Navy Boot Camp Part I

 
About a thousand years ago (OK, it was February and March of 2009), I broached the subject of my being in the Navy. I didn't continue the story because, frankly, the whole topic makes me a little nervous. I'll explain why, but it may not make any sense to you. Here to the right is our callow hero himself in the official photo taken in boot camp. I thought about drawing in a mustache, but you can do that yourself.

It's still remarkable to me that so many, practically all, of my relatives going back generations were in the Navy and even though I was completely ignorant of that... there I ended up. If you're actually bored enough to learn how that happened, well, go back to 2009 in this thing and read all about it.

We're going to pick the story up as I entered the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. At that point, there were only two Navy 'boot camps'. One in San Diego for the western half of the country and Great Lakes, a bit north of Chicago, for the eastern half. Just a few years later, they opened a new one in Orlando, but that would have been too easy and convenient for me and no one wants that.

This is the official insignia of the Great Lakes Recruit Training Command which was only one of the schools in the Great Lakes Center. I don't remember any lightning bolts zooming through the place, but maybe I was there at the wrong time of the year.

With the passing and mellowing effects of time, I'm glad I got to see the historical nature of the place. When I was there, the facility had already existed for nearly a hundred years, so it's a hundred and fifty now. I got to go into buildings in use during World War I and II and it made me appreciate new construction even then.

Here, seen for the first time in fifty years, is the map of the place that I sent home to my parents so they could visualize where I was. I was not in a position to take 800 photos a day on my phone to instantaneously show them what I was doing every passing minute like people can today, so they had to use their imagination.

If you click on the image, you can zoom in on the details. Please note that true North is off to the left.

In this aerial photograph, taken October 26, 1972 just a few years later, you may get a better perspective of the building layout. I have kindly turned it to the same orientation as the map. See what a nice guy I am?

When we first arrived in our dopey civilian clothes with our cardboard suitcases looking like extras from a high school production of 42nd Street, the first thing they had us do was ship our suitcases home with everything we had brought. We were now conformists of the highest degree, the whole 'individuality' thing was over.

Couldn't they just have told us, "Don't bring anything with you, nitwit, we'll supply some new baggy underwear, just calm down." Or would that have made too much sense?

The adventure begins.