he had been the entire time! That tough bastard had stood there through
all eleven General Orders and the Pledge of Allegiance, breathing that
damn gas, and not a cough, a gag or a sound.
He just stood there, staring at us and watching us puke like little
girls. At that point we knew we had all
met our match. We stood there, gagging
and puking, while BTC walked out, took a big breath, and said,
“Alright ladies, quit yer pukin’, and LINE UP!!”
From that moment on, we had a new respect for the man.
The next day, we won a star after a perfect barracks
instruction, then another after a PT (physical training) test. We were “lone stars” no more! The next week was Service Week,, and then
only two more weeks to go and we were done!
Time was flying by, and we were almost real sailors now!
Service Week was on week six. The idea of Service Week was to give you a
feel for what working was like in the Navy.
Each of us was assigned a different job around the base. Some guys went to work in the galley, some in
the carpentry shop, some in the motor pool.
I, however, chose what I thought was the easiest of the jobs – I decided
to be in the boot camp Drum and Bugle corps.
I had been a hard core band geek in high school, and figured that I
could do marching band in boot camp standing on my head. Unbeknownst to me, the Navy’s most decorated
Chief, MUC Johnstone, was in charge of the boot camp band…and he liked to work
his recruits into the ground!
The first day of Service Week, I walked into the band
rehearsal room, ready to play. As my CC
called it, I was one of the “beaters and bangers”. What I didn’t realize was that this was a
DRUM and BUGLE corps – I played the sax, and there were no woodwinds in a drum
and bugle corp. They handed me a two-valve
marching baritone, 11 pieces of music, and a drill sheet.
“Learn the horn, memorize the music, and perfect the
drill. You’ve got a week.”
No problem.
Drum and bugle practice lasted twelve hours a day. We did nothing but drill, and march and play. If it was too hot outside, we’d go inside the
drill barn and march around in there. I
never marched and played so much in my life.
By the end of the day my lips would be bleeding, my blisters would have
popped, and I wasn’t able to lift my arms above my waist. It was tortuous – the most physically
demanding part of boot camp.
Boot Camp Drum & Bugle Corps - Graduation, September, 1988
However, Drum and Bugle corps did provide me with one of the
most lasting memories of boot camp. Once
you made it into the Corps, you were in until you graduated. Every Saturday, you played at the graduation
ceremonies for the senior companies, and you slowly worked your way up in
seniority within the Corps. By my second
week, I was the solo feature baritone in the Corps, despite never having picked
up the horn in my life. A week later, we
got the big surprise – the San Diego Chargers were playing a preseason game
against the Rams, and we had been invited to perform at halftime, along with
the Marine Corps boot camp drum and bugle corps! In the middle of the drudgery of boot camp,
they were going to let us go to a pro football game! The guys who had given me no end of crap for
two weeks about being a “band fag” were now insanely jealous about the fact
that I got to go watch a game, eat “real” food, and most importantly, look at
women (we hadn’t seen a woman in almost two months!). I don’t remember who won the game, but the
hot dogs were the most incredibly delicious things I had ever tasted, and there
never was a better looking collection of women in one place in the history of
the world! The drum and bugle corps' seats were in the front row of the stadium, directly behind the Rams' bench. At one point during the game, the Rams' linebacker (and future Pro Football Hall of Famer) Kevin Greene, walked over to us and started asking about what boot camp was like for the Navy. He had gone through Army training and was interested to know the difference. He was a really nice guy, and it was cool to talk to him. He thanked us for our service, and I have been a Kevin Greene fan ever since. It gave us something else to brag about when we got back to the barracks that night.
On week seven, we had another of the highlights of basic
training. We got to go on our
Ship’s Visit. They were actually going to
take us down to the 32nd street Naval Station and take us on a tour
of a real Navy ship! None of us had ever
been on a real ship before, and most of the guys were like me – never been on a
boat bigger than an aluminum fishing boat before. They had a mock-up ship at RTC, the USS
Recruit, where some guys practiced tying up lines and using the helm, but it
just wasn’t the same. I had always
missed our company’s visit to the simulator due to Drum and Bugle Corps
rehearsal, so this would be my very first experience with being shipboard in any
way, shape or form.
We woke up at about 4:30am as usual, marched over to the
mess hall and ate breakfast. They then
loaded us on those same gray buses that brought us to boot camp in the first
place, and headed us out for the Naval Station.
