Betton The food is good, but not great. They pretty much have all the same stuff I used to eat at home. Now, I never did eat breakfast at home, so eating three meals here instead of two really helped my performance. Staying with a good attitude can be hard, though, especially when you can’t recognize what the food is. The servers will tip you off sometimes, they get to eat before everyone else, and if something isn’t tasting right, you know not to take it. It took me awhile to get used to everything they have here. I think they should let you have more food at each meal, though. As it is now, you can’t go get seconds, because they don’t want people to overeat, I guess. But everyone here is an adult, if you have to get your weight down, then it should be your own decision as to what to eat, and not some RDC or MAA telling you how much you can take for your meal.
Leitner One bad thing about the menus here is that they are so predictable. You see the same dishes every couple of days. I’m older than everyone else in the division, so it may be that my tastes are a little more grown up. But we see fast-food kinds of things more often than we see regular foods, I think.
Darrin Johnson, 31, Lubbock, Texas
I don’t mind the Navy food at all. I just wish we could have snacks in the machines in the lounge upstairs. The machine is there, but it’s not connected or working.
Leitner In boot camp your system is totally mixed up from the changes in time you eat every day. We can be finished dinner by 1700 some days; most of us are famished by bedtime. And any kind of food, even food from the galley, is contraband in the house, so there’s no way you can get a midnight snack to keep your blood sugar level. You have to wait till the next morning before you get your next bite to eat.
Edward Ryan, 22, Waynesboro, Pennsylvania
They have me on a special diet for weight control, so I usually don’t eat the regular food. I stay with salads and fruit and stuff like that. This is the first time in my whole life that I ever ate healthy and I’m going to stick with it when I leave here.
When asked what Navy chow appealed to them, several recruits mentioned meatloaf, perhaps because, with mashed potatoes and gravy, it’s the favorite comfort food, and at this point, the recruits needed all the comfort they could find. In the event that a hundred starving Navy recruits might wander by some evening, here’s the official recipe, provided by a helpful Navy mess specialist:
Meatloaf for 100 Recruits
Ingredients
Beef patty mix, bulk, or beef, ground, thawed
30 lbs
Bread crumbs, dry, ground (coarse)
4 lbs (1 gal)
Salt
4 oz (6 tbsp)
Pepper, black
1/4 oz (1 tbsp)
Garlic powder
1.2 oz (1 tbsp)
Milk, nonfat, dry
4 oz (1 cup)
Water
2 lb 12 oz (5 1/2 cups)
Celery, fresh, copped
1 lb (3 cups)
Onions, dry, chopped
1 lb (3 cups)
Peppers, sweet, fresh, chopped (optional)
1 lb (3 cups)
Eggs, whole, slightly beaten
2 lb 8 oz (4 1/2 cups)
Juice, tomato, canned
3 lb 1 oz (5 cups)
Directions
1. Combine the beef with breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and mix till well blended.
2. Reconstitute the dry milk with water.
3. Add milk, celery, onions, sweet peppers, eggs, and tomato juice. Mix lightly but thoroughly.
4. Form into loaves.
5. Bake for two hours or until meat thermometer registers 165 degrees. Skim off excess fat.
6. Let stand for 20 minutes before serving. Cut 13 slices per loaf.
7. Serve 100 recruits.
Jared Ward, 20, Taylorville, Illinois
They say the Navy has the best food of all the services. God help the Army and Air Force.
*The Navy’s only school for hospital corpsmen is attached to the hospital.
5
Raise High the Guidon
“Attention on deck!” Standing at GQ at the foot of their racks, the recruits snapped to attention as the procession of officers and petty officers entered Compartment D-01. The buff and white walls had been brushed down, the deck shined to perfection, and each three-person locker had been checked and rechecked to ensure that all clothing was properly arranged and stowed. Friday, 13 October, would be a lucky day for Division 005.
