First Week Report

27 Jun 10

Dear Mom and Dad,

It’s finally good to get a chance to write you.  I’ve been here almost 2 weeks, but we only get to write letters on Sunday, and the first Sunday didn’t count.  Where do I even start to describe Navy Bootcamp.  I arrived 13 or so days ago, a Monday night around 8 or 9 pm; don’t remember. From the second we stepped off the bus, I stayed awake for 40 hours.  Seriously.  There was a lot of processing, a lot of hurry up and wait, and a LOT of yelling and swearing.  All that nonsense about no cursing in bootcamp is so not true, but I really don’t mind.  It give it that salty boot camp feel.  I’m in division 267, with Chief Alex and 3 first class petty officers as my RDCs.  The first week we stayed in the temporary berthing compartments at the USS Pearl Harbor while we had “P week”. That week sucked. We had to wear full sweats everywhere all the time, even marching outside. We couldn’t do any exercise because we all had to be declared fit for full duty.  And everywhere you go, everyone (the instructors and staff) treat you like shit.  After being awake for 40 hours and being constantly crapped on, I was definitely having second thoughts.  But that’s how its supposed to be.  I also had night security watch the first night of sleep, so I was a zombie until the 3rd or 4th day. 

Things are slightly better now. After P week we marched across base to Camp John Paul Jones, where we moved into our permanent home, the USS Triton.  It’s named after a sub from WW2 I’m pretty sure.  The “ship” is actually a huge, state of the art building/barracks.  I would have preferred the USS Enterprise or the USS Theodore Roosevelt, but the Triton is still pretty cool.  Once we moved in we also got to stop wearing our stinky hot never washed sweats and got our blue digital camo working uniforms (super cool), which we wear all the time except for PT (physical training).  We also wear black combat boots  about 15 hours a day, which really starts to kill your feet.

So far we really haven’t learned or done anything interesting except how to do things at warp speed.  I can strip my rack in 2 minutes, make my rack in 10 minutes, and fold and store all my clothes EXACTLY the way they want.  Everything we do is under high stress situations and even the slightest error can earn you a “beating”.  They can’t actually hurt you physically, but they have 4 cards of varying difficulty which contain exercises to beat you into the ground.  One recruit was sent to the hospital (we think).  When the RDCs want to be mean and teach you a lesson, it is not pretty.  But you’ll never make that mistake again.  They also like making you hold in the pushup position for 5, 10 minutes at a time.  The whole division (72 people) has been beat a handful of times, sometimes our fault, sometimes not.  I don’t mind; it’s all designed to make us sharper and stronger.

The RDCs can be cool when they want to, but my division has a tendency to be slow and unreceptive, so we don’t see the nice side a lot.  It’s definitely toughening me up and giving me a thick skin.  You just can’t take it all too personally, and focus on graduation.  Graduation will be the happiest day of my life by far.  Boot camp isn’t that “hard”, but it can be demoralizing.  So keep letters coming!  So far I haven’t gotten any, because I think it takes a while to get here.  In good news, I passed my 3rd class swim test and my PFA.  I did 100 crunches in 2 minutes, 71 pushups and easily passed the 1.5 mile sprint.  We’ve been marching more now too.  Which is also fun (comparatively). 

The other guys in my division are a mixed bag of everything.  We’ve got some shipmates who don’t take it as seriously and hold us back, but a good portion are good people who want to succeed.  This past week we were assigned positions.  I was made educational petty officer (EPO) because I got a 99 on my ASVAB, and I was made athletic petty officer (APO) because I was a personal trainer.  However, after a couple of days they realized that I couldn’t be both, so they made me just EPO.  Which means I’m in charge of studying and preparing everyone for the tests.  With this group, it could be a formidable task, but one which I’m going to give my all. Also, Chief said that however lower our test averages are below passing, that’s how bad I’M going to get “beat”.  That’s how it works here.  Our first test is next week, hopefully I can get these guys to pass.  We have to know rank and recognition, the UCMJ, ships and aircraft, first aid, uniforms and grooming, and watchstanding procedures.  It’s not too hard, but it’s a lot of information and some of it (like memorizing articles of the UCMJ) can be tricky. 

The best part of boot camp is the food.  We eat 3 squares a day, big healthy portions.  I think the food here is pretty good.  You have to eat fast, but not so fast you feel sick.  I’m eating salad a fruit 2-3 times a day, keeping it pretty healthy.  Now that we’re doing PT, my body feels a lot better than the first week.  I hear that the first 2-3 weeks suck the most; then it gets better.  So far I’m keeping my spirits high and keeping my eye on the prize.  I really do miss you, home, my friends and the world cup!  So please keep writing, you have no idea how big a difference a letter from loved ones makes.  I’ll write again in a week.

Seaman Recruit Dehn