During the second week of training, the recruits were introduced to formal military inspections. Augmenting the RDC’s daily checks, the Fleet Quality Assurance Organization (FQA) conducts bimonthly inspections “for the record.” FQA inspects and grades four training elements: personal appearance, bunk and locker readiness, general compartment cleanliness, and drill. These first inspections, called the Command Assessment of Readiness for Training (CART), would not be counted as part of the division’s overall grade at graduation, but subsequent inspections (the Total Ship Training Assessment, or TSTA) would be graded and averaged into a final score. Although division scoring had little impact on the individual recruit, it weighed heavily in the personal assessments of the RDCs themselves. And in the time-honored tradition of military service, pressure placed at the top would cause unpleasantness to flow—downhill.
Jon Hebert, 21, Leland, Mississippi
Inspections are scary, and you are always rushed. Personnel inspections are the scariest. You are worried about how you will do; will you answer the questions correctly, or will he find something wrong with your uniform? And you don’t want to let down your division because the flags that we win are based on division scores. You stand there, with stuff running through your head, like “is my gig line straight, is my shave close enough and my boots shined enough?” It’s a really tense time when you are standing there, and you see the inspector coming down the line.
Seaman Recruit Hebert’s apprehension was shared by many. The division had spent the evening of Thursday, 19 October, preparing for Friday’s inspection. Recruits used “Ricky lawn-mowers” (fingernail clippers) to remove stray threads from their still-new uniforms. PR1 Kent worked with the male recruits to ensure they had the best possible shine on their Navy boondockers, and DCl Russell worked with the female recruits to see that both their uniforms and lockers were presentable. “Some male RDCs get nervous about female uniforms and clothing,” DCl Russell remarked. “So they prefer to have a woman around to be sure that everything is squared away. Some of these salty old sailors stammer and turn red if they have to say, ‘Fix your bra straps’ to a female recruit. I wonder how they act when they hit a good liberty port,” she added with a chuckle.
The division stood at attention at 0800 Friday, awaiting the triple knock that heralded the FQA inspectors. All inspectors were chief petty officers or above, and all had completed at least six “pushes” as RDCs. They work from specific guidelines, and the recruit yeoman would follow the inspector to record demerits, comments, and suggestions for improvement.
Division 005 was in luck. GMC(SW)* Timothy Youell was the morning’s senior inspector, assisted by ETC(SS)** Mike Wagner. Kent and Russell breathed a sigh of relief as Chief Zeller led Chief Youell into the compartment.
“He’s one of the better ones,” Kent said. “He’ll be tough, but fair. He doesn’t have any axe to grind. And I knew Wagner when he was an RDC. He’s a good guy.”
Chief Youell began the personnel inspection with the recruit petty officers. He found few major discrepancies, although he had a penchant for checking the polish on usually overlooked areas of the recruit’s boots. DCl Russell made a note to herself to purchase spare toothbrushes so that the recruits could get polish down along the welt line between the uppers and soles of the heavy leather boondockers. “Each inspector looks for different things,” she commented later. “You try to get the recruits to be 5.0, but there’s always something that gets overlooked.”
Both Chief Youell and Chief Wagner questioned the recruits. During CART inspection, questions were limited to the general orders of a sentry, rank insignia, and the chain of command. The RDCs chuckled quietly when Chief Youell asked several recruits what collar device the commander-in-chief wore. Most recruits were thrown off balance by the unexpected question. Answers ranged from oak leaves to silver stars. Finally, Seaman Recruit Hooton-Hetrick made the connection, and sounded off firmly that the president of the United States wore no uniform, and so therefore had no need of collar devices. Personnel inspection was followed by bunk, locker, and compartment inspections, and the inspectors departed shortly before noon. The recruits breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Gildersleeve I don’t mind the inspections that much, it’s the standing there at attention for three hours that gets bad. That, and tearing our lockers apart every night before the inspection, and practicing, practicing getting it right. I wish they’d just let us get the locker set right, and then leave it be, you know? It’s the tearing it up and down that messes it up, and you’re never sure you have it back exact, when the inspector comes.
Betton Well, I was so proud to get my uniform, and getting out of the sweat suits. It made me feel like I was really part of the Navy. I had begun to have some military pride, and I felt good. Getting looked over by the chief and getting asked questions didn’t really bother me. The material inspection went okay, too, although I got a hit for my rack. The worst part of it was that I was working with my bunkmate, and the part I got the hit for was something he was supposed to take care of. Which just goes to show, if you want something done right, you had better do it yourself. My locker, though, was in really good shape, so I came out of it with two out of three things perfect. Lots of others did worse.
