By RICK RANTAMAKI http://rantamaki.blogspot.com
Did you know it took an Act of Congress to decide whether or not to include an apostrophe in Veterans Day? (And you thought they were doing something productive.) This is because inserting a comma after the ‘n’ makes it singular possessive. Though, this doesn't seem to faze some calendar printers or advertising firms. So, with that version in mind, I'll share a singular possessive slice of my initiation into the Navy during Cold War I.
(You may find many veterans don’t talk much about their military days, unless in the company of other veterans, mainly because it’s difficult for civilians to fathom its impact.)
Two weeks after graduating high school, I was on my way to the San Diego Naval Training Center. To that point, in my somewhat nomadic life, I had been no farther west than Indiana. So, when offered a choice between the Navy’s Great Lakes training facility or San Diego, well, what’s a young-blooded American boy supposed to do?
The trip to San Diego not only marked my first trip out west, but the first time I would board a plane. I had no idea what I was in for, except that the beaches of Southern California held promise (glorious golden-blonde promise), though it would be months before I’d see any beach.
Since the bus ride from the San Diego airport to the Naval base was mercilessly short (the base was literally at the end of the airport’s runway), I, and the other trepid fools on that bus, had no time to second guess our life choices.
That afternoon we became well accustomed to standing behind the white line as we were: checked-in, inoculated, had our heads shaved (it's amazing how different someone looks after their head is shaved - it only took a few brief minutes for me to fail to recognize the guy I was just standing next to, let alone myself), and issued our mothball-scented uniform long before we even got a whiff of the powdered milk awaiting us at the mess hall.
The following morning, our company commander introduced himself with a boisterous rendition of the Star Spangled Banner – accompanied by fervent clashing of a trash can and its lid (I distinctly remember thinking, “this only happens in the movies, right?”). We stood in an orderly fashion. . . well, as best as a group of confused civilians could. . . and after countless pushups and a barrage of incentive-laced profanities, we formed ranks like a group of guys willing to do anything to just to survive the morning.
By the end of our first full day, we were beginning and ending every sentence with “sir” and we’d transferred our gear into what would become our home barracks for the duration of boot camp.
I knew we were in for some fun when I entered the “head” (Navy-talk for bathroom) and discovered it was separated into three distinct areas: the sinks, the showers, and smack-dab in between were the urinals and toilets. . . toilets without partitions. Yeah, those toilets were completely exposed to just about everyone in Southern California. You might as well have placed them in the middle of Nimitz Highway. Now, I don’t know if it was the food or the shock of a new environment, but a strange phenomenon played out during our first week there – no one used the toilets.
Our company commander was an angry fellow, or so I thought, because he would show up at odd hours of the night, have us form ranks, and march us around the grinder (a large asphalt lot covered in tiny, palm-piercing pebbles) for hours on end. Every errant move was rewarded with pushups. Being unfamiliar with boot camp protocol, we might’ve thought this exercise was normal, but NONE of the other companies came out at night, ever.
By the second week, the frequency of our pushups helped us develope an immunity to them. We could do them at any time, at any rate, all while mindlessly reciting passages of the General Orders. So notorious was our routine, other companies began to affectionately call us, “The Pushup Company.”
Shortly thereafter, any doubts regarding our seemingly bizarre regiment were realized when our company commander was apprehended by the Military Police (of course, this happened during one of our pushup sessions). Turns out he was an alcoholic. . . a full-time alcoholic.
Now, many, many times during boot camp, I wanted to spit out a witty observation. I mean, c’mon, I was surrounded by unintentional comedy; I was virtually bursting with snappy remarks. But since any break from military rank was met with swift punishment, I held my tongue. (Folks I encounter today benefit from the discipline I learned during that blistering summer in California – well, at least some folks do.)
As the MP’s loaded our company commander into their van, I muttered, “Good riddance, Petty Officer 'Stoli'.” This caught the attention of most of the company, but I didn’t stop there, I finished with, “They’ll love your ‘bottoms up’ expression in the brig.”
The entire company gawked at me as if roaches were streaming from my mouth, and the silence which had overtaken that courtyard gave me plenty of time to wonder why I couldn’t taste them, but suddenly the company burst into laughter.
It was the first time in weeks we’d relaxed. Our tension, our fears, our confusion, our fatigue all came pouring out in an excruciatingly tearful bout of laughter that came as a welcome relief. I think it was the first time my fellow recruits saw me as something other than a marching uniform. Our serenity, however, would be short-lived.
To make up for the physical agony we suffered at the hands of Petty Officer ‘Stoli’, the Navy's brass was thoughtful enough to assign us a Senior Chief as our next company commander. . . who was a Navy Seal. . . who was Filipino. So, not only was he extremely militant and insanely physical, but you could barely understand what he was saying.
