The following is just the “tip of the iceberg” of memories about my basic training, and it all took place the first day of “boot,”
I was a reserve Navy person from Kansas. I and two of my best friends had arrived at the Great Lakes Naval Training center in awe and wonder…wondering what was going to happen to us.
A first-class petty officer greeted us and showed us our antiquated lodgings for our duration of “boot” with a word warning. “These old buildings will burn down in about 45 to 50 seconds; be careful with your smokes guys.”
Standing in the middle of the sidewalk we heard this loud voice yelling at someone, “PUT THAT @#!$&* CIGARETTE OUT, YOU DUMB @#!$%*&." We looked at each other and my friend threw his smokes on the sidewalk, grinding it with his foot. “HEY YOU @!#%$* DUMMY.”
We looked around and a block away was the nice first-class petty officer who had just showed us our luxury accommodations. “PICK THAT @#!%$* BUTT UP AND POLICE THE MESS ON THE WALK.” My friend did the best he could cleaning up the ashes, paper and black marks of the burned cigarette, putting all the debris he could capture in his pocket.
After “lunch” we were told we could walk around the area and go to the store if we desired to do so, so the three of us went on a walking tour of the place.
As we strolled down the street, we observed this real sharp “drill team” doing double-time coming toward us, so we stopped to watch them as they came by. In front was a Marine calling cadence. On each side were Marines and in the rear of the group was another Marine. All of the Marines yelled at us, “TURN AROUND, YOU IDIOTS, OR DO YOU WANT TO JOIN YOUR FRIENDS HERE?” We still stood there, not understanding that he was speaking to us. About then, another swabble came up to us and told us to turn around because the “drill team” was prisoners and not worthy to look at. Oh, now it made sense. The Marine was talking to us, so we turned around as they passed by.
Being told ahead of time to report back to the barracks in 30 minutes, we kept an eye on the time after all the things we’d seen that afternoon.
Two of us got assignments right away. One went to the dumpster outside the barracks for “dumpster duty," I was assigned to the first “fire watch” in the barracks, again being warned about how fast the old building would burn down.
Our drill instructor was a short little guy with a gravel voice and an evil look when he wanted to make an emphasis on something he was talking about. He told us he was going to retire the next month and hoped we were going to be the sharpest men he would have the priviledge of “commanding." (WRONG!)
We ended up being the worst he’d ever ‘commanded,’ but we did enjoy the whole experience.