The most difficult part of Navy basic training was being separated from my family. Shocking revelation, I know. Your world gets turned upside down in so many ways when you embark on a stint in the military. Life, as you know it, ceases to exist and is replaced […]
I’m an avid people watcher and observer, by nature. I can sit in any public setting and just study people. I watch and analyze their movements, interactions, and idiosyncrasies. I try to guess what’s going on in their lives and make up detailed back stories for pure, personal […]
The inevitable question is, “What the hell do you do in boot camp for 7-8 weeks?” Up until this point, we hadn’t done much. We got hair cuts and new clothes, we learned how to march (sort of), and we had daily physical training. But what did we […]
It was on. As soon as we got to our barracks after being cleared for full duty, our CCs had a group of fellow CCs standing by, waiting for us. Once we walked in, we were told to get at “GQ”. “GQ”, unfortunately, had nothing to do with the magazine, Gentlemen’s Quarterly, or its […]
The first full day of basic training was like being unable to wake up from a nightmare. Actually, the whole first week was like that. It’s been said that if you can survive the first week of basic training or any type of similar military training, the odds […]
I went to Navy basic training on May 12, 1994. The details and reasoning behind why I decided to join the Navy could take up an entire book if I took the time. The Reader’s Digest-condensed version is this: I was 21-years-old, married with a 1-year-old daughter, living […]
May 13th, 1994 – US Navy Recruit Training Center – Great Lakes, IL The Chief Petty Officer slowly sauntered down the freshly buffed deck of the barracks between 2 rows of Navy recruits on our first full day of basic training. He was a shade over 6 feet […]
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