This was the first time most of the guys (with the exception of us lucky
“beaters and bangers”) had been off base since they got to basic, and it was a
treat to be sure. We hooted and hollered
at the pretty girls in the cars, and drooled every time we went past a fast
food restaurant. It took us about
fifteen minutes to get to the base, then they drove us up to the pier where our
tour ship was docked. I don’t recall
what ship it was, but I do recall being amazed at the size of it. Truth be known, it was probably just a DDG or
something, but it sure seemed huge to us.
We met with our tour guide, who showed us all around the ship. There we were, 100 wide-eyed recruits out in
the “real Navy”.
My most lasting memories of the tour were the ship’s galley,
where the menu actually had choices on it, and running into the first real officer
most of us had seen. The officer, who
was probably just a LTjg or something, came around the corner as we were
getting ready to walk up a ladder back to the second deck. He stopped short, then instead of doing the
smart thing and turning around and going the other way, he tried to walk past
us. In return, he got 100 of the
quickest, smartest salutes – one at a time- that he’d probably ever seen. During our basic training, we had been
conditioned to salute anyone with anything on their sleeves senior to us
– CPOs, petty officers, seamen, it didn’t matter, if you saw an insignia, you
saluted. Out in the fleet, you didn’t
salute anyone except officers. Our CC’s
had told us this, and we took it to heart.
What they had neglected to tell us was that you didn’t really need to
salute officers when you were shipboard, unless it was the CO. Needless to say, this LTjg, was more than a
little surprised, then amused, and then finally annoyed, at having to return
100 overeager recruit salutes as he tried to make his way from his stateroom to
the head. Poor guy. The ship’s visit was great, and really made
us anxious to finally graduate and get ourselves out to the fleet to be a part of
this scene. It made us really feel like
sailors – for the first time.
After we left the ship, we headed over to another section of
the base for Firefighting Training. The
training consisted of having us don old nasty raingear, then sit on some
bleachers while they lectured us for 20 minutes about how to operate a firehose. After the lecture, they sent us into a
building that had some sort of pressure-fed fuel fires burning on the floor,
and told us to put them out. The big
entertainment for the guys who ran the center was turning up the fuel flow as
we tried in vain to put it out. We were
all sweating to death in the rain gear, and suffocating from the fuel vapors
and smoke. It was a joy. A sheer,
unmitigated joy. Finally, sweating,
exhausted and heads pounding from the smoke, they declared us “passed” and sent
us on our way. There were very few guys
who didn’t sleep all the way back to our base that morning.
I think that one of the hardest parts of boot camp was the
fact that the Recruit Training Command in San Diego was located next door to
the San Diego Airport. Day in and day
out, we were forced to watch the planes come and go, taking people back
home. For a group of kids who were, for
the most part, away from home for the first time, it was a tough pill to
swallow. At times, we’d just sit there
during our free time and watch the planes fly by, dreaming of the day we’d be
able to climb on the one that would take us away from San Diego. But that was a few more days away, for now it was back to
marching in formation and polishing our boondockers.
The last week of boot camp, week eight, was basically just a
big rehearsal for graduation. We
practiced marching and spinning our rifles, and getting our uniforms adjusted
right. By this time, we had gotten our
stuff together, and had earned quite a number of stars for academics,
athletics, military bearing and the like.
Company 148 actually turned in to a fairly successful group. I like to think that I had a big hand in it,
but in reality it was a group effort by a bunch of non-conforming,
ne’er-do-wells and malcontents. We came
in scared, and left proud – exactly what boot camp was designed to do. I look back at the guys in my company – there
were the guys I came from Denver with like Sam Paugh and Marc Firman, my
bunkmate Eric Makay, and a bunch of other characters like Never Dull, the black
guy from New Orleans with the gold teeth, Stroker Ace, the fat kid from Ohio
who had a tendency to play with himself in his sleep. There was the ex-con from New Mexico and the
white supremist from Alaska. We had
Crips and Bloods, Mexican Mafia and Asian gangbangers from L.A.. There was me – the geek from Wyoming, and the
farm kid from Kansas who was quite possibly the dumbest person I’d ever met in
my life. There was the 35 year old guy
who had joined to become an intel specialist, and the 17 year old who had lied
about his age and joined to avoid paying child support and going to prison. All
in all, it was one of the most eclectic collections of people I’ve ever
seen. If they could make us come
together, then their system must work.