One recruit expressed a concern felt by many of the female members of the division.
Bruce Inspections are the pits. Imagine having some loudmouthed [guy] come to your house to inspect the clothes you are wearing, then inspect the bed you sleep in to be sure that you made it right, and then go through your clothes and underwear to make sure you folded them right. It’s kind of embarrassing to have some strange guy looking at your underwear and then yelling at you because you forgot to put an adjustment fold in your skivvies. And what is really fun is to have to stand there during personnel inspection while he fingers your uniform and asks a question about the chain of command or your general orders. It’s also a test of military bearing, so you can’t look directly at the inspector. You can’t look, but somehow you are supposed to figure out his rank. You don’t ever want to call a senior chief just “Chief,” right? So how am I supposed to see this tiny little silver star on his anchor, if I can’t look at him, right? Finally, after about three hours, watching all your stuff get touched and tossed around, the inspector leaves, and your RDC comes around and yells and screams at you for having a messy locker. I mean, what’s the point?
Nevertheless, the division had done relatively well on their CART inspections. With 5.0 indicating perfection, they had scored 4.29 for the personnel inspection, 4.88 for the locker inspection, and 4.95 for the previous day’s drill inspection. Only the maintenance inspection, in which they scored 3.44 was a matter of serious concern.
“Well, we were marching pretty well by that point,” commented Chief Zeller later. “But it’s a shame about the barracks. We talk about boot camp being the Quarterdeck of the Navy, yet we really have to work to keep the place from collapsing around our ears. I don’t think it makes a good impression on recruits when three out of eight sinks in the head are out of service, or if we have to post a sign by the scuttlebutt [drinking fountain] to warn everybody that it’s not bolted to the deck. It’s just not what I’d want the first impression to be. We try, but still . . .”
Petty Officer Russell understands. “About three minutes before the inspectors arrived, I’m standing there on a chair, next to a locker, trying to hammer a coat hook into place so that the recruit doesn’t get a hit for having gear adrift. What’s the recruit supposed to do?—the hole for the hook is so worn that the bolt and nut slip right out. So I’m standing there, and the only tools I have are a pair of vise grips, and I’m hammering away trying to get the hole in the sheet metal to close up enough so that the weight of his peacoat doesn’t pull the coat hook out in the middle of inspection. Hammering with a pair of vise grips—and I’m in an engineering rating. That looks good to the recruits, right?”
Lt. Erin McAvoy ruefully agrees. “This is a middle-aged building, built about 1964 or thereabouts, and some of the others were built as early as 1959. They’ve been in use, all day, every day, since they were built. This building is undermined; we had a sewer flood in March 1999, and when they investigated, they found that everything washed away underneath us. Now, that doesn’t mean that it’s unsafe—they gave it a clean bill of health—but just as an example, the back wall of this building leaks water six months of the year. There’s a roof leak, going down into the wall, and they can’t seem to find and fix it. We get assistance when we need it; we’re in line with everyone else, but when everyone’s pipes are clogging up—not just yours, but every single barracks building on base—you can’t just move to the top of the list. So Public Works wants us to fix things ourselves when we can, and that’s good, except my RDCs are all out pushing recruits, so I have to assign one to fix the pipes, but she’s not a plumber, so she assigns a recruit to fix the pipes, and he may or may not be a plumber—but what I really need is a plumber to fix the pipes. We inefficiently take care of ourselves. The plumber is just an example. Have you heard alarms going off at odd hours around here? We have a ground in the alarm system: we find it, fix it, and it pops up someplace else. We haven’t had a chance to stand-down in this building for two years, and it’s not slated to be taken off-line for routine maintenance for awhile again. We’re going to see fifty-four thousand recruits next year: where else are we going to put them?”
Even though the division as a whole had scored well, some recruits were having individual problems. For example, one young suburban recruit was having difficulty relating to his African American shipmates. Several had problems with reading and comprehending their training material, and one young female recruit, who had had a very difficult childhood, had significant issues with male authority that needed to be sorted out. After a lengthy discussion among the RDCs, these recruits and some others were referred to special units where they could receive individualized attention.
CMDMC Mike McCalip is the command master chief petty officer for Recruit Training Command. A twenty-two-year veteran, he occupies one of the key billets in the development of the Navy’s enlisted force. He has counseled thousands of sailors at sea and ashore. He says, “It’s unrealistic to expect every recruit is to be an honor graduate. It just doesn’t happen. And if it did happen, it would mean that we’ve made the entrance standards so tight that we’d never man the fleet. What we do, though, is to give every single recruit an opportunity to succeed here. I tell them that nobody knows, or much cares, who you were, or how well you did, before you got here. You’re all dressed alike, you are treated alike, and, so far as we’re concerned, you are alike until you prove us wrong. If you need special attention, for academic or physical or emotional reasons, we’ll make sure that you get it. But we’re not giving up on you, and we don’t want you to give up on us.”