“On behalf of Captain Gantt, our commanding officer, it’s a real pleasure to congratulate all of you on your decision to join the world’s greatest Navy, and I am proud to formally welcome you to Recruit Training Command.” Lt. Erin McAvoy (USNA ’93), Ship Eight’s officer, was about to commission Division 01-005. From now until graduation, each recruit would know exactly where the division stood in the training cycle. Today was their 1-1 day (first week, first day). Their goal was to reach 8-5 day, when they would depart RTC.
“When a ship is ready to begin its life at sea, the birth of the ship is marked by a commissioning ceremony. The area commander receives orders to place the ship into commission. The commanding officer gives the order to ‘set the watch,’ and the officers and crew take their stations.
“I am now giving the order for you and your RDCs to ‘set the watch’ and to unfurl and display your guidon proudly, just as a newly commissioned ship displays a commissioning pennant. These orders also direct you to begin your training here at RTC, and I challenge you to begin your path by honoring your decision to join the naval service, by remaining committed to the Navy, and by having the courage to reach the goal you set before coming here.
“Today marks a major milestone in your own personal naval history. Today, you are here to participate in the official commissioning of your division. This is more than just a ceremony, it’s a time-honored naval tradition. It’s performed for every new ship, squadron, and shore installation. It was on this very date, 13 October 1775, that the U.S. Navy itself was established. In 1911 Seaman Recruit Joseph W. Grigg entered the gates of this base as the first recruit on board. Since then, over three million others have completed their training at this facility. Many have gone on to distinguished naval careers. Today you stand where they stood before, as recruits, ready to chart your course into naval history.”
Much of that naval history is rooted at Great Lakes. By the turn of the twentieth century, it became clear that the Navy’s training facility at Coasters Island, Rhode Island, was inadequate. By 1902 the Navy decided that a training center on the Great Lakes would be useful, and considered eight sites in seven states. In a decision greatly influenced by local citizens who ceded land to the government at reduced cost, the Navy chose Lake County, Illinois. As would happen many times over the next century, the influence of a major training establishment upon the local economy was quickly appreciated. Congressman George Foss, who had spearheaded the campaign, became known as the “Father of the Great Lakes Naval Station.” On 28 October 1911, three hundred newly minted sailors passed in review before President Taft and ten thousand invited guests. Joseph Grigg of Indiana was the first sailor in line, and even today, recruits are held accountable for identifying him as the first “boot” to graduate from their training center.
The base grew rapidly during World War I. A total of 125,000 men were trained during the war, with a peak one-day census of 47,741. The base grew to over twelve hundred acres and for the first time expanded west of the Chicago and Milwaukee Electric Railroad, to the space now occupied by Recruit Training Command. Much of the credit for developing the current recruit training areas belongs to Capt. William A. Moffett. The Navy later recognized Moffett by naming the in-processing area north of Buckley Rd. in his honor. Although the name is less frequently used today, the area “through the tunnel” is still the first port of call for the Navy’s newest recruits.
At war’s end the base reverted to caretaker status, with but a handful of graduates each year. The base rema
ined quiescent until 1 July 1935, when it reenergized and prepared for the expected war in Europe.
Within two hours of learning of the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, Capt. Ralph Spalding, CEC, USN, sprang into action. On his own authority, the public works director quickly authorized the construction of thirty-two new barracks, two galleys, and a host of support buildings on base. It is a tribute to his engineering expertise that several of those temporary buildings, including four huge drill halls, are still in use today. On 19 March 1944 the base reached its peak one-day census of 100,156 sailors. In all, 965,259 recruits graduated from boot camp at Great Lakes during the wartime years.