We ended up as friends, brothers and shipmates. Guys who would put it all on the line for
each other, and who would go to the wall to take care of their partners. I was proud to be part of Company 148. However misguided and inept we started out,
we became exactly what they wanted us to be – a spirited, disciplined and
trainable group of recruits ready to take the Navy into the 21st
century.
CHAPTER SEVEN: GRADUATION AND BEYOND
About a week before graduation, I found out that my Dad was
coming to San Diego to watch me. I was
pretty excited about this, as I hadn’t seen any of my family in a couple of
months. On top of that, I had been born
in San Diego, and when my parents divorced in ’73, Dad and I left and went back
to Nebraska. This would be the first
time the two of us had been together alone since he got remarried in ’75, and
the first time we had been back to San Diego.
I was looking forward to seeing some sights, and having Dad show me
around his old stomping grounds. But
before we could let the festivities commence, there was still the little matter
getting through the last week of basic training.
We were scheduled to graduate on a Saturday, and they
scheduled our final PT test on Thursday.
This was the “big one” to prove that we had gotten ourselves in shape
throughout the duration of our training.
We had to do 100 sit ups, 50 push ups and run a mile and a half in 12
minutes. Nothing too terribly hard, but
for a kid who couldn’t do a single push up two months earlier, I was more than
a little concerned. On top of the
pressure we put on ourselves, the CC’s told us that if ONE person failed the
test, they’d set the whole company back one week, and make us repeat week 8. I don’t know how credible their threat was,
but it was enough to fire us up for the test.
We arrived at the testing site ready to go, anxious to get on with it,
and ready to kick a little ass if anyone looked like they were going to
fail.
Push ups were first, and to my surprise I did nearly 75 on
them! Then sit ups, and I did way over
100. I was most concerned about the run,
however. I was certain that there was no
way I could run a mile and a half – it sounded like a really, really long
way! I had no way of knowing at the
time, but on our little “fun runs” the CC’s had been putting us through, we’d
actually been going two and three miles at a time! The starter fired the gun, and we were
off. We stuck together in a big pack,
and watched the lap counters fall.
Before you knew it, the entire Company passed the finish line within
five seconds of each other, in a time that was far short of the allotted 12
minutes! That was it, it was over, we
had passed our test, and more importantly, we were going to graduate! The attitude in the barracks that night was
one of incredible jubilation and celebration.
The next night would be USO night, when we would have a reception for
all of our family members who had come to watch us graduate, and then Saturday
and graduation! There wasn’t much sleep
to be found near Company 148’s barracks that night.
Friday went much, much, too slowly for all of us. We spent our day checking in gear, packing
our clothes and finishing our paperwork from boot camp. We ate our last meal as recruits in the mess hall, then
it was off to the USO hall for the reception. The USO hall at RTC San Diego was
directly across the street from our barracks.
The biggest claim to fame of the USO hall was that it was where they had
filmed the infamous bathroom scene in the movie “Top Gun”, a point none of us
failed to tell our families that night.
All of our family members were there waiting as we marched in. The CC’s dismissed us, and the reunion scenes
played themselves out all around the room.
I hugged my Dad, introduced him to the CC’s, and we spent the rest of the
night talking about boot camp and catching up on times at home. Then as soon as it started, it was over. USO night came to an end as the CC’s formed
us up to head back to the barracks for the night. We said goodbye to our families and marched back to the barracks for some sleep and to prepare for the next day’s big graduation ceremony.
Boot Camp Graduation Liberty Weekend - September, 1988
The Saturday morning of graduation dawned warm and clear (as
did every morning in San Diego, for that matter). Company 148 awoke and set straight to the
order of the day- getting ready to graduate and be done with boot camp! We had received our orders for where we were
to report after boot camp a couple of weeks earlier. Some of us would stay in San Diego and go to
“A” school, some of us would go to Apprentice Training in San Diego, and others
would be shipped off to training centers in Orlando and Chicago. A few of the lucky ones, who had enlisted in
the Navy Reserves instead of Active Duty, would be going home. I was headed a block away – to Seaman
Apprentice Training, as part of my Sea College requirements. It was an exciting day around the barracks of
Company 148, as I headed out for the Drill Barn and one last Drum and Bugle
Corps performance.
