Chief Zeller continues. “The worst part was finding out that one of the fatalities, ENFN Joshua L. Parlett of Churchville, Maryland, had been in our ship, Ship Eight, with Division 453, just a few months before. Senior Chief Tucker knew him well. He was nineteen years old.”
After the sobering lecture, the division returned to quarters. A study period ended their training day, and taps sounded at 2200.
Routine varied little over the next few days. The division continued to drill and attend classes, and on Thursday picked up orders to their first duty station.
“That’s a major change from when I came in,” remarked PR1 Kent. “Twenty years ago, the day that orders came out was a really big day in boot camp. Up to that point, you really didn’t know where you were going, or what you’d be doing once you got there. Sure, your recruiter may have promised that you were going to be aircrewman, but chances were just as good that you’d wind up in the deck division of a tugboat in the Aleutians. Now, recruits have contracts guaranteeing their next duty, and where they’ll be transferred. It makes things better for them, sure, but it does take something out of ‘orders day,’ doesn’t it?”
Orders may have come as no shock, but other surprises awaited the recruits. The weather, which had never been their friend, was about to get worse.
Daniel Smith Well, during our last week, the RDCs had allowed us to use the radio in their office, provided we kept it down low and there were no fights about what we’d listen to. That wasn’t much to fight about. We could only get two or three stations, but it was nice to hear music, news, and the weather reports.
One unplanned advantage of life without radio or TV was that recruits leaned to forecast weather the same way that sailors have done for ages. The first recruit out the door would quietly pass the word back up the line: “It’s snowing,” or “It’s freezing out there.” True, there was a highly formalized system of flags, displayed in front of each ship, to indicate weather conditions. It was a rare recruit, however, who knew how to interpret these flags. Rarer still was the recruit willing to hazard a trip across the quarterdeck—between the Rocks and Shoals of the LCPO’s office and the RDC lounge—just to see which way the wind was blowing. Like tradesmen in the Victorian era, the recruits were more comfortable using the back door. Weather reports from WKRS 1220AM in Waukegan were thus eagerly awaited.
Rasco I started listening to the station in Waukegan and they were predicting snow, lots of snow, beginning Thursday, and continuing through the weekend and into next week. “Big winter storm,” “storm alert”: those were words I kept hearing. And my mom and grandparents were on their way up from Springfield, Missouri, for graduation, and I was afraid that something would happen to them. I was really worried.
Wirsch My family were flying in from Sacramento, and my little brother Matthew—he’s just two—was coming along. I was scared that something would happen to them, or their plane, or that they would get stuck somewhere and miss our graduation. And since we still couldn’t use the phones, I had no way of getting in touch with them. I was just praying to Heavenly Father that they’d be okay, and nothing would happen.
Two inches of snow had fallen on Tuesday, but the main storm had tracked southward, and no additional snow fell until Thursday morning. The recruits continued practice sessions in Drill Hall 1000, but on Thursday, each time they left the drill hall for chow or classes, they found that the snow had gotten deeper and deeper.
Troeger My people were coming in from Washington state. I just wanted to see my fiancé and baby. And my family. I didn’t care what else was going to happen. That was the only thing on my mind, seeing them safe.
The recruits busied themselves during the afternoon and evening, putting the finishing touches on their graduation uniforms. Males marveled at their salty appearance in the traditional dress blue “crackerjacks,” while, topside, the females made last-minute adjustments to uniforms, and debated just how much makeup Chief Brown and Petty Officer Russell would permit. While in boot camp, all had been treated as “generic” recruits, but now many sewed on the red stripes of the engineering ratings, or green stripes for naval aviation. A few fortunate Seabees even got to sew on the light blue stripes of the construction trades. Many were surprised to find a fair sprinkling of apprentices and seamen in their ranks. Ten percent of the division, including most of the recruit petty officers, had been meritoriously promoted from El to E2, while those with six-year enlistments in nuclear programs sported the three diagonal stripes of the E3 pay grade. Everyone was eager to show off at the next morning’s pass-in-review.
