“For the last eight weeks your RDCs have taught you everything they could about the Navy. Your classes have been focused on the technical knowledge you must possess and the discipline and teamwork has been steadily increasing as you went along. Tonight is your call to arms! You have drilled on getting into battle dress and handled some of the tools of a sailor’s trade. In a few short weeks you will be on station. Tonight you must put yourself in the place of sailors already on station and fight the enemy, just as you will when you ‘relieve the watch’ in the weeks ahead. Remember that tonight you are on a mission, just as surely as if you were at Valley Forge with George Washington, on the USS Yorktown at the Battle of Midway or in the submarine USS Louisville launching the first Tomahawk missile at Iraq.”
The facilitators inspected the teams, and except for a few minor discrepancies, all was well. After a final discussion with the facilitators, Petty Officer Russell led the Gold Team out the aft door and down the ladder, while PR1 Kent and the Blue Team exited through the front doors. Battle stations had begun.
2130, Indiana St., Just East of Ship Eight
The teams assembled in the roadway. It was cold outside, a few degrees above freezing. A northeast wind blew steadily off the lake at about ten miles per hour. The recruits were clad in battle dress—utility shirts and pants, with collars and sleeves buttoned, and trousers bloused into their boots. All wore utility jackets, with guard belts and full canteens. Kevlar battle helmets, weighing 3.5 pounds, completed the battle stations uniform. Each group of four recruits was also responsible for a full seabag, containing spare clothing to be donned later. The loaded seabags, weighing 20 pounds each, would play an important role in subsequent events.
As a preliminary warm-up, it was standard procedure to march, rather than double-time, to the first event. After a nod from Petty Officer Kent, Hopkins gave the command, and accompanied by Rasco’s familiar cadence “1, 2, 3, ahhh, 4,” the team began the half-mile march to Building 1312.
Half of the night’s events would occur at Building 1312, located at the extreme northeastern corner of Camp Porter, near the tunnel linking Camps Porter and Moffett. After each evolution at Building 1312, the team would double-time to another venue on the base. In total, the recruits would travel 4.7 miles, and, unless ice or snow prevailed, 4.2 miles of that distance would be completed at double-time. The longest segment of the run—about a mile—would be the section linking the Firefighting Training Center, along the far northern fence, and Building 1312. The recruits would gradually work up to that distance as the night progressed.
The recruits arrived at Building 1312. Facilitators quietly spirited away several larger recruits to act as casualties. As the recruits waited nervously, PNl(SW) Ed Robinson set the stage for the first event.
“Listen up. The story I’m about to tell you took place during the Vietnam War. But I don’t have to remind you that we live and work in a dangerous—very dangerous—world. You know what happened aboard USS Cole a month ago. One of those young sailors was here, in battle stations, less than six months ago. Think about that. Think about how you’d feel if you were a casualty, depending on your shipmates to get you to safety.
“We’ve made this as realistic as we can, but there are no real bullets flying, no real explosions, and no real blood. The next time you do this, they might be very real. Naval history is full of examples of junior Navy personnel who have found themselves in harm’s way and have risen to the occasion and performed heroic deeds. Two such examples are from the war in Vietnam.
“HM2 Alan C. James, stationed with the U.S. Marines in Quang Tri Province in 1968, took part in a three-day engagement with the enemy in which he personally organized company aid stations and casualty clearing points. He attended to each of the injured Marines and was almost constantly exposed to enemy fire. On several occasions he actually shielded the injured with his own body, and at one point he went outside the defensive perimeter to aid and evacuate a seriously injured Marine to a waiting helicopter. He refused rest and protective cover to assure the safety of these men.