Company 148 Pass-In-Review, 1988
Boot Camp Drum and Bugle Corps Pass-In-Review, 1988
Looking sharp in our freshly pressed and tailored Dress
White uniforms, we marched to the Graduation Field. The Drum and Bugle Corps performed our show,
and we listened to the “Rah Rah” speech by some Rear Admiral. We were all in a hurry to get on with it,
graduate, and get our first liberty in over two months. They were actually going to let us off base,
and let us have a little fun! The
morning sun beat down on 500 over-anxious sailors from five different
graduating companies, until we had all passed in review. We stood at attention and were proclaimed
full-fledged US Navy sailors by the base Commanding Officer. This was it – we had graduated from boot
camp!
Seaman Recruit H.J. Peterson - August, 1988
The feeling of accomplishment was indescribable. I had faced up to the biggest challenge of my
life, and overcome it with gusto. I had
not only survived, I had excelled. I
think that graduating boot camp may be the biggest single influence into the
man I am today – I know I can face up to the unknown, and conquer anything
thanks to the self-belief instilled in my in basic training. Immediately after he had proclaimed us
“Sailors”, the CO turned us over to our Company Commanders, who in turn,
released us to our families. The
reunions were joyous and we had a reason to celebrate! I found my Dad, and we hugged, then I hurried
off to put my instrument away and rejoin him so we could get the fun part of
the weekend underway.
“Liberty Weekend” as it was known, was our first freedom in
over two months. They gave us from noon
on Saturday until ten o’clock Monday morning to blow off the steam we’d pent up
during basic. The only rules they gave
us were 1) No civilian clothes – you had to remain in uniform during the entire
time. 2) No driving a private vehicle –
you were not to operate yours, or any other person’s car (I guess they didn’t
want a bunch of DUI’s right away or something), and 3) No going to
Tijuana. That was it – three rules. The rest was up to us – they trusted us to
follow these three rules and keep it between the lines. I guess this explains why, a few hours later,
I was driving my Dad’s rental car, in my civvies, as we headed for the border
to go to Tijuana. Rules have never been
my strong suit. Dad and I actually had a
great time together – he bought some beer the first night, and we sat and had a
few (It didn’t really taste as disgusting as I’d remembered. Actually, it tasted DAMN good!). We went and visited my Great Aunt and Uncle
for awhile, then we drove around San Diego and saw where our old house had
been, and the hospital I’d been born in.
We also went to Sea World, and we went out on a charter fishing boat and
went ocean fishing. It was a great time
to spend together, and it will always be one of my fondest memories of things
my Dad and I have done together.
Dad and I on a charter fishing boat after Boot Camp graduation - September, 1988
Sea World, San Diego, CA - September, 1988
Unfortunately, everything passes with time, and Monday
morning came much too early for ALL of us.
As Company 148 assembled at our barracks for the last day, we were all
feeling the effects of a hard living weekend.
Hangovers were the order of the day, as we all tried to top everyone
else with our stories of drunken debauchery over the weekend. Truth be known, most of the truth was
probably very similar – they got a motel room, some beer, and passed out before
the late news. But the stories we heard
were much, much more interesting! That
last day of boot camp was actually a lot of fun. We were the “big dogs” on base – a Company of
graduates. We walked around like we
owned the place – didn’t have to double-time across the grinders or
anything. CC’s didn’t scream at us, and
we got first in line at the chow hall.
Lunch that day found us at a table directly across from a bunch of brand
new “cuff monsters”. We just laughed at
the fear in their eyes and told them about the horrors they were about to
encounter – the gas chamber, the endless running, the midnight mashings and so
on. It was hilarious to scare the crap
out of the newbies, and we all felt like old, season vets – a feeling that
would escape us in less than 24 hours, as we all became the newbies once again
at our various new assignments. After
lunch, we were marched to a warehouse, where we were given our civvies back,
then we went back to our barracks to clean everything out and get ready for
discharge. With one last “goodbye and
good luck” from EM1 and BTC, Company 148 split up into four or five different
groups according to our final destination, turned towards our designated
departure stations, and scattered like the wind.
The first chapter in my Navy Story had been written. From here on out, I was a sailor – entitled
to all the rights and privileges thereof.
Little did I know, the REAL journey had yet to begin.
Next up - Part Three - Apprentice Training...
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