*The recruit, though often quoted in this book, asked that her name not be revealed, as her father was on assignment in the United Arab Emirates.
16
They Make It Happen
“Even with the time pressures we face, I don’t know anyone here that doesn’t enjoy pass-in-review. With two graduations each week, we spend at least six to eight hours in ceremonial duties alone. But that’s the best time of the week, it really, really is. It’s a joy to ‘Watch Our Mission Marching By’ at pass-in-review. Those six to eight hours make the other sixty worthwhile.” So says Capt. Pam Tubbs, executive officer of Recruit Training Command. Her boss, Capt. Ed Gantt, certainly agrees.
Captain Gantt The biggest surprise I found when I arrived here is the sheer number of recruits. When you see the numbers on paper, you have nothing with which to compare them. But attend pass-in-review, and watch recruits marching in, division after division after division. It’s great. We have sixteen thousand recruits here every day in the summer. And every night, four hundred more get off the bus. This is a very busy place.
Captain Gantt has been commanding officer since June 2000. A native of suburban Washington, he enlisted in the Army in 1969 and fought in Vietnam as a helicopter gunner and crew chief. Leaving the military, he graduated from Howard University in 1977. He rejoined the service, and completed Navy flight officer training in 1978. With two thousand hours of F14 flight time and numerous carrier deployments, he has commanded fighter squadrons and served as “air boss” aboard Seventh Fleet carriers. He is highly decorated by the Navy, and highly regarded by his staff. Those recruits who have been fortunate enough to meet him think the world of him.
The executive officer at RTC, Captain Tubbs, entered the Navy in 1977, after graduation from the University of South Carolina. Earning her master’s degree in education and training administration from Memphis State University, she has held numerous assignments in personnel, administration, recruiting, and military training commands. A 1998 graduate of the Naval War College, Captain Tubbs left RTC to assume command of the Naval Personnel Support Activity, Norfolk, Virginia, shortly after the events described in this book took place.
Captain Tubbs You always hear that today’s recruits aren’t up to yesterday’s standards. I think that’s unfair and overstated. The naysayers need to come here for pass-in-review and meet the young people being delivered to the fleet. Sure, it’s harder to find good recruits. The demographics have changed; in the 1960s we had the baby boomers hitting military age, and there was a huge talent pool to draw from. And now there are fewer folks with military service, so there are not the role models that we had in the past. But look at the parents tomorrow, at graduation. Look at the numbers of career military there, from all the services. Military juniors make great recruits, and one of the golden rules of recruiting is to start with people who understand and appreciate service to the nation. My own youngest son is sixteen, and, I hope, on his way to an ROTC scholarship.
Commander Bob Rawls can understand that logic. The director of military training (DMT) and third in command is himself a military junior. His father, Cdr. Robert Sherwood Rawls, spent forty-three years on active duty and retired in 1993 as the longest serving military officer. Bob Rawls, who has been around the military since his boyhood, is the kind of guy you’d love to have as a neighbor. Instinctively, you’d know that his yard would be well kept, his car spotless, and tha
t if you ever needed a hand, he’d be there to help. Unfortunately, his job as director of military training often casts him as the “bad cop” in the eyes of the recruits. It was his name that terrified Seaman Recruit Alcazar during Service Week, and the Fleet Quality Assurance organization reports directly to him. A surface warrior, Bob Rawls has served aboard USS Portland (LSD37), USS Caron (DD970), USS Mount Whitney (LCC 20), USS Lawrence (DDG4), USS Josephus Daniels (CG27), and USS Stark (FFG31) in the course of a distinguished twenty-three-year career. In every sense, he has been there, done that—and has the decorations and awards to prove it.
Commander Rawls I actually think today’s quality is better. Twenty years ago, when I came in, we had a huge problem with drugs. That’s why the freedom to refocus boot camp from time to time is important. You take whatever arrives, from wherever society is right then, and still produce the same output. One big change is that we’ve recently accepted recruits from something like ninety-six other countries, immigrants who join the military out of a sense of gratitude or patriotism. And we’ve seen no reduction in quality because of that. They are just as smart as any recruits, it’s just that the environment they came from is different. And by pass-in-review we’ve produced a disciplined sailor.