Special programs have been instituted over the past few years to help recruits who have problems adapting to military life:
1. The Fundamental Applied Skills Training (FAST) program assists recruits whose literacy level precludes successful completion of recruit training. FAST provides basic training in vocabulary strategies, reading comprehension, graphic interpretation, and study skills. Listening skills and English grammatical structures are also taught to recruits with limited English proficiency. Any RDC who finds a recruit not performing well academically and who feels that the recruit may benefit from the program may make a referral. Recruits with competency in languages other than English will be assigned to an ESL (English as a second language) stream. A recruit may complete one or both streams before returning to a line division for further military training. The fifteen-day reading skills program covers four topic areas: vocabulary, graphic interpretation, reading comprehension, and study skills. The verbal course, also fifteen days, assists the recruit with naval vocabulary, grammatical structure, and language fluency. These programs are designed to help recruits, and in no way are considered disciplinary tools.
2. Academic Capacity Enhancement (ACE) is a program for non-high school graduates. Unlike the FAST track, this program emphasizes self-worth, the value of completion vs. fear of failure, personal choice vs. victimization, self-control and self-discipline, and goal setting. Recruits are placed in a one-week orientation program, immediately after in-processing, and remain together for the duration of their military training. Their RDCs are carefully screened, and trained to work with these “higher risk” recruits. The Navy has reduced the risk of repeated failure by insisting on much higher AFVAB (Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery) cut-off scores (50-plus, rather than 31-plus for high-school graduates) to further reduce attrition among the five thousand non-high school graduates accepted annually. Each recruit is afforded study time and opportunity to take the GED test before graduation; nearly 80 percent of recruits who have taken the test while in the program have passed.
3. The Personal Applied Skills (PASS) program trains and mentors recruits having difficulty with racial, cultural, or gender diversity; dealing with authority; stress management; low self-esteem; conflict resolution; goal setting or achieving; and problem solving. Many of these recruits come from backgrounds that did not allow them to develop the social skills and maturity required to make the transition to military life. They may refuse to train; express suicidal notions, gestures, or attempts; engage in disruptive behavior; exhibit low self-esteem; or lack motivation. These recruits have a low probability of successful completion of military training without intervention. The PASS training group helps these recruits develop social skills and provides them with a foundation for success both in the Navy and in their personal lives. Through an intense, five-day interactive educational program, these recruits are led on a journey of self-awareness and empowerment, which lets them take responsibility for their own actions and release their “past” to establish a methodical system of goal setting and achievement.
4. Physical Fitness Training Unit. Designed for those who either fail to meet minimum standards of their physical fitness screening test or repeatedly fail PT-1 and PT-2. This unit emphasizes healthy lifestyles, including nutrition, weight loss, athletic techniques, and aerobic conditioning. Recruits will remain in this unit until they have successfully completed the necessary physical fitness tests or, in exceptional cases, until the tests are waived by a board of examiners.
5. Recruit Holding Unit. Those recruits are experiencing a “time out” from routine training because of their physical condition. Recruits with injuries or medical conditions more serious that those permitting light limited duty (LLD) status are assigned to this unit until the condition is resolved. This division also includes Recruit Special Quarters, a secure berthing area designed to eliminate risk of injury to the recruit. Recruits are generally kept under close observation during the limited time during which they may be assigned to special quarters. Recruits who have expressed suicidal thoughts, or who have made suicidal gestures or attempts, and those who either are a threat to, or are threatened by, others may temporarily be assigned to special quarters.
Those recruits whose problems exceed the capacity of the special units at Ship Fifteen are referred to the naval hospital’s Recruit Evaluation Unit. This group is staffed by commissioned clinical psychologists, psychiatric nurses, and enlisted neuropsychiatric technicians. The unit is located, along with the medical dispensary, at Building 1007. Any recruit may ask for a referral to REU, and that request must be honored by the command. The RDC or a member of the medical staff may also refer the recruit for preliminary psychiatric evaluation. RDCs are instructed to immediately refer recruits who exhibit worrisome behaviors signaling mental or emotional difficulties, including the following:
Suicidal thoughts, statements, or gestures. In the event of an actual suicide attempt, the recruit receives emergency medical treatment, followed by referral to the clinical psychologists or psychiatrists.
