Honor, Courage, Commitment

by Leahy, John F.

Wirsch I’m not going to miss reveille. But what I’ll really miss is when I’m having a really, really bad day, and someone comes up to me and says, “Smile, we only have twelve days or six days or whatever left.”

  Rasco My favorite memory was battle stations ceremony. I felt like I was twenty feet tall. I felt like we were in a huge stadium and there were thousands of people looking down on us. I felt so proud that day.

  Wirsch I always like it when I’m downstairs in the office, and it’s time to deintegrate, and I yell, “Good night guys,” and all these guys yelling, “Good night, Wirsch.” That’s going to be my favorite memory.

  Buki That was something that I hadn’t thought about at all. Living with eighty other girls for, what, nearly three months now? I figured that I’d just sit in the corner somewhere, and do PT and stuff when they said so, and have my nose to the grinder and stuff. I never figured it would be like this at all.

  Rasco I’ve come so far in the last few months, but there’s so much farther to go. Like, I didn’t even know who I was when I came in here. And I still don’t, really. It’s so confusing.

  Wirsch I’ll tell you something that you might not understand. For me, all my life I’ve felt like I’ve been competing with all the cheerleaders and beauty queens and stuff at school. And to have guys say good night to me, and having never, ever seen me with any makeup on, well, that was really special to me. I thought that guys would never even breathe my way if I didn’t get all made up before I set foot outside the house at home, you know?

  Buki They had no choice! [Laughter.] No, I’m serious! These guys saw us females as people for the first time in their lives, I bet! Like, I used to be a high-maintenance person—it took me an hour and a half to get ready if I was going out or something. But after a couple days in the division, it was, who cares?

  Wirsch Insecurity—that’s something else I had to deal with while I was here. Like, battle stations! I wanted to die after that first run. We were all trying to motivate each other all night.

  Cari Williams Well, if it wasn’t for Freeman, I’d have quit, sure. She kept me going.

  Freeman And y’all helped me when we were in the search and rescue, and all.

  Rasco We all learned to help each other.

  They did, indeed. Captain Tubbs was right. That’s what boot camp is all about.

  The recruits knew that liberty would expire at 2100 inside their compartment. The division would also have liberty on Saturday and Sunday. Each recruit was assigned to a duty section; their duty day had to be spent on base, but on the other days, they were free to leave. There were several restrictions. They must remain in uniform at all times, stay clear of the off-limits area in North Chicago, and remain within fifty miles of the base at all times. Regardless of age, no recruit could consume alcohol, nor were they permitted to drive automobiles while on recruit liberty. Other than those minor restrictions, their time was their own, and most headed off to Chicago or Milwaukee. A surprisingly large number headed off to Gurnee Mills Shopping Center, one of the largest discount shopping centers in the United States, just a few miles west of the base.

  Those in the duty section were required to be aboard Ship Eight only during their scheduled watches. The rest of the time could be spend with visitors, either at MCPON Hall or the adjacent branch Navy Exchange. This branch exchange—“Ricky Heaven” to the recruits—had plenty of video games, food shops, concessions, telephones, and other things to make the time pass quickly. The stress relief was obvious in the demeanor and voices of the recruits.

  Gildersleeve I sat there in MCPON Hall with my mother and father, and just talked about what had happened to me since I left home, and they told me all about what was happening back in Birmingham. It was nice, you know, just chillin’ there. They got to meet some of my crew, and it was a great way to spend some time together. My father, see, was in the Air Force, so we talked about how it was for him, and how boot camp was for me.

  Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) had provided a few tickets to the Sunday Chicago Bears game. A few lucky recruits watched the Bears beat New England, 24-17, in the last game scheduled to be played at Chicago’s famous Soldiers Field. And some of the recruits—well, sailors are sailors, even if they just graduated from boot camp. Chief Zeller recounts the story: “I had the duty Sunday night, and all the recruits got back on time, and in a really good mood. Some were in a really good mood, you know what I mean? The guys in particular were laughing and joking around. You can’t keep any secrets in the Navy, so pretty soon I heard the story. One of our more decorated recruit petty officers led a detachment of his fellow recruits to a strip joint up on Route 41 in Antioch, just north of the base. That was perfectly legal, the area is not off limits or anything. It’s a wonder he didn’t run into a bunch of off-duty RDCs—that would have been awkward, wouldn’t it? But apparently, it’s totally nude on Sundays, and sailors get in free. One of his shipmates, a sheltered kind of kid who had never been exposed to that kind of thing before, dropped two hundred dollars or more on lap-dances before they left.” He shook his head. “They must have seen these kids coming.”

  All present and accounted for, and tucked in for the night, the recruits knew that they had it made. Nothing could stop them now. Except, of course, the weather.

  Adams I was in the office, sorting the mail, when I first heard the radio. It said, like, two feet of snow was possible on Monday, and that they were declaring all kinds of emergencies. I heard them mention Lake County—I had no idea where that was, so I asked Chief. He just laughed. We’re in Lake County.

  Guiterrez I’m from southern California, out in the dessert below the Imperial Valley. I thought Adams meant two inches. I figured, hey, we’ve got more than that right now. No big deal, right? Wrong!

  The situation was indeed bad, and deteriorating by the hour. By Monday morning, it had begun to snow heavily, with winds gusting to 30 miles per hour.

  Chief Zeller continues the story: “I stayed in the compartment with them, as we’re required to do for the last few days that they are here. I hit the lights at 0400 on Monday, for the recruits’ last full day of boot camp. It was bitter cold, and snowing to beat the band. It looked like we were in the worst blizzard the area had seen in quite awhile. Horizontal snow, and the wind chill was way below zero. The CDO declared it a Black Flag Day, which meant no training, and the only time the recruits could leave the ship was to make it to chow, if we could. I was glad, once again, we’re in Ship Eight—I’d have hated to have to march to the galley from Ship Thirteen or Fourteen or one of those down that end.

  “The plan was that Russell would come in and split the day with me, but she had an accident leaving her house, and wound up with six stitches in her foot. And I didn’t think that either she or Kent would make it in, anyway, that’s how bad it was snowing. They said we had fifteen inches by the middle of the afternoon. I tell you—getting to noon chow was a real trip. I was about ready to look around the ship, to see if we had any MREs (Meals, Ready to Eat) around. Or maybe C-rations from World War II up in the attic somewhere. But we finally went outside, and it was comical, it really was. I watched Zaragoza, who’s from California and had never seen snow before, and she was having a ball, trudging along over to the galley. She’s tiny, and the drifts were almost over her head. Naturally, they gave us a south side line again, so we had to trudge through the snowdrifts all around the galley to get in. Meanwhile, south end divisions were passing us, heading to north side chow lines. They really ought to fix that system.

  Things got so bad that the skipper closed down the base by 1300. That really screwed things up for us, because I had a few recruits who had to stay behind in the holding unit, or for medical or legal reasons, and I couldn’t get their paperwork through ASMO Central. Some stuff just didn’t get done. We hung around the compartment all day—we couldn’t do anything else, and every hour or so I’d send someone out to see if things had gotten any better. My car was completely covered by 1400, so it was good that we
weren’t going anywhere. I sat around and told sea stories to help fill the time. We’d gotten reamed a few days before because of the videotape escapade, but it didn’t matter, I guess. Kent had shown The Perfect Storm, and now we were in the perfect storm.

  “I held reveille on Tuesday at 0330. It was still snowing, although it was finally tapering off. The radio said that O’Hare was shut down, and that everything was a complete mess. I called over to the CDO, and he said to move the division over to 1405 on the chance that the buses would get through later that morning. I can’t describe what it was like moving two divisions all the way across the base. Russ Redekop from 006 came down below and told me, ‘Wherever you go, we’ll go, because if we go alone, they might not find us till spring.’ We slogged all the way across base, in at least a foot and a half of snow, in dress uniforms, dress shoes, and carrying seventy-five-pound seabags. Right before we left the ship at 0430, Russell made it through with her truck, and we managed to load it with about twenty-five garment bags, but most of the division carried the thirty-five pounds of dress uniforms, along with their seventy-five-pound seabags. It made battle stations look easy.

