So, my motive for making this thread is that I've enlisted in the United States Navy. I'm going to recruit training (also known as boot camp) in a few weeks.

I got a rating (job description) guaranteed in my enlistment contract. I will be fixing computers and stuff like that.

I've been running, exercising, and trying to get rid of all my stuff and quit my apartment.

I've been really nervous about telling people this. I don't completely know why. I probably would have made this thread a lot earlier otherwise. I think I'm subconsciously afraid that when people know I'm leaving, they'll just cut me out of their lives and not spend any more of their time with me since they'll know I won't be around much longer. Fortunately, so far that fear has proven to be completely unfounded.

I don't have any family who was in the military. Well, one of my uncles was in the Navy, but I barely ever got to talk to him. It wasn't something that was part of my family background. I didn't have any veteran friends in college either. I got interested in the military after college, because I met a lot of veterans and hung out with them.

One of my best friends enlisted in the Air Force right out of high school. I would never have done it then, but the life experience I've had since then has made me wish I had. Now that I'm doing it, I'm really excited.

Edit: If any of you were following the XCOM 2 campaign that satyreyes did, now you know why I chose the uniform color, hairstyle, and eyeglasses that I did, and why I picked that role. I don't dress like that or cut my hair that way in real life, but I will soon.

Last edited by Dreaded Claymore (03-07-2017 02:56:38 PM)

Clay, I started to respond to this thread a couple of times and kept thinking, "dagnabit, he's probably gone by now!  I should have spoken up earlier!"

I've known and still know Navy folk; you're joining a good company of people and a proud tradition.  Best wishes for the next several weeks, and please let us know when you get back!  I'll post a little more on this thread in the meantime, so that there's reading material for your return.

Well, I graduated!

I had so much more fun than I expected. After the first few weeks, boot camp was really great. I loved my shipmates in my division, I loved my recruit division commanders, and training was fun. I even got fit! I look good with my shirt off now. I'll post more about it soon. I have to go to sleep right now.

Oh, and we sang "I'll Make A Man Out Of You" from Mulan a lot.

So, I didn't get to this post for a really long time. What can I say, I had things like laundry and Life Skills class and procrastination to do.

On June 15, in the Sacramento Military Entrance Processing Station, I raised my right hand and swore the oath of enlistment: "I, [Dreaded Claymore], do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice."

Then we went from the MEPS to the airport, and from there we flew to Chicago, and from there we were bussed to Recruit Training Command. At this point it was about 11:30 PM. We got off the bus, and then processing days began. We had urine tests for drugs immediately, and then we were issued exercise clothes to wear, which we had to change into immediately. We were not allowed to sleep all that night or all the next day.

Processing consisted of lots of waiting in line, filling out our names or initials on paperwork, and sometimes being stuck with needles and vaccinated. There is a ton of paperwork involved in joining the U.S. military, and a lot of it got done during processing days. This went on for ten days. We were shepherded to and from meals and our many appointments by various recruit division commanders (RDCs) who had the job of taking care of "P-day" recruits. They also taught us the basics of marching in formation, folding some of our newly issued clothes, stowing them in our racks (bunks), and things like that. At night we slept in our temporary sleeping compartment. My rack was comfortable, but I slept fitfully from lack of exercise.

We weren't allowed to exercise at all, since we hadn't yet been cleared for duty by Medical, but none of us obeyed that rule. We did push-ups and sit-ups after lights-out, for the endorphins, so we could sleep; and to keep in shape.

After about ten days of that, we met our RDCs. We assembled in formation in our temporary sleeping compartment, sat on the deck (floor), and waited. Three men in impossibly crisp uniforms marched in, and they were perfect as they marched. They didn't move like robots; they moved more precisely than robots could. They didn't look human to my eyes. They looked like gods of war.

One by one they stopped and left-faced toward us. Then together they performed a highly ritualized speech. They recited the RDC's Creed, formally announced their names, and ended by saying, "Your boot camp experience begins right now. GET UP! GET OFF THE DECK! GET UP!!" This last they shouted at the top of their lungs, while they charged directly at us as if they were going to attack us. They harried us like wolves as they screamed at us to empty our racks and pack our gear into our seabags.

I actually found it refreshing. It wasn't interminable waiting, it wasn't standing in line, and these RDCs weren't just telling us in bored, frustrated tones to keep moving. This was action, this was a challenge. I packed my seabag as fast as I could, and they didn't seem to target me. When we were all packed, they marched us all the way across the base to our new building, or "ship," and our permanent sleeping compartment.

Our first RDC's name was Chief Petty Officer Calhoun. He was a shorter man, with eyes that seemed to always be straining and searching to find our mistakes. He never seemed to merely look at anything, he was always looking for exactly how you messed up this time. Our second RDC was Petty Officer First Class Wiggins. He was taller, with a very deep voice, and he was terrifying. He was very quick to anger and he never smiled. Petty Officer Wiggins was the stick, and our third RDC, Petty Officer First Class Bates, was the carrot. He had a boyish face. He smiled and joked with us when he was in a good mood, and had the warmest and most inviting temperament.

Most of what I remember of boot camp is just folding clothes. We learned how to fold our clothes with exacting precision according to very specific instructions. This was practice for doing other tasks that actually matter and that actually require precision and attention to detail. We were inspected on how well we could fold and put away things, and how well we could don our uniforms in a limited amount of time.

