A trip to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center earlier this year brought back memories of 32 years ago. When the train from Chicago stopped at the gate one night in June 1962, I was wearing a dress-blue uniform with a single white slash denoting my rate as a seaman recruit.
A petty officer took charge and herded a group of us into an old wooden barracks left over from World War II. That first night was the worst, because most of us were nervous and scared. We didn’t know what the next several days would bring, but we had a good idea it would be a lot different from home- cooked meals and the familiar bedroom with pictures of baseball players on the walls. I took a long time getting to sleep that night, and I wasn’t the only one. Lying in our bunk beds we could hear the sounds of many who were afflicted by anxieties of uncertainty.