  “We had the division strung out all the way from the ship over to Building 1405. Talk about a freezing morning! I even started singing the ‘Dog Song’ to help motivation, though it’s not an approved street song, and we were still two hours before the time when we’re allowed to sing on the streets. It took us well over an hour to move a mile and a quarter. That had to have been the coldest—the most uncomfortable, anyway—that any of us had ever been, even Pankratz from Montana, or Taylor from Alaska. But everyone was in great spirits, and we kept on skidding and sliding and slogging along.

  “We finally made it to 1405, although after we’d gone inside and warmed up a little, someone came and told me we still were missing one or two. So I slogged back outside to rescue ’em. We finally got them inside, and warmed them up. Nobody knew when the buses would arrive, or even if they would. I kept thinking to myself, ‘Whatever happens, I do not want to march this division all the way back over to Ship Eight, not at all.’ I figured I might have a mutiny on my hands if I did. I’ll tell you how bad it was: it took Russell almost as long to drive that mile and a quarter with the garment bags as it did for us to march over. The plows had not been out, and because we were still in Black Flag, the shovel brigades were still confined to their quarters.

  “Finally, hours later, one bus made it through. It was for the folks going to Pensacola. Talk about a cheer going up! Except, once they got on, it got stuck in the snow, so it took about fifty of us to rock and push it till it got moving. The rest of the buses got stuck on the way in, and two of them skidded and collided as they turned into the base from Buckley Rd. We finally said the heck with it, and marched out to meet the buses. Two of them had to back all the way out onto the road surface, before they could get going again. What a mess. All I could think was, man, I hope they get out of O’Hare. Whatever they did, I didn’t want anyone bringing them back to me! Not after that morning!”

  Jared Ward, as usual, had the last word. “There’s just one thing I want to know, and nobody can tell me. With big Navy bases in California, and Florida and Hawaii and all, whose goofy idea was it to keep boot camp up here?”

  And that, young sailor, is a good question, indeed.

  *Petty Officer Miller is a musician, second class (E5).

  18

  A Sailor Remembers

  The old sailor stepped out of the shadows. The last buses had finally left, and the sailors of Division 005 were on their way to the fleet.

  After thanking the Public Affairs staff for their many kindnesses over the three months he had shadowed Division 005, he turned to leave the base for the last time. Crossing the snowdrifts that lined Illinois St., he saw a division coming through the tunnel to his left. They were Smurfs, of course—the tightly bound guidon and the unpracticed cadence identified them even if layers of foul-weather gear covered their brand new Navy sweat suits. He recognized the tightly bundled chief petty officer as one whom he’d seen at Ship Eight during the months he’d accompanied Division 005. “What’s your new division number, Chief?” he called. “082—picked ’em up last night, and taking them over to the ship.” “What compartment, do you know yet?” “D-01—Zeller’s old house.” Life goes on.

  The old sailor stepped into the small park just east of the tunnel entrance. There stood a life-sized replica of the Navy Memorial in Washington, Stanley Bleifeld’s statue of the Lone Sailor, seabag at his side. Three granite pillars stood to the right. Brushing away the snow and ice with a gloved hand, he read: “The founders of the Navy Memorial envisioned this Lone Sailor as 25 years old at most, a senior second class petty officer who is fast becoming a seagoing veteran. He has done it all—fired his weapons in a dozen wars, weighed anchor from a thousand ports, tracked supplies, doused fires, repelled boarders, typed in quadruplicate and mess-cooked, too. He has made liberty call in great cities and tiny villages, where he played tourist, ambassador, missionary to the poor, adventurer, souvenir shopper and friend to new lands. His shipmates remember him with pride and tell their grandchildren stories, some of which, like him, are seven feet tall.”

  He smiled to himself. Twenty-five years old, he thought. Well, most of the kids have a chance to make second class by the time they’re twenty-five. Their average age is what, twenty? Twenty-one? They’ve got a lot on the ball, the sailors of Division 005. Every one of them will have a petty officer’s crow before too long, I bet.

