Blog 29 Boot Camp

(Goodbye cruel world, Hello Navy)    

(Wanting out of my misery, but becoming very military)

        After confronting my platoon chief, I did not know it was going to send me to four different meetings with “the brass”. I got to speak my peace, but in all four cases, it fell on deft ears. The last one said that if I followed through with my story against the recruiter, if I could not PROVE he deliberately misled me, I could be court- martialed.  And, he (with no small words) ordered me to go back to my platoon and do the best I could for the next 9 weeks and I would see that I would be alright.

        I returned back, went to my chief, and promised to accept what I did and  I would make him proud. Later that day, Our chief started selecting the leaders of our platoon, he asked for a volunteer Religious Petty Officer for Protestant and Catholic men. There was a guy who volunteered for the Catholics, but no one was volunteering for the Protestant.  I was in the back row trying not to be seen. Hands started raising, but the chief said he was waiting for a particular hand. My heart sank and I looked him in the eye and he was looking straight at me! I raised my hand and he asked me did I really mean it. I told him yes and I suddenly knew I was going to make it through. My job was to attend to the needs of anyone having problems or needed someone to talk and pray with them. I was to assemble them every Sunday to attend church.

          I took this as a sign that God was in control and I jumped into the job full-fledge. The Catholic Petty Officer did not take it as seriously as I did, so I began taking charge of all religious situations. I got the platoon to participate in a prayer circle at night. I got the chief to place a silent prayer box where guys to slip notes for prayers but did not want to be pointed out. I would pray with guys  and would lift them up. I felt very respected because I tried my best to practice what I preached. I even got the 2nd in charge in trouble, and everyone said I did right.

          Every Sunday, my job was to be at the cathedral almost the entire day. We were to participate in every service. There were four. One Sunday our Assistant platoon leader came to our barracks very early, but after I had left to the cathedral. He tried to convince everyone to skip church (which was our right, not a privilege), and do our day’s work early and have the rest of the day off. At the first service, I was shocked to see only two guys at the service. I asked what happened to the others, they told me what he did. They said not to expect anyone else the rest of the day because the others were too scared to go against him. I confirmed that the others wanted to come, but were too pressured to do so.

          The Priest was an officer, our platoon leader was an enlisted man. I immediately went to the priest and alerted him of the situation. By the second service, more guys arrived. They told me that our leader was not very happy with me because he got a phone call and was reprimanded by the officer. (None of us really liked this leader anyway.) But he could be very mean and abusive. Though the other services went as normal, I was scared to death when it was time go back to the barracks. The priest said I was to report to him the next Sunday what took place.

           When I walked into the barracks, you could have heard a pin drop. The leader’s face was beet red! He yelled for everyone to get in lineup. He started pacing up and down the line and then began talking when he came in front of me. I still remember him saying, “I have been ORDERED to apologize to those of you that go to church. I was just trying to give you some free time later, but APPARENTLY SOMEONE in here did not agree with me.” He turned and put his face right into mine. “I would never stop anyone of you from your religious rights and it came across that I was trying to manipulate you from your rights. I am SORRY, but now we are going to have to do your work for the rest of the day.” He made us do details until 9pm.

          I thought I was going to be crucified by the rest of the platoon, but they all said they did not care for the extra details. Just hearing him on the phone getting chewed out was worth it! BUT, he did decide to reassign my bunk to partner up with the worst guy in the platoon. He was only seventeen, and was not the best at following orders. He always got in trouble. The leader told me that my job was to get him up to par and that from this point on, if he got in trouble, we both would be in trouble. I had eight weeks to keep him in line. He was not a bad kid and  jumped into better shape  just because he had a friend and we became very good bunk mates, until…..

          One day we were at lunch and he had received a letter from home. He shows me these “insult cards” that were extremely crude. His mom sent them. We were never suppose to have anything in our pockets or on our body that was not Navy issued. I told him that he needed to hide them until we got back to the barracks, then he needed to put them in his private drawer. He did as I asked. BUT, when we got back into our barracks to find a female platoon leader to surprise us with an inspection, I only visualized the worse, and it happened. ( This female inspector was considered the best and most strict.) She once walked down the line in an inspection, and three people past us, she told the chief that my bunk mate had his shoe strings placed  backwards. The chief had to come back and look closer to realize that she was correct.

         On inspections, we had to have our hats in our hands so that they could be inspected, as well. To no surprise, she took my bunk mate’s hat and found one of the cards. It said, “This card has been tainted with special poison… in thirty seconds your (male part) will fall off!” The lady was outraged! She started yelling for our chief! When he saw the card, he looked at my bunkmate right in the eyes and said, “Son, I am going to do everything I can to get you the hell out of my Navy!” My bunk mate did so much extra duty for this, and the chief told  me I had one week to square him up or I would be doing worse things than him. My bunk mate and I had a very serious talk that night!…..

(Boot Camp finale and corpsman school in Blog 30)

• 5th Feb 2018
• mylife
• 2 Comments
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