Space Monkeys

An account of my time at Navy boot camp.

Words: 1473

The first day of Navy boot camp was the most surreal 24 hours of my life. Over the course of one day I had left everything and everyone I knew in Ohio, and I stood shoulder to shoulder with eighty of the most diverse faces I had ever seen. The face of each man revealed something different for every one of them. Some looked like fearful boys lost without their mother, while others had tattoos and wrinkles around their eyes that told of a life hard lived.  As our RDCs (Recruit Division Commanders) yelled at us with their expectations for our new way of life, I could see the confusion on some of the African and Hispanic recruits who knew barely enough English to get to boot camp. Together, we had all been put through a human assembly line like cattle headed to slaughter. The Navy had taken away everything except for our wallets. All our clothes, our cellphones, and all our personal belongings besides our civilian ID's had been stripped away from us. We stood together wearing our “smurfs”, a low-quality blue cotton sweatsuit that doubled as our pajamas. We had not yet earned the privilege of wearing a working uniform. Our newly bald heads poked out of each one of our blue hoodies making us look like a herd of space-monkeys, ready to blast off and die for our country no matter how stupid the reason.

            Up to this point, we had been herded through our initial processing by a mixed cadre of RDCs (Navy drill instructors) that changed so fast it was impossible to remember their faces. They all treated us like garbage and lashed out screaming at the smallest of mistakes: touching your face, not standing properly at attention, or god forbid talking to each other. Their job was simple, get us to label all of our issued items correctly in BLOCK LETTERING with absolutely no signs of mistakes. This might sound like an easy task but getting eighty young men who haven't slept in 48 hours not to misspell their name on their tighty whities proved to be a massive undertaking for every person involved. I was so frustrated that every time somebody made a mistake, the RDCs felt the need to verbally crucify them in order to prove a point. I was made to stand in front of the entire division and explain how I could have possibly made a capitol L look like a capitol V, and this was repeated for every tiny mistake caught by an RDC. It made a process that could have been completed in two hours last all day. I would later learn that making a simple task as complicated as possible is one of the hallmarks of the Navy.

            After 48 hours of total chaos and fully transforming into a load of seamen recruits, our division was finally freed of the sweaty confines of the USS Hawaii (the building used by all divisions for initial processing.) I learned after graduating boot camp that many of the RDC's who worked in initial processing were ones who had gotten in trouble for drinking, abusing recruits, or other infractions. The RDCs in that building knew they would be done with each division in a few hours and they had no stake in whether or not you graduated. The USS Hawaii is a monster that swallows up civilians and blows seamen recruits out of its back door.

            We were lined up in rows with each of us carrying over 70lbs of newly issued gear in our olive drab sea bags on our backs. From behind us I could hear a screaming that sounded like it came straight out of the civil war. With a bloodcurdling rasp and a slight southern twang, it was our first time being verbally bombarded by Chief Gravagol. I was too scared to turn my head and break the position of attention, but when he came into view the likeness was startling. Chief Gravagol looked exactly like Johnny Knoxville from Jackass, except bald. The image of an angry screaming Johnny Knoxville was enough to make me want to giggle under my breath, but the moment of joy quickly disappeared.

            The next scream that left his mouth was, “It's going to be a three-mile hike, so get those sea-bags comfortable!”, and we began our death march.

            A strangely comforting fact was that one of the recruits had to sing cadence as we marched. Nobody had learned any cadence yet, so they were just left repeating “one, two, three, four...” over and over again, but luckily, they did not have to wear a seabag. Their seabag was instead given to the biggest space-monkey, a Russian-Canadian guy who had joined the Navy to gain his citizenship. He was 6'4” and weighed at least 200lbs. Seeing him carry a seabag on his front and his back and walking three miles made my measly one seabag seem just a little bit lighter.

            From that day until graduation, we stayed with Chief “Knoxville” and his two assistants as they taught us everything from how to shave our faces, to how to make our beds, to how to shower. They treated everybody like they had never been a human being before. Chief Gravagol told us to wipe up and not down after we defecated in order to make sure our tighties all stayed whities.

            The thing that surprised me the most was how fast our unorganized herd of recruits from every corner of the country came together as a team. Without any distractions like cellphones, computers, or video games, it is amazing how fast a group of young men can create a collective identity. By the end of the week we had bathed, ate, and slept in the same room together so many times that it felt like we were truly in a tribe together all sharing a common goal: to graduate boot camp as early as possible.

            We were constantly threatened with being “ASMO'd”. “ASMO’d” is short for Assignment Memorandum Order. It means being sent back a week to another division, or worse, sent back to the beginning of boot camp. This became a stark reality to me when I was assigned a new bunk mate in the second week. His last name was Wyatt, and Chief Gravagol told me that it was my responsibility to make sure he graduated. It was literally the scenario from Full Metal Jacket; give the guy with mental problems to the biggest smart-ass in the division and hope for the best. When I say mental problems, I do not just mean that Wyatt was stupid. He was stupid, but he was also the most anti-social person I had ever met. I mean anti-social in the annoying-kid-in-class-who-can’t-be tamed-by-industrial-doses-of-Ritalin kind of anti-social. Every day after that Wyatt surprised me in a new, horrifying way. Whether it was an under the breath racist remark about the recruits who knew English slightly less than he did, or a complete inability to understand simple instructions on how to fold his bed, I was constantly having to ensure that he did not get caught messing up by one of the RDCs. The first day we fired live ammo on the shooting range was the first day I ever thought praying to God might save someone’s life.

            Luckily, Wyatt was ASMO'd the next week for being overweight.

            Chief Gravagol yelled at me, “Didn't I tell you he was your responsibility?”

            I could tell that Chief was trying to scare me. “I wasn't issued a scale, Chief.”

            I had gotten him to break his military bearing for a second. For a split second the Chief's scowl transformed into a smirk before he yelled again.

            “Get on your face and push!”

            Luckily from up where he was standing, he couldn't see the grin that was spread across my face.

            After that day, I never got a replacement bunk mate. I had to learn how to tuck the sheets on both bunks by myself, while everyone had the help of a partner to make their perfect “hospital corners”. I learned to cherish having my own bunk, though; I’d rather have an invisible friend than be forced to spend one more day with Wyatt.

            I would go on to serve for four years in the greatest navy in the world. Almost all my time would be spent with Marines, whose stories of boot camp could put mine to shame. I heard tales of drill instructors so spiteful they made Chief Gravagol seem like a pretty nice guy.  Nevertheless, I will never forget the surreal experience of being thrown into a division of recruits from every corner of America. Boot camp is a tradition as old as the military itself, and I will forever treasure the memories I kept while I was there.