Persistent depression, including sleep or eating disturbance, frequent crying, prolonged sadness, and so forth.
Persistent anxiety, including panic attacks, shortness of breath, chest pain, racing heart, or trembling.
Social isolation, avoidance of others or high need to be alone.
Overly aggressive behavior, including threat of harm to others, punching people or things.
Strange, odd, or bizarre behaviors, mannerisms, speech, or verbalization; evidence of illogical thought process; confusion.
Severe stress reaction, including acute onset of anxiety, depression, psychosis, inability to function, multiple physical complaints.
Significant behavioral change, including appearance, hygiene, sleeping, eating, energy level, interaction with others, or performance.
Group living problems, including bedwetting, sleepwalking, or night terrors.
Any “new” history that is revealed to the RDC, including prior substance abuse or mental illness and treatment or hospitalization.
The role of the clinical staff is limited to determining whether or not an identifiable mental illness or deficiency is present. The providers adhere closely to the provisions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fourth edition (known as DSM-IV) of the American Psychiatric Association. By law, referral to the unit can not be used as a threat, punishment, or a vehicle to dispose of an “unwelcome” recruit. Additionally, the staff encourages RDCs not to make referrals in the following types of situations:
When the recruit wants to go home or separate from the service. Missing family members and friends is a normal human reaction and not a sign of mental illness. Most REU clinicians remark privately that any recruit not wanting to escape boot camp would be of much greater concern to them than those who do.
When there are concerns about sexual orientation and related behaviors. The Navy views this not as a psychiatric problem, but as one that should be referred to the legal department for resolution. If, however, sexual acting out between recruits results in emotional distress, the staff will provide the required counseling.
When the recruit is overemotional. Elevated emotional levels are common in high-stress situations such as boot camp. If, however, the heightened emotional level consistently interrupts daily progress for a week or more, the unit will facilitate evaluation and counseling.
Master Chief McCalip says, “I really hate to ASMO anyone out of a division. In a way, it makes me feel like we’ve failed as leaders. But if they are going over to Ship Fifteen, to special programs, I know they’ll get the help that they need. It’s unfortunate, but with eighty to ninety-four recruits in a line division—especially in an integrated one—we just really don’t have the time to work with special recruits the way we’d like to.”
The remainder of the recruits in Division 005 were relieved that inspection had gone so well and that they’d remain with their new friends in the division. As a reward for the division’s performance, the RDCs allowed each recruit a ten-minute telephone call home. For most, this was the first meaningful conversation with loved ones since they had arrived. Many had reached answering machines when making their safe-arrival call from Building 1405, and even the fortunate had had less than thirty seconds to speak to family or friends. The calls were a godsend to many.
Maria (Tess) Alcazar, 21, Los Angeles, California
That call saved me. I was getting so down on things, and when I had a chance to talk to my family, it really cheered me up. They asked about what was going on, and who my friends were, and it was nice to talk to someone who really cared about me, finally.
Lisa Orlando, 20, Selden, Long Island, New York
My dad wanted to know about life in the barracks, how things were going, and what it was like to be in an integrated division. When he was in the Navy, it was all guys in boot camp.
The “fun part” of boot camp, during which the recruits begin to learn the sailor’s craft of line handling, small arms, and damage control, wouldn’t start for a few weeks. Thus, many of the recruits focused on interpersonal relationships when describing their experiences. For many, it was the first time away from home and in the company of strangers. For all, it was the first exposure to living in a privacy-deprived environment.
Mike Shelton, 19, Marlow, Oklahoma
It’s not like what I expected at all. It’s crowded all the time here, eighty guys trying to take a shower all at once, and there are arguments going on all the time and stuff.
Caldeira It’s not so bad, it’s all right. Most of the fun is after dark, anyway, when the RDCs get out of here and we’re alone, finally. After taps, it gets a little wild—we pray a little, when the RPOs [religious petty officers, one Catholic and one Protestant] say their prayers, but afterwards, we mess around a little. Ward, he’s ridiculous—he’s my bunkmate [laughing].
Shelton Well, I’ll tell you one thing that happens—things turn up missing around here all the time. We call it the Ricky Ninja, and it’s supposed to be somebody here in boot camp who gets up late at night, and crawls under the bunks, and swipes stuff, and messes up your skivvy stacks and stuff like that. I haven’t had it done to me personally, yet. And then there were a couple guys in brother division—they went around putting shaving cream on people’s faces during the night—they got caught for it, didn’t they?