Let’s just say it didn’t take us long to realized the phrase “pucking recruit” was derogatory.
(I’ll share more of my military experiences in future posts.)
© Copywrite 2009 Rick Rantamaki
(You may find many veterans don’t talk much about their military days, unless in the company of other veterans, mainly because it’s difficult for civilians to fathom its impact.)
Two weeks after graduating high school, I was on my way to the San Diego Naval Training Center. To that point, in my somewhat nomadic life, I had been no farther west than Indiana. So, when offered a choice between the Navy’s Great Lakes training facility or San Diego, well, what’s a young-blooded American boy supposed to do?
The trip to San Diego not only marked my first trip out west, but the first time I would board a plane. I had no idea what I was in for, except that the beaches of Southern California held promise (glorious golden-blonde promise), though it would be months before I’d see any beach.
Since the bus ride from the San Diego airport to the Naval base was mercilessly short (the base was literally at the end of the airport’s runway), I, and the other trepid fools on that bus, had no time to second guess our life choices.
That afternoon we became well accustomed to standing behind the white line as we were: checked-in, inoculated, had our heads shaved (it's amazing how different someone looks after their head is shaved - it only took a few brief minutes for me to fail to recognize the guy I was just standing next to, let alone myself), and issued our mothball-scented uniform long before we even got a whiff of the powdered milk awaiting us at the mess hall.
The following morning, our company commander introduced himself with a boisterous rendition of the Star Spangled Banner – accompanied by fervent clashing of a trash can and its lid (I distinctly remember thinking, “this only happens in the movies, right?”). We stood in an orderly fashion. . . well, as best as a group of confused civilians could. . . and after countless pushups and a barrage of incentive-laced profanities, we formed ranks like a group of guys willing to do anything to just to survive the morning.
By the end of our first full day, we were beginning and ending every sentence with “sir” and we’d transferred our gear into what would become our home barracks for the duration of boot camp.
I knew we were in for some fun when I entered the “head” (Navy-talk for bathroom) and discovered it was separated into three distinct areas: the sinks, the showers, and smack-dab in between were the urinals and toilets. . . toilets without partitions. Yeah, those toilets were completely exposed to just about everyone in Southern California. You might as well have placed them in the middle of Nimitz Highway. Now, I don’t know if it was the food or the shock of a new environment, but a strange phenomenon played out during our first week there – no one used the toilets.
Our company commander was an angry fellow, or so I thought, because he would show up at odd hours of the night, have us form ranks, and march us around the grinder (a large asphalt lot covered in tiny, palm-piercing pebbles) for hours on end. Every errant move was rewarded with pushups. Being unfamiliar with boot camp protocol, we might’ve thought this exercise was normal, but NONE of the other companies came out at night, ever.
By the second week, the frequency of our pushups helped us develope an immunity to them. We could do them at any time, at any rate, all while mindlessly reciting passages of the General Orders. So notorious was our routine, other companies began to affectionately call us, “The Pushup Company.”
Shortly thereafter, any doubts regarding our seemingly bizarre regiment were realized when our company commander was apprehended by the Military Police (of course, this happened during one of our pushup sessions). Turns out he was an alcoholic. . . a full-time alcoholic.
Now, many, many times during boot camp, I wanted to spit out a witty observation. I mean, c’mon, I was surrounded by unintentional comedy; I was virtually bursting with snappy remarks. But since any break from military rank was met with swift punishment, I held my tongue. (Folks I encounter today benefit from the discipline I learned during that blistering summer in California – well, at least some folks do.)
As the MP’s loaded our company commander into their van, I muttered, “Good riddance, Petty Officer 'Stoli'.” This caught the attention of most of the company, but I didn’t stop there, I finished with, “They’ll love your ‘bottoms up’ expression in the brig.”
The entire company gawked at me as if roaches were streaming from my mouth, and the silence which had overtaken that courtyard gave me plenty of time to wonder why I couldn’t taste them, but suddenly the company burst into laughter.
It was the first time in weeks we’d relaxed. Our tension, our fears, our confusion, our fatigue all came pouring out in an excruciatingly tearful bout of laughter that came as a welcome relief. I think it was the first time my fellow recruits saw me as something other than a marching uniform. Our serenity, however, would be short-lived.
To make up for the physical agony we suffered at the hands of Petty Officer ‘Stoli’, the Navy's brass was thoughtful enough to assign us a Senior Chief as our next company commander. . . who was a Navy Seal. . . who was Filipino. So, not only was he extremely militant and insanely physical, but you could barely understand what he was saying.
Let’s just say it didn’t take us long to realized the phrase “pucking recruit” was derogatory.
(I’ll share more of my military experiences in future posts.)
© Copywrite 2009 Rick Rantamaki
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