“HM2 William L. Hickey, also stationed with the Marines in Vietnam, was along on a search-and-destroy mission when his unit came under heavy attack. He braved enemy fire and moved across an open field to aid and evacuate an injured Marine trapped in an amphibian vehicle. Although he was wounded he succeeded in removing the Marine to a safe area. Realizing that two other corpsmen needed assistance in treating the wounded, he again exposed himself to enemy fire to reach their position and was wounded a second time. He ignored his own injuries and continued to treat injured comrades and was wounded yet a third time by a grenade. Even with his multiple injuries he remained, refusing evacuation till the most serious of the wounded had been removed over a several-hour period.
“Here’s the deal, recruits. Your team has been temporarily put in barracks in an overseas port while awaiting your ship to make a port call and pick you up. A group of terrorists has blown apart your barracks and four of your shipmates are badly injured. The terrorists are attempting to take control of the installation, and small-arms fire and shells continue to threaten your position. You are unarmed and have been directed to move your injured shipmates to a secure area where they can be evacuated. You must provide first aid to your wounded and move them as quickly as possible to the designated area. Remember that your ability to use your individual strength and your combined strength and ingenuity as a team will make the difference between life and death for you and your shipmates. In the case of Doc James and Doc Hickey, they lived to receive the Navy Cross for their efforts and sacrifice in helping the wounded under their care. Many of the men they went into battle with survived as a result of the Honor, Courage, and Commitment which they displayed. Now it’s your turn, recruits.”
The division again separated into Blue and Gold Teams. Several four-person stretcher parties would navigate a darkened wooden maze, painted flat black. The floor of the maze was carpeted with pea-sized gravel. Tunnels, barriers, low walls, barbed wire, and a realistic machine-gun emplacement at the halfway point would have to be negotiated before the teams reached safety. Recruits were assigned as scouts, stretcher-bearers, corpsmen, defenders, and other roles likely to be required by a rescue party. Two facilitators, designated as safety observers, mounted a catwalk from which all areas of the maze could be easily observed. Recruits detected in any unsafe act, or those who became separated from their teams or became mixed with the other team at the crossover point, would receive a strike. Robinson, lead facilitator for the event, threw a switch on the bulkhead to begin the event.
The entire area was cast into total darkness, lit only by flashing strobe lights simulating weapons fire. Tape-recorded gunfire, explosion, screams, and other chaotic noises filled the area. The pre-identified “casualties,” including Petty Officer Kent and three recruits, moaned and screamed in simulated anguish. All were sporting hideous, life-threatening moulage wounds.
Freeman It was dark in there, and the sirens and the guns and the flashing lights and all, but the worst part was everyone screaming and stuff, and there was no way we could get organized. We couldn’t even hear each other.
For ten minutes, the teams labored to identify and treat the wounded and load them into Stokes baskets. As a siren sounded, the teams started through the maze, often spending precious minutes exploring dead ends before moving the casualties forward.
Gildersleeve I was the team leader, see, and we got slowed down for a couple minutes on the first part of the course. I went and found this way through, but it gets smaller and smaller, and I figured there was no way to get the stretcher through, you know? So I went through, and from the other side, I could see the lights and saw the other way to bring him through. But we got hung up there for, like, three minutes or so till I got it figured out. It was a real rush, with the guns and the lights and all. It got me awake and going.
The Gold Team had gotten a quicker start, and the two teams met somewhat beyond the midpoint
. This provided a challenge, since they met in the narrowest part of the maze, and there was heated discussion between stretcher parties until the Gold Team retreated enough to let the Blue Team pass.
Bruce I hated those little bitty passageways on the ground, with barbed wire and stuff, and you had to drag this, like, 200-pound person through there. Collins was in our stretcher, and he’s, like, huge.
Burger I was a victim. The hardest part was screaming, and getting dropped on the ground twice, and someone kicked me in the gut when they were trying to get over me. Being a victim is hard, man!
Stamp I was a victim, too, and someone stepped on me when we were in there. They put all the big people on the stretchers, and we got slid over these rocks and pebbles and stuff.
