I arrived at Camp Moffit, Naval Recruit Training Center, Great Lakes, Illinois.

Standing in the chow line at oh-dark-thirty on the shores of Lake Michigan in February. How can an 18 year old have more fun than that?

Congratulations, and thank you for your service. How long were you in? Did you 'See the World'?

I was there in 1971 and graduated Boot Camp the first week of December.
Went right back after leave for BT A school for 10 wks.
Nothing more fun than getting woke up @ 0 dark30 to shovel snow.
Remember going down to the lake and crawling around on the piles of ice.

quote:

Originally posted by Mark in Michigan:
Congratulations, and thank you for your service. How long were you in? Did you 'See the World'?

22 years. Retired as a Senior Chief Petty Officer (E8)

Philippines, Japan (x2) and Iceland for permanent duty stations, TAD (Temporary additional duty) to Korea, Italy and Spain.

12 days out of 22 years at sea, rest of the time was shore duty with the Naval Security Group. Communications (ahem...) "research".

Electronics Technician "A" school at Great Lakes, Crypto Repair at Portsmouth VA, later on a year-long Class C (advanced) school at Pensacola, FL, followed by 3 years of Instructor duty there.

It was my last semester of college and I had just started student teaching. It was American history and civics and paying $7 per week for one room at the home of the local optometrist. One of my students worked at a chicken place and she would bring me leftovers, if there were any when they closed each night.

I remember eating Beer Nuts, drinking beer and grading papers. Once I ran out of nuts and was eating Frosted Flakes and drinking beer.

I graduated in June and was in Basic Training at Leonard Wood in July.

Around 44 years ago for me. Company 364.

I didn't mind the marching in snow/ice carrying a rifle- the standing outside the chow hall waiting in the wind got old quick. First week we were there a guy fell on ice and broke his back.

Nothing like Great Lakes in the winter...

quote:

Originally posted by Rinehart:
Around 44 years ago for me. Company 364.

I didn't mind the marching in snow/ice carrying a rifle- the standing outside the chow hall waiting in the wind got old quick. First week we were there a guy fell on ice and broke his back.

Nothing like Great Lakes in the winter...

Yes indeed. And stuffing your hands in your pockets or turning up the collar of your peacoat were...ummm..."discouraged".

1969.



1990.

quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:
I arrived at Camp Moffit, Naval Recruit Training Center, Great Lakes, Illinois.

Standing in the chow line at oh-dark-thirty on the shores of Lake Michigan in February. How can an 18 year old have more fun than that?

Yeah, I was there in Feb. of '65. Same shit. First dark chow line morning the wind chill was announced at -23 degrees. We were still in our civie clothes but they gave us a wool knit watch cap to wear. Had a snow storm during second week so we were out all night sweeping the street, no snow plows needed.

Thanks for the reminder. I forgot that 50 years ago, this month, I arrived at Great Lakes Naval Training Center to begin my 6 year enlistment in the Navy. I picked nuclear power to learn a trade. I ended up a banker.

Great Lakes is a cold bitch in January.
Mike

quote:

Originally posted by mcrimm:
Thanks for the reminder. I forgot that 50 years ago, this month, I arrived at Great Lakes Naval Training Center to begin my 6 year enlistment in the Navy. I picked nuclear power to learn a trade. I ended up a banker.

Great Lakes is a cold bitch in January.
Mike

I originally enlisted for 6 for Electronics Technician school. Just sort of drifted into a career.

quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:
I arrived at Camp Moffit, Naval Recruit Training Center, Great Lakes, Illinois.

Standing in the chow line at oh-dark-thirty on the shores of Lake Michigan in February. How can an 18 year old have more fun than that?

LOL I arrived at RTC Great Lakes as a 18 year old on January 10th 35 years ago. I spent the early morning hours of my 19th Birthday in Subzero temps shoveling snow off the grinder.....somehow I don't think that was by chance

My plan was to do 4 years and get out....ended up retiring 25 years later

I was 17 in 1955 when I enlisted in the army to go to Germany. No idea at the time why I had to get to Germany, found out later. (had to do with finding my now wife of nearly 61 years)

Anyway, I was destined to be a career soldier up until about 1963-64. Too damned much questionable crap going on, had nearly 8 years in grade but could not get promoted due to pentagon horse shit, not to mention the incredible wave of political ass covering going on. Or, corruption from the DOD.

One example: we were using radios that were incredibly reliable, years with ZERO problems. Suddenly, some yo-yo shows up from DOD to install "improvements" to those radios. End result? After the "improvements" about half of them on average were out of commission, requiring them to be sent to depot level for repair.

Had an E6 in my company who was blackmailing the CO and a couple of others, too. Instead of sending his ass to Leavenworth, they transferred him to Viet Nam where he wanted to be anyway. The opportunities for black market profits were so much greater.

Dirtbags in every branch, Elk.

In NAVSECGRU, the Top Secret, Special Compartmented Information clearance and the associated background investigation weeds most of them out.

Edit: "Weeded"...NSGA no longer exists. Cased their colors and got integrated into the cyber-warrior community.

Thanks for your service Paul.

I went to RTC/NTC San Diego for boot camp in July 1988.... While we didn't experience the cold you did, we did blister our hands doing pushups on the asphalt.

Four years active Navy (AMH) and another 12 years USNR (ended up an MA3).

Camp Barry, then RTC side, OS 'A" school all at Great Lakes, in the bitter cold, 46 years ago.
Ahoy there, Mates

Spent my time at sea.
On the Catwalk

Howdy, Shipmate!

22 years active duty, 12 days at sea...

At one point in the early 70's as 'Nam was winding down, there was a big move to convert some of us CT's to OS. Some got converted involuntarily. I declined the opportunity...

Cheers, PHPaul.

After Great Lakes I went to A school and then submarine school in New London/Groton CT.
(was winter there also).

Only good thing that happened was after we graduated from submarine school. Everyone is sitting around waiting to hear their orders.

Naturally people wanted new construction because it was cutting edge tech- only downside to that was that you would generally be stationed...
Bangor Maine (cold)
Bremerton Washington (cold)

So we sit around and they start calling out names and then submarine names/locations.
They get to mine and say xxxx, USS Bonefish, Pearl Harbor HI. I was one of the few in the class that went somewhere warm...
(And Westpacs, too).

I have the greatest admiration for sub sailors. I couldn't do it myself, borderline claustrophobic.

While stationed in Charleston, I had reason to go aboard a Fast Attack (don't recall which one) that was preparing to get underway and had some last minute comm issues.

I told the 3rd Class on the after hatch watch that if I heard ANY announcement indicating imminent departure, he'd better step back because I was coming up that ladder and out of that hatch like I'd been shot out of a cannon.

Also did field trips to King's Bay, GA where I did inspections on a Boomer and a Trident. MUCH roomier, but still not my cuppa tea.