In The Navy (Sub School), Part 1

From this point on, I will be skipping over a lot of things that happened to me in my real life and immediate family, because some things are just, personal...deal with it. I will say LOUDLY to anyone in, or thinking of joining the military in any capacity; Don’t get married!! If you are dumb enough to do that, then don’t have kids!! Enough of the useless early warning, I doubt I have many kids are reading this. It’s just something I wanted to pass on.

I ended my leave in Detroit and headed off to Sub School. I had seen most of my friends and things there were, for lack of a better term, the same. The flight(s) to Groton were bizarre. It was a regular jet (a 727 I think) to New York’s LaGuardia, no problem. Then I jumped a twin prop plane to some small island in Rhode Island. From there, it was another puddle jump to another smaller airport. I was getting airsick in this thing; it bounced around like bumper cars. We wound up at Groton Airport (a joke) at last, where we were met by a petty officer, there to take us to base in a stark white van. We had to travel in uniform, so we were easy to spot.

There were just four of us sailors on the last leg of the flight and we went together to the base, in the van. One of the guys had an “episode” because his bag had not made it to Groton. He was settled down when he was told it would show up tomorrow and make its way back to him. On the way to base we got to take in the main strip of Groton Connecticut, the beautiful Route 12. The place looked like a dump for the most part. Run down, dark, gloomy.

As we approached the base, everything became brighter. There were tons of lights around the ball fields as you approached the main gate. At the gate, we all had to show our IDs to the guard, the gatehouse looked brand new. This looked promising! Like a haven from the dreary town outside the base.

We were taken to a personnel building and given temporary living assignments, all based on our futures. The nukes (guys in the Nuclear Engineering or Electronics programs) all had their own barracks, nice ones too. The Machinist Mates had a different location. I was in the regular electronics pipeline, but I guess they were short on space. I was dumped into an almost vacant building and handed bedding. I was told to just pick a rack and there were dozens in the long uninhabited hall. I was left on my own.

The ceiling here had to be 12 feet high and the room was wider than the boot camp barracks. It had an echo. I was the only one in the place. There were bunks and lockers with actual doors strewn around the room. They weren’t lined up neatly or very clean. It was like the place was vacated for a reason, seemingly in a hurry. I picked a bunk near a window with a nicer looking locker. I didn’t really unpack anything more than I had to, at first. I stayed there for weeks that seemed more like months. I was in almost total seclusion. I had no roll call and slept in till whenever. The place was dead quiet except for my radio/tape player. There was NO mainstream radio to listen to in this place, but I did find a local New London College radio station that played a lot of off the wall stuff.