There is concern in the fleet that the kinder, gentler boot camp is not turning out the highest quality of new sailors. All of the senior staff takes exception to this widely expressed opinion.
Captain Gantt Well, I was an enlisted guy in boot camp myself, back in the late 1960s. Most of us would like to look back and say that we were better, but that’s just a generational thing. If you talk with today’s recruits, you’ll find they’re not much different. They’re just like the sailors who went to the Pacific in the 1940s, or our generation that went to Vietnam. We graduate fourteen hundred very sharp and motivated sailors each week. I’d stack them against any previous generation, any day.
Captain Tubbs For awhile, we might not have been as tough as some would have liked. But we began to tighten up again about three years ago, when we instituted battle stations. In addition to being a crucible for the recruits, it lets us validate our training. Because of it, the curriculum is better standardized, the RDCs and instructors are better trained, and we have high-level interest in getting the best staff training the future of the Navy. So I have every confidence that we’ll continue to be rigorous and focused.
Captain Gantt Sure, boot camp is kinder and gentler. We’ve evolved. Times are different, and people are different. But remember, we reflect society. This is not the nation it was twenty, forty, sixty years ago. Remember fieldstripping cigarette butts? Remember the galvanized butt buckets in the barracks? Now society doesn’t tolerate smoking, so we don’t either. We’ve decided that profanity, the “cursing like a sailor,” is not desirable, so we won’t accept that, either. It’s the same with violence toward the recruits. We invite groups of senior enlisted and officers up here to see what we’re doing, so they can spread the word in the fleet. We’ll have a dozen prospective commanding officers from Newport with us at pass-in-review tomorrow. Is it a different boot camp than before? No doubt. Better? I think so.
Commander Rawls What we do best now is build the person. On physical, mental, emotional maturity levels. Remember, everything we do here is basic. By pass-in-review it’s not finished, but we get the sailor energized to take the next steps. It only works, though, if we provide the right role models for them—guys that walk the walk and talk the talk. When we have senior enlisted who eat, live, and breathe Navy, then we’re doing okay.
Captain Gantt I personally think our various remediation programs are among the best things we do. We pay tremendous attention to the borderline recruit. My goal is to make sailors. We want the chiefs and petty officers to do everything possible to turn that difficult individual around. We have to see each recruit as an individual, and ask ourselves, what is it that this unique person needs to succeed in the Navy? I believe we have the most complete system in our society for assisting seventeen- to twenty-year-olds, regardless of their backgrounds, who are unsure of themselves, or undecided about the course of their lives.
Captain Tubbs And battle stations is the key element of the boot camp experience. It crystallizes what we are about. As Captain Gantt says, they are unique individuals, and sometimes it takes nine weeks, and they still don’t get it, but by the time they finish battle stations you can see the transition, and they become a team. While it’s the final performance test of the basic naval skills and endurance, more importantly, they begin to internalize our core values. They hear and understand what real sailors have experienced, and what they could be exposed to in the very near future.
Captain Gantt We intend to strengthen battle stations even more. We’ll build a battle stations building with a realistic mockup, including a near life-sized ship, with full simulation. “Abandon ship” will occur from the deck of that ship, the simulator will be surrounded by water. We’ll do our seamanship on that mockup. We’ll go inside, and fight real fires. Right now we split between facilities, but when we’ve finally got things the way we want, that will be the closest thing to sea duty you’ll ever experience on dry land.
Other military services run considerably longer initial training. Marine recruits spend up to fourteen weeks before deploying operationally. Resource limitations, however, force the Navy to complete boot camp in less than ten weeks.