  He brushed the snow off the rest of the plaque. He knew what was written there, of course. Marty Zeller had asked him to tell the story one night, when the kids were downhearted and dejected about finishing dead last at Captain’s Cup. He’d stepped out of the shadows that time, too, and told them a story about a kid named Jeremy—a kid, well, a kid just about like them. Jeremy wasn’t the biggest guy in boot camp. As a matter of fact, at 5 feet, 6 inches, he looked more like a jockey than a sailor. He wasn’t the fastest recruit, or the strongest, or the smartest, either, but he kept on going, and when he needed a hand, his shipmates helped him, just as he did when they needed him. Just like the kids of 005, he thought. Like Mike Shelton, who gave the last sip from his canteen to Maria Alcazar, the night of battle stations. Like Becky Freeman, lost and disoriented in the smoke-filled room, but who bounced back to motivate and energize the others on the long, freezing runs to the pool and to fire fighting. Like Schely Rasco, whose first thought when she heard of the disaster on the USS Cole was not of her own safety when she went to sea, but how the mothers and fathers must feel when they heard the tragic news. Just like three kids named Smith, and two named Williams, and Jones and Johnson and Jackson, and kids named Gray and Grayer. He read the simple dedication:

  Respectfully dedicated to the memory of

  Jeremy “Mike” Boorda

  Who Trained at Great Lakes

  March to May, 1956

  From Seaman to Admiral

  A Sailor’s Sailor

  Admiral Mike. That’s what his sailors called him. A mustang, up through the hawsepipe, from seaman recruit to chief of naval operations. From the bottom to the very top—no one else had ever done that, before or since. He was a guy who loved his sailors, everybody knew that, and they loved him in return. He fought, and fought with valor, for the kid on the messdecks, and the petty officer on the flight line, and for every chief in every goat locker, on every ship afloat. For every sailor, everywhere.

  Sailors like the kids of 005. For Gildersleeve, who kept his painful knees a secret so that he could run battle stations with his “crew.” For Mary Smith, who missed her dad so much. For Megan Wirsch, the ever helpful and preternaturally competent yeoman, who practiced her “aye-aye, sir” to the point of distraction. For every single one of them.

  The old sailor reached into his pocket. Buried down beneath the tape recorder, beneath the reporter’s notebook and the pencils, beneath the orders giving him access to every nook
and cranny of the command, he found what he was looking for. He took out the small square of Melton wool, the navy-blue square with a single white diagonal stripe. He had carried it, like a talisman, every day that he worked with the division. He looked at it again in the fading winter light.

  He remembered the pride he had felt that day in 1966 when, before another pass-in-review, he had sewn it on his own dress blue uniform. Thirty-five years ago, he thought. Where have the years all gone? In his mind’s eye he saw them yet again: his own shipmates, marching through the tunnel in the howling gales of a winter long ago. For many, as for himself, graduation from boot camp had meant orders to Vietnam. He was one of the fortunate ones. He came home to a loving family, a long civilian career, and the honor—for honor it was—of telling the story of today’s recruits.

  He fingered the rating badge yet again. With his free hand, he scraped away the accumulated snow and ice from under the left foot of the Lone Sailor. Gently, reverently, he placed it there, a votive offering for sailors everywhere. As the last notes of retreat sounded in the distance, he turned, saluted, and walked away.

  By now, I suppose, the rains and snow may have caused that woolen square to decay, or the wind may have blown it to some far corner of the base. Or the birds may have taken it to make a nest for their young. Or, who knows? It may be there, still.

  Appendix: Division 01-005 Recruit Roster

  Eighty-one recruits formed Division 005 on 3 October 2000. Because of illness, reassignment, training deficiency, or disciplinary action, twenty-three of these recruits were cycled to other divisions during their training period. Twenty-three other recruits rotated into the division; the first on the division’s 1-2 day, and the last on the 8-3 day of training. These recruits marched under the Division 005 guidon at pass-in-review on 8 December 2000.

  Glossary