Little did I know in the spring of 1968, my senior year of high school, that I would become a member of the U.S. Navy. I grew up in a small community in Haines, Alaska, with a graduating class of 18. The Navy recruiter came to our school and gave his spiel about making the Navy a career choice. He said he would be in the principal's office until 3 p.m. I decided for some reason to wander down and check this idea out, and the next thing I knew was taking a test to see if I qualified to be in the service.

I passed, signed the papers and left home a couple months after graduation. Then I passed all the physical requirements and was sworn in along with another woman from Anchorage, Alaska.

The recruiter handed me our orders and said I was in charge. "Whoa," I thought, "me in charge, heck I had only been out of Alaska once in my life and that was to Seattle, and here I was going clear across the United States to Bainbridge, Md." Off we went to the Chicago airport, which was a shocker and took forever to go from one end to the other. A couple sailors were in the airport passing through and treated us to lunch. We arrived in Maryland and had been informed by our recruiter that we needed to take the bus to Bainbridge. I approached one of the bus drivers and asked whether this bus was going where we needed to go. He said yes, so we got on and soon realized we were on the wrong bus after a passenger told us. The bus driver let us off at a site near Bainbridge and said to call a taxi to get to base. We did, and it took the only money I had on me, $20. The other woman didn't have any money on her.

We arrived just before the cut-off time, which was midnight, and the base taxi took us to our barracks. My first glimpse into Navy life was when we were waiting at the front desk for our company commander. She arrived and informed me in no uncertain terms that we do not lean on counters and we stand at attention when spoken to.

We ended up on the fourth floor and the very last bunk room with no open bay barracks. Welcome to Company 6 and boot camp. The next morning at zero dark thirty, I heard reveille, reveille, hustle, hustle, hustle, ladies. What had I woken to? We did calisthenics, made our bunks—after proper training of course—and learned how to march the first day and off to class for indoctrination.

We marched everywhere and finally became pretty good at it. Now the most interesting was the swimming. I had never been taught to swim because it is too cold where I had lived. The instructors found out I could not float, and in order to graduate from boot camp I had to pass swimming, so that was my total motivation. Being the last member to learn to swim made it a real challenge. I had to dive off the 5-foot platform and go to the other end of the pool. They let me go first with a life preserver to get the feel; next was with pants as flotation device, and I managed to do those fine.

Finally, I was tested on my own. I managed to jump down into the pool as far as I could, pushed off the bottom to get up and made it to the other end by a miracle.

I also remember the first time I had to stand a watch at night in another building, after being told about all the hanging that had gone on at one time or another in other older buildings. It was an interesting night, with crickets making a racket and lightning doing its thing. I remember I had never heard a cricket or seen jumpy bugs before in my life, as well as having never experienced lightning, so needless to say, I was so glad to be relieved of watch and hurried back to the barracks.

Now ironing uniforms, which are 100 percent cotton, was a real headache and experience. It was a feat unto itself; no matter how well you did, the uniform just never looked right.

Mostly boot camp was busy and a blur, and before you knew it, you were graduating. Off to Corpus Christi, Texas, I went. Alas, my active duty career came to a halt when I had the good fortune to marry a sailor and start a family. As I reflect back, I would not have changed anything. My husband did 30 years in the Navy, and I went along for the ride. Today I am still around sailors via work and enjoy watching the next group of young men and women pursue their life goals and careers.