The siren sounded again to end the exercise. Rising from his Stokes basket, Petty Officer Kent consulted with the facilitators, who agreed. “All in all, a pretty good run. Your south team leader got himself turned around as he tried to fit a 6-foot Stokes through a 5-foot hole, but, overall, they looked pretty good.” Covered in dust from the gravel, and exhausted by their efforts, the recruits were unsure about their own performance.
Rasco I was dead beat, and I thought to myself, uh oh, this is only the first event. I ain’t gonna make it through the night.
Hattrich I liked it, but I wish we hadn’t done that first, because we were all dusty and nasty all night, then. That dust and gravel gets all over your gear and in your hair and in your mouth.
Josephine Castillo, 19, Gardena, California
I liked it, except for my knees being on those little rocks, and on my hands, and trying to drag that heavy victim across all those obstacles.
2300, The First Run
Division 005 had made it through the first event unscathed. After gathering their gear, they mustered outside and set off at a moderate jogging pace, southbound on Indiana St. toward the Weapons Simulator. The temperature was falling slightly. O’Hare Airport, twenty miles to the southwest, was reporting 34 degrees. The wind continued from the northeast, but the group was sheltered for much of the run by the bulk of Building 1127, the schoolhouse, as well as Drill Halls 1200 and 1000. Shortly after passing Drill Hall 1200, however, one recruit made a tactical error. Intending, perhaps, to show his “warrior attitude,” he sped up and passed AEl(AW)* Richard Rotello, who was leading the run. Rotello picked up the pace, and what began as a jog quickly turned into a sprint.
“Facilitators run in the guidon position, outboard on the front row,” remarked ATC(AW) Mike Witcher, battle stations duty chief. “It’s a safety issue. There’s a lot of traffic at night, particularly trucks delivering to the galleys, and we don’t want anyone hurt. The RDC runs in the aft-outboard position to provide coverage from the rear. I appreciate gung-ho attitudes among recruits, but that’s not the time or place to get into a footrace.”
Hopkins I was up front, but I couldn’t see much of what was going on because it was so dark. All I know is that when we were in front of Drill Hall 1200, we really started moving. I had a seabag, and it was awfully hard to keep up. People kept running up the backs of my legs all night, but that time was worse.
Sison I had a seabag, too. People kept taking the seabags, and then giving them up after just a minute or two. I wound up carrying one all night. And the run to the rifle range was terrible.
The recruits—particularly those holding the seabags—were winded when they arrived at the Weapons Simulator. Shedding their utility jackets, they listened as the rangemaster described the scenario:
“Remember, as a sailor you may be called upon to perform extraordinary feats to accomplish any given mission. A good example of one sailor who rose to that challenge was BM1 James Williams. Being just eleven months from retirement in 1966, he believed he should do more and left his comfortable assignment on the East Coast and went to Vietnam as a boat commander for River Squadron 5 in My Tho, south of Saigon. He earned a Bronze Star in May 1966 for capturing enemy documents from a sampan his boat destroyed and just two weeks later earned a second Bronze Star for capturing another sampan with nine Viet Cong aboard. On 22 August of that year he was in charge of a two-boat patrol moving down the Mekong. Moving into what was an ambush, they encountered over one hundred enemy gun emplacements from both sides of the river. At the height of the battle, after knocking out several emplacements, he noticed a motorized sampan leaving the area. Suspecting that there might be high-ranking VC aboard, he ignored the enemy fire and pursued the fleeing vessel. Although wounded, he managed to kill the boat’s occupants and retrieved over one hundred important documents. He earned his first Purple Heart and the Silver Star.
“On 31 October Petty Officer Williams was again in charge of a two-boat patrol on the Mekong. Without warning enemy fire erupted from two sampans, and he instantly returned fire, killing the crew of one sampan and causing the other to flee. He gave chase and followed it into an inlet where the VC had laid a trap.