Caldeira Yeah, I think so. It’s wild after taps, sometimes. Especially with brother division. We wouldn’t do that kind of thing, would we? [Laughter.]
Shelton See, the challenge of being a Ricky Ninja is, you have a forward compartment watch and an aft compartment watch, and you go from locker to locker, and the main thing that you do is try to get past the watches, and steal as many pairs of socks as you can, and then get back in your rack. The guys that are going into the SEALs and UDT, they seem to do that more.
Ward That’s where Ricky socks come from. Ricky socks are socks that nobody owns or claims.
Nick Broders, 19, Tigard, Oregon
Because they’re gross, man! Stinky!
Ward So we use ’em like our brooms and dustrags and stuff. I’ve lost a couple pairs already, but I know where they went, I think [looking suspiciously at Shelton, and laughing].
Shelton I think we’re beginning to come together as a team a little. At least, I think the males are coming together, I’m not sure about the females. There are still a few people who just don’t want to listen, but they’re coming around.
Broders I really find it hard to get any time to myself. Just time to sit by myself, relax, and study for the tests. We have forward IG, where we all sit in the front half of the house, and the education petty officer leads ‘study hall,’ but it’s hard for me, I like to study on my own, do things on my own, read the Bible and stuff, but it’s hard to find time to do that. Everything is on a strict schedule and all. If we’re not doing anything, then we’re cleaning this house, and getting it on the spot. Everything has got to be perfect or we get dropped.
Ward It’s wild when we try to get all eighty guys from both divisions into the showers. You got guys sitting in there, putting on deodorant, fixing their uniforms, and you got guys yelling at the guys that are already in there to hurry up and get out, and it’s stinky and smelly, and it’s crazy.
Caldeira Sometimes you have to break the rules to get things done without getting screamed at, you know? I ain’t going to lie, if they don’t know about it, we break the rules. We break a lot of the rules around here a lot of times.
Ward Being a section leader and all—I can’t say as I go breaking the rules—by the book, a straight shooter, that’s me. [Wild laughter, and three people punching, choking, and generally attacking Ward.] Hey, everybody thinks section leaders go around yelling and being big dogs, but we keep getting dropped for stuff the other guys do. It’s not that great a job, trying to keep this crowd in line. [More laughter.]
Broders I think it must be hard for the ASMOs who came in. I mean, we’ve got a lifestyle that we’ve started in this division. If I hear one more guy say, “That ain’t what we did in my last division,” I’ll choke him. But it must be hard for them to adjust to us, because we’ve got little teams together, and we know everybody and stuff.
Caldeira Yeah, and when they come in, they have an attitude, because they all were ahead of us, so they down us.
Broders They throw us off our beat. We’ve got a pattern going, and they throw us off rhythm, and they disrupt it and all. We’ve got, like, what, six or seven ASMOs since we got here. We had, like, what, Ward, four of ’em arrive the night before last, right?
Shelton Yeah. And another thing is brother division. It’s different with them because they aren’t here all the time, and they have different RDCs, and their RDCs are more strict than ours. They don’t have to pitch in and clean up our house, they clean the house upstairs where our girls are.
Ward Well, you will see them on head crew with Gildersleeve, every once in a while. And I do see them down on my section, because I’m near the back of our end of the house, and . . .
Caldeira And we get in trouble because of them too, sometimes. We get dropped for stuff that they do. We got in trouble for them about our bunks, one time, too; we were done, and they were still doing theirs. And we all got dropped for it. We get dropped for stuff that they do, but I don’t think they get dropped as much as we do, you know?
Shelton Like, the other night, we usually wait till the lights go out, but those guys didn’t know that we still had Chief Zeller up in the office, and they started cutting up, so we all had to get back out of our racks, put our tennis shoes on, and we all got dropped.
Broders Reveille around here is crazy, too. It all depends on who wakes you up. Chief Zeller, I don’t mind waking up to him, but Petty Officer Russell [laughter and imitations of DC1 (SW) Lela Russell]: “Reveille! Reveille! Get out of those racks, Recruits, before I come down there and beat you! You gonna get me a captain’s mast yet, Recruits!” [More laughter.]
Caldeira I remember the first day, I was the last person left in the rack! You guys remember—I was sleeping, with my head down, and I opened my eyes, and she was, like two inches from my face! “Recruit! You think you’re special or something?” And I see her, and she’s screaming at the top of her lungs. I forgot where I was, and then I realized, and I got out of that bunk, quick.
*Chief Youell is a chief gunner’s mate (E7), with surface warfare qualifications.
**Chief Wagner is a chief electronics technician (E7), with submarine warfare qualifications.