Sea Stories
From Boot Camp and Beyond
The Canoe Club Legacy
43 Years Ago Today - What Have I Done?
October 19, 1983. My Navy recruiter picked me up at five in the morning. My mom cried, my stepdad shook my hand, and by four-thirty the next morning I'd had ninety minutes of sleep and a Company Commander was beating on a galvanized trash can. Forty-three years later, this is my first day in the United States Navy: six hours of physicals at the St. Louis MEPS, the oath of enlistment, an old man with a Gideon Bible at the train station, five hours on the Amtrak to Chicago, an empty platform at Great Lakes, and the first night at Recruit Training Command.
Pounded by Puddles - First Week at Great Lakes
Late October, 1983. My first week at Great Lakes. Pouring rain, fresh haircuts, dungarees rolled up to the shin because nobody had hemmed them yet. And the cars coming onto the base that morning were aiming for the puddles. On purpose.