In the drawdown following World War II, the future of the Great Lakes Training Center was often questioned. After GLTC had served as an out-processing and separation center for nearly a half-million sailors at the end of hostilities, the Navy gave serious consideration to the possibility of consolidating recruit training at Norfolk and San Diego. The Navy decided to keep Great Lakes, however, and, along with centers at Bain-bridge, Maryland, and San Diego, the base played a critical role during the Korean War. Nearly seventy thousand new recruits passed through the training center in 1951. The majority of their instructors and company commanders were battle-hardened World War II veterans who brought a wealth of experience to the training of recruits.
The third great wartime contribution began in the mid-1960s, as Great Lakes supported the Navy in Southeast Asia. Working from plans developed in 1957, the Navy brought twelve new thousand-man barracks into service by 1966. For the first time, all recruit training was consolidated at Camps Moffett and Porter, west of Sheridan Rd. In 1965 alone, 86,445 men graduated from Recruit Training Command. Then, in perhaps the most sweeping change of the last century, Great Lakes instituted full gender integration of all recruit training, accepting its first female recruits in 1993.
When Lieutenant McAvoy had completed her prepared comments, Senior Chief Tucker handed the furled guidon to Chief Zeller, as Petty Officers Russell and Kent stood at his side. Chief Zeller untied the half-hitches that had bound the wrapped pennant to its stick. Over the next weeks, the unfurled guidon would precede the recruits wherever they went: to class, to drill, and finally to graduation. They would be taught to guard the guidon with all their resources: scorn and unimaginable shame would fall upon any recruit who allowed others to purloin the simple blue cloth bearing their division number. Recruit folklore was replete with tales of “Ricky Ninjas” who had managed to sneak into a rival division’s compartment, and capture their “battle flags.” No one wanted 005’s honor to be so besmirched.
Both Senior Chief Tucker and Lieutenant McAvoy nodded approvingly as Collins, Caldeira, and the other recruit petty officers posted the colors at the front of the compartment. The division’s elongated P-day period had given them a chance to learn basic marching and facing movements, and their military bearing was noticeably better than other divisions at a similar stage of development. Still, marching with furled guidon and ship’s flag had advertised their newness and rookie status to everyone they encountered. The recruits were happy to shed the stigma of furled banners.
Mark Walls, 19, Aikoi, West Virginia
I hated it when we were still caterpillars. That’s what they call a division that can’t fly their flags. We look just like a caterpillar—two sticks up front for antennas, and a couple hundred legs, going down the road. I was glad we at least could show our number.
The recruits remained at attention until the commissioning party left, and spent the remainder of the day stenciling, folding uniforms, and practicing stowing and unstowing their belongings in the very small lockers provided for them. Much of the first week of training would be consumed by these simple, repetitive tasks. Petty Officer Dan Kent explains: “Well, the need to stencil everything is pretty obvious. There are eighty male and eighty female recruits in two brother divisions. With six pairs of socks, six sets of skivvies and tee shirts each—well, you figure out the odds of finding your own stuff on laundry day. As for folding and stowing, we tell them there are two reasons for our insistence on doing things exactly. First, the amount of space here or aboard ship is limited. But, much more importantly, this is the first lesson in following orders to the letter. I tell them nobody is going to care how you fold your skivvies when you’re in the fleet, but they are going to care if you can’t follow a work order, or tech manual, or instructions from the bridge. This is where they begin to develop the mindset of ‘there’s only one way—the Navy way’—to do something.”
Dan Kent had been a parachute rigger for nearly twenty years. (Although the rating was broadened to include other aspects of aviation survival equipment maintenance, the incumbents fought for, and kept, the prized PR designation, as well as the winged parachute for their specialty mark.) The recruits could have no better role model for achieving perfection, each time, every time.
The remainder of the first week of training concentrated on basic military values, naval history, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and regulations that guided the relationships between male and female recruits, as well as between officers and enlisted members. While most mornings were spent in close-order drill, or logistic tasks like fitting uniforms, afternoons were spent in classrooms at either the main schoolhouse, Building 1127, or the training annex at Building 927. Not every moment of class was enjoyable.