“Now he found his boats under fire from four enemy vessels. At this point he attempted to pull back and called in choppers to finish the enemy because he was overwhelmingly outnumbered. Along his route he stumbled onto an even larger concentration of vessels and plowed his way through the enemy boats, destroying seven junks and fifty sampans. Minutes later the choppers arrived and, not content to let the choppers finish the job, he turned on his searchlights and went back into the fray to completely rout the enemy. He received the Medal of Honor on 14 May 1968. Petty Officer Williams would go on to earn many more medals, including the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for rescue of civilians from a vessel destroyed by a mine. He left Vietnam in March 1967, having earned two dozen medals in an eight-month tour. Clearly he was a go-getter! He also had undoubtedly good aim and a warrior spirit that allowed him and his crew to take deadly aim against the enemy even in overwhelming circumstances.
“You and your shipmates have used the M16 before, but this time you are tasked to shoot forty rounds at the target, using proper safety precautions. Your team is operating in low light, and because a gas cloud has been detected, you must wear your gas mask. Any time a sailor has to use an M16 it will probably be in less than ideal conditions. How effectively can you concentrate? Are you as accurate as you were before, now that the rules of the game are changed? Will you become part of the Navy’s history or a statistic in the enemy’s body count? Now you must show commitment to your shipmates by giving your best effort in targeting your prey. Now you must display courage in giving your best concentration despite the distractions of battle. Now you must display honor in either striking a blow to the enemy with accuracy or laying down your life for your country!”
Petty Officer Bowser explained the rules to the recruits. They would use the same laser-light weapons they had used in training. Even though no live ammunition was used at the range, any unsafe act (pointing a weapon toward another, failure to cease fire on command, and so forth) was a strike. Failure to don and properly fit the gas mask within fifteen seconds was a strike. Failure to take a proper defensive posture or to score on target, or a slow reaction to other, non-safety-related commands, would result in the recruit being declared “dead.” Points would be deducted from the division score, depending on the number of deaths incurred during the exercise.
Petty Officer Kent spent three years at the Navy’s SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) School at Rangely, Maine. He has a unique perspective on firearms training at Great Lakes. “The recruits may think it’s rinky-dink, but the weapons range at RTC is designed only to give them a taste of what military firearms are like. In reality, except for the S guys [SEALs, Seabees, and Special Boats Divisions], most sailors never get near small arms. Those that do—gunner’s mates, masters-at-arms, and so forth—will get specialized training once they leave here.”
The recruits were issued gas masks, and the lights were lowered. On signal, each recruit began firing twenty rounds toward the targets fifty feet away. After the cease-fire command was issued, targets were scored,
and additional groups moved to the firing line until all had had a chance to register with the M16-A1 laser-pointing simulator. At the command “Gas attack, gas attack,” the recruits sprinted to the opposite end of the firing line, found their gas mask, donned it, and returned to their firing positions. They then fired an additional twenty rounds, before securing their weapons and leaving the firing line. The scoring criteria for pass-fail might seem comically low to members of another service—one hit out of twenty was sufficient to avoid a strike—but the evolution was designed more to remind the recruits of gun safety and the proper use of the MCU2P gas mask than to teach marksmanship.
McClellan It was a cool event. I’m glad that we got to do that early, because if they tell you that you’re dead, you just lie down. And there’s a real danger of falling asleep. If you fall asleep, you’re done for the night. So nobody fell asleep, and that’s good. But if it was four o’clock in the morning, we’d have lost a lot of people.
Dizon Well, I died there. I didn’t get my mask on in time, so right off, I got one strike.
Bruce I died because I was slow getting back to my booth, and when I got back there, Zaragoza was in my booth, and she should have been in the one next to me, and by the time we got it all sorted out, we were out of time.
Alcazar I got a strike because I didn’t hit the bull’s-eye when we took off our face masks.
Hattrich I got one because I didn’t hear the “commence firing” command, when the lights went out, because I didn’t really understand the instructions. They said you could pick your position, and I like standing up, but then you couldn’t really hit the bottom target very well.
Honor, Courage, Commitment Page 17