Captain Gantt Well, if we weren’t resource-bound, I’d lengthen the time here. We do a lot, but nine weeks is nine weeks. For many, we’ve changed their behavior, or modified their thought processes, but there are some who just need more time. I’d have more professional trainers, if I could. I’d like to spend more time working with recruits on intelligent life choices. As a squadron commander, I saw it almost daily. Some young sailor goes out, gets drunk, and wraps a car around a tree. That all has to do with intelligent life choices. Kids don’t seem to get that now, either from families or from school. We now have a drug-free environment, and these recruits don’t have to worry where the next meal is coming from, or getting shot on the way to school. We always talk about the stressors in boot camp—think of the stressors that we don’t have here. In this safe, secure environment we’d have the opportunity to help these folks make some intelligent life choices, but we just don’t have the time. On 8-5 day, you’re out of here.
Captain Tubbs There are so many people who want to insert things into the curriculum that the length is being challenged on a monthly basis. The fleet has told us what they want, and we’ve designed the curriculum to meet those needs. But we need a whole lot more folks. Our student-instructor ratios are high, you might find two hundred recruits in a lecture. It’s worse than being a university freshman, sometimes. But it’s hard to complain about it, because both service school command and the fleet itself have the same need for those very good people.
Commander Rawls Most of the pressure to change is external. It costs us $9.5 million per day to run this command. We actually get pressure to reduce, rather than lengthen it. People say, okay, let’s cut off a day. We already are stuffing six pounds in the five-pound bag. So what gives? They are talking of reducing Service Week, but in addition to reducing operating expenses by using recruit labor—we’re paying them every day they are here, after all—it’s a vital part of their exposure to the Navy’s way of work. We train the way we fight.
Great Lakes is overcrowded at the best of times. In many ways it is a prisoner of its geography. Much has been written recently about the state of the facilities and the urgent need for recapitalization of the base.
Captain Gantt We’re negotiating now with the Veterans Administration for a parcel of land that will help us expand westward. It’s not very big, but it will help, if we can get it. Recapitalization will change our layout considerably. We’ll finally separate vehicles and recruits, and the joint-use buildings will reduce transit time significantly.
Captain Tubbs It’s challenging. This place is not training-
centered, it’s facility-centered. We use what we have, the best way we can. When the place was designed, no one suspected we’d do sixty thousand recruits annually, well into the twenty-first century. We march more than the Army, just to get where we need to go.
Commander Rawls In a perfect world, we would level it and start all over again. We realized that problem long ago. We rehabilitate where we can, but everything is old. As the XO says, we march twenty-five miles per week, and it’s all schedule driven. On foot, information. Now, marching is good from a lot of perspectives—esprit de corps, motivation, even physical fitness—but the driver is logistics. And right now, it’s a bear.
Perhaps surprisingly, when senior enlisted staff at RTC list their concerns, recruits are fairly far down the list. Time pressures, the off-base environment, family issues all take precedence.
Captain Gantt I think the time pressures on the enlisted, particularly RDCs, are very real. And, in a sense, that reflects what’s happening in the rest of the Navy, with deployments, gapped billets, and what have you. I do know that it’s tougher on the female RDCs—PL105 requires us to have male-female pairs on duty at night, and with the smaller cadre, each female RDC has a greater share of the watch bill than her male counterparts.
Captain Tubbs I know everyone talks about us being in North Chicago, and the situation with the schools. Unfortunately, Navy bases are rarely located in the best part of town. Yes, North Chicago schools have lower results than other districts in the county. Does it keep good people from coming here? I don’t want to sound harsh, but this is the Navy. If we need someone here, they are coming. That’s why they’re called orders, and not suggestions.
Captain Gantt Sure, it causes some people to shy away, but scuttlebutt always emphasizes the negative side, and I think things are outweighed by the positive. Watch the RDCs at pass-in-review tomorrow, and watch when they mingle with the parents afterwards. They’re two feet off the ground; they’re like parents at a wedding. When you turn a kid around, and mom and dad come up and thank you—it’s certainly worth it to me, and I suspect it is to everyone who works with the recruits.
Honor, Courage, Commitment Page 23