Parker Classes here are deadly. It’s always warm in the classroom building. The instructor usually talks in a monotone. Most people have a real hard time keeping awake. Occasionally, though, you’ll get a hip one that can keep you awake for a while. The good thing is, though, if you can stay awake and take good notes, your notebook will get you through the academic tests real easy. The EPO [education petty officer] keeps good notes, and during night study, you can check someone else’s notebook and see what you missed if you fell asleep.
Professionals in adult education would agree with Seaman Recruit Parker’s assessment. Classes were usually conducted in enormous rooms with a minimum of 175 tablet armchairs; indeed, some had over 200. Many rooms were dingy and poorly lighted. Training aids consisted of charts, overhead projectors, or, if the recruits were exceptionally fortunate, computer-generated PowerPoint presentations. It was necessary to dim the classroom lights in order for the recruits to see the overhead projections. Instructors quickly learned that the combination of darkness, warmth, and recruit fatigue did not facilitate learning. Recruits were encouraged to walk to the back of the class if they felt drowsy, and within the first ten minutes of any class there was no standing room left along the rear walls. The constant movement of students from desk to rear, as well as those making head calls or refilling canteens, made for a challenging learning environment.
One instructor, who asked to remain unnamed, teaches classroom units dealing with sexual harassment, fraternization, and discrimination: “The things we teach are very important, but it’s difficult to keep the recruits’ attention. Even though I use a wireless microphone, and have a good, clean PowerPoint presentation, it’s difficult to keep their focus—hey, it’s difficult for me to keep my focus, what with recruits getting up and down; standing, moving, knocking books off these tiny desks, and so forth. Our rules require us to allow hydration at any time, so there’s always someone going out to fill canteens. And although we only allow two recruits of each gender to go to the head at once, there’s usually a line formed up by each door.
“While this stuff is important, it’s certainly not much fun. Today, for example, we used a videotape ‘Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes’ about attitudes toward people who are different from us. It was made for grade-school students—in the late 1970s. You can imagine how that plays to the MTV generation, right?”
Fortunately, there were other, more active diversions. On Tuesday, 17 October, the recruits had their first exposure to the Olympic-sized swimming pool at Building 1425. The temperature outside was 66 degrees by noon; the morning’s haze had burned off, and the
twenty-five-minute march from the galley to the pool was pleasant. After showering, the recruits were led to the water’s edge, and briefed by a water-safety instructor. Those who claimed to be unable to swim left the main group, and assembled on benches near a smaller, 3-foot-deep pool. The remainder climbed the 10-foot-high tower, stepped off the platform in groups of three, swam and practiced treading water for five minutes, and mustered beside the pool. Nonswimmers entered the smaller pool, where a cadre of instructors individually tested their aquatic abilities. Some were judged fit to attempt the swim test immediately, others after some remediation and practice, and still others were enrolled in a full course of swimming lessons, which they would complete over the next four weeks.
GMC(SW/CC)* Dave Gardner was chief of the deck for Division 005’s swimming qualifications. “We’re really proud of the new pool here, and our swimming instruction program. Recruits must qualify as third-class swimmers before graduation. That means they must swim at least 50 yards, tread water for at least five minutes, and understand survival procedures if immersed. The new pool cost the Navy over $9 million—which is a pretty good sign of how important the command feels water safety to be. All of the instructors here are first-class swimmers. Most are SEALs, Special Boats qualified, or air-sea rescue swimmers. And one other thing—the day of throwing recruits off the tower to watch them learn to swim on the way down is a thing of the past. We work with recruits who have a fear of heights or a fear of water, and, if necessary, their RDCs will refer them to the psychologists at the Recruit Evaluation Unit to try to get to the root of the problem. The shrinks even suggested that we change our command from “jump” to “step” to make it less threatening. But jump or step, these recruits will learn to swim, at least well enough to abandon ship if necessary, before they leave here.”
Honor, Courage, Commitment Page 7