In The Navy (Boot Camp), Part 1.

This is a re-post, a long one. I am editing as I go, so there will be some new bits.

One thing I will say the Navy taught me, was that every major problem people face is caused by other people. Even devastating natural disasters are infinitesimal in this perspective. I have watched this fact play out in every part of my life, so it isn't unique to the Navy, that is just where I was at the time.

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It was 1981 and I was ready to get out of Detroit. I graduated High School ½ a year early and never made it back for Graduation in June, so in my senior yearbook I was listed as “un-pictured”. It didn’t bother me at all then and doesn't today. I didn’t like the majority of people at the school and had a small click that I hung with while I was there.

I was out of school a little after New Years day and worked out a road trip to Florida with two friends to be our last “ho-rah” before we all went into the service. That trip will be a separate story. We made it back from that in one piece and very shortly afterward, I was due to show up at the AFIS center in downtown Detroit on March 18th 1981, the day after St. Patrick’s day.

I kissed my (weeping) mother and father good by and jumped into a friend’s car for the ride downtown. I was the first of all my friends to actually report for duty (most of us had tentatively signed up). I had scored better than average on my recruitment tests, so I was destined to not do much paint chipping or barnacle scraping, which sounded great to me. I was interested in Electronics and that was the path they laid out for me. Once there at AFIS it was pretty much like going to a new bank to open a checking account. Check my ID, take finger prints, take the oath..blah blah. At the time it was actually kind of moving to take the oath, but as my Naval service wore on, it seemed lackluster. Not because of the promise, but some of the jackass people I saw around me.

I was assigned to a special group of lads, all a party designated to be representatives of a B-League Hockey Team called The Saginaw Gears (remember that name). I had never heard of the team before, but we were all stuffed on a real nice bus and went up north to watch a Hockey game. That was cool, me like Hockey. At one of the breaks in the game, we were announced over the PA and asked to stand up. We had a smattering of applause and some “boos”, but it was still nice to be recognized. The group got to know each other a bit during the whole thing, which was good.

I don’t know if that applause was for us getting out of the state or for serving the country. The economy around Detroit at the time, was dismal (still is). The early 80’s saw the introduction of Toyota and Honda cars in the country, and they were selling great. The big 3 (GM, Ford and Chrysler) responded to the invasion with some of the cheapest piece of crap cars ever let loose on America’s roads. It went on for almost ten years like that and when the Japanese companies started opening their own manufacturing plants in the central US (smart eh?) the big 3 had to regroup and find a better solution, or sink. All 3 sank to some extent and still are. The market went from 3 to 5 big companies really fast.

After the Hockey game we were again stuffed on the bus and headed south to Interstate 94, then due west towards Chicago. We were to be the guests of the Great Lakes Naval Training Center for the next few weeks (8 I think). http://www.nsgreatlakes.navy.mil/ From the looks of the web site, the place has gone co-ed. I don’t remember any contact with any female sailors the whole time I was in boot camp.

On the Bus ride through lower Michigan, Indiana (for a bit) and into Illinois, it was snowing..a lot. We pushed through and never stopped. I had never seen Chicago and shortly after the point where I94 hugs the bottom curve of Lake Michigan and turns North West, it came into view. I was wide awake at that point and soaked in the orange misty hue of the city, tons of lights. It has it's own aura. We arrived at Great Lakes very early the next morning. No one had slept well on the bus, so we were all very tired and a bit smelly when we arrived.

We were hustled off the bus and into a plain white building. This is where all of the military boot camp cliche's you see in the movies came to reality. It’s a single line procession as you get your uniforms (they measure you), you get a ton of shots, some basic medical tests, sign more papers, shave the head and finish up with a shower and change into a uniform.

Of all the things you do initially, the shots are the most interesting. They have mattresses laid out in a maze pattern in a large room that you have to follow to different stations. Some of the shots are air injection, some needle. You get one and go on to the next. The need for the mattresses became evident when people in the group started falling over unconscious. Some of the guys didn’t like needles and would topple over like a half frozen flounder. I actually got a little dizzy, but I think it was from a group effect, we were all tense. I would note something here that followed me all through boot camp. The building smelled old, moldy, like an abandoned house would smell, musty. Almost every structure I entered during boot camp had that same ancient odor. I knew it well from my many adventures as a child in Canada. All of the buildings there at boot camp, except a few newer brown brick ones, had the same smell.