We had classroom training in all kinds of different things: ships and aircraft of the U.S. Navy, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, uniform and grooming regulations, the code of conduct for POWs, the Geneva Convention of 1949, shipboard life, firefighting, military customs and courtesy, and the history of the Navy, just to name a few.

We had hands-on training too, in line handling and mooring a ship, in firefighting, in tying knots, to name some. We drilled for a week in handling guns safely, using nonfunctional training pistols. We were inspected on weapon handling before we were allowed to touch real ones or shoot them on the range.

When we did shoot pistols on the range, I thought I shot pretty well, but after we were finished, I found out just how well. One of the instructors called out, "Where's [Claymore]?"
"Here, Petty Officer!" I yelled as I stood up.
"What'd you do before you joined the Navy?" he demanded.
"Petty Officer, I worked for the State of California, and I sold firearms, Petty Officer!"
"Yeah, that explains it," came the reply. "You shot a 232 today. Congratulations." The room burst into applause. The highest possible score was 240. Not only had I attained the pistol expert medal, but I had shot the highest score in my division and the division across the hall (about 170 people total).

My fellow recruits were pretty nice people, almost to a man. All of us were male. I was disappointed not to be in an integrated division, and I thought being with only men and no women would feel unnatural. But to my surprise, it was really alright.

I had figured that I would be the quiet, weird recruit that everyone would give funny looks. Instead, I was wildly popular. People have told me before that I have a good voice, but people in boot camp seemed to find it particularly striking. Both recruits and instructors told me that I should be narrating movies.

When we were punished, it was usually with Intensive Training Exercises (ITE). This consisted of being ordered to drop to the ground and do a lot of really hard exercise. Push-ups were only one of the exercises, but most of them were worse than push-ups. I was afraid of ITE at first, but it really wasn't so bad. It hurt a lot while I was doing it, but afterwards it'd feel great, because I'd had such a good workout. I just had to be careful not to drip sweat on my clean clothes.

After one occasion of particularly strenuous ITE, I suddenly found myself thinking of Hawai'i, and I wondered why on Earth that place would enter my mind right then. Then I realized that when my sweat dripped down my face and into my mouth, it was so salty that it reminded me of the taste of the ocean when I swam in Hawai'i.

Physical training (PT) every day except Sundays. Sometimes we'd go to the gym to do PT, and sometimes we'd exercise in our sleeping compartment and swab (mop) the deck afterwards. It was actually not so hard. One of my favorite experiences in boot camp was learning that I can run. Before boot camp, I didn't know that I could just run for eight, or ten, or fifteen minutes straight. I thought my body wasn't capable of it. But Chief Calhoun told us to run, and said, "You will not stop!" I didn't want to find out what would happen if I stopped. So I just kept running as long as I could, and to my surprise, I didn't stop--not once!

On one occasion, we were actually punished with less exercise. We did very poorly in an inspection, and Petty Officer Bates showed his displeasure by giving us barely any exercise in PT. He took us through exercises by the numbers, but didn't give us very much at all, didn't let us work up a sweat, and forbade us to count and cheer out loud as we usually did. The lack of exercise made us grumpy and anxious.

As boot camp went on, our RDCs let out more and more of their human sides. After about the fourth week, they stopped giving ITE almost entirely. I suppose at that point they figured we were receptive to different sources of motivation.

By the end of boot camp, I loved my RDCs, even Petty Officer Wiggins. (During the last week, he actually did smile and laugh, and in private, he even joked with me.) All three of them told me that I'd been a really great recruit and that they'd miss me. I certainly miss them.

I've probably missed all kinds of relevant stuff, but this post really has to go up now. It's been too long. I really hope I've written this well enough that it's easy to read.

It's good to be back, everyone!

I cannot decribe how much this thread is perfect for my situaiton. Since im from isreal and today i turned 16 and since its mandetoriyto go to the army in like less then half a year im gonna have an first order which has a bunch of stuff in it but they also ask me for my prefrence of what to do in the army and i have NO IDEA WHAT I SHOULD DO OR HOW IT WORKS! Any tips on what the army is like or what position to take(from your experince)?

Dreaded Claymore wrote:

itavin wrote:

they also ask me for my prefrence of what to do in the army and i have NO IDEA WHAT I SHOULD DO OR HOW IT WORKS! Any tips on what the army is like or what position to take(from your experince)?

I don't know exactly what kind of jobs there are available to you in the Israel Defense Forces, but from what I can tell from brief Internet research, they have all kinds, just like in the United States. I would give you some advice about talking to a recruiter, but happily you get to avoid recruiters since your service is mandatory.

Without knowing what kind of thing you're interested in, it's hard to say exactly what your life in the IDF would be like. I can tell you that you'll make friends very fast in the military, and that your time of service can be as good or bad as you make it. Your duties may be difficult, or they may be boring, or both, but you can always fight for the things that make you happy. And it's possible that you will do work that you very much enjoy.

In the United States, people often say that basic military training will break down your personality and rebuild you into a fighting man or fighting woman. If you hear this, rest assured that it is false. Basic military training will not break you down, but it will create a new part of your personality. You will use that new part of your identity to perform your duties, and when you're off-duty, aside from your new experience and the changes that come with it, you'll be regular old you again.

Thanks for the tip:) I am really not sure how stuff will go in the army but  from what you said it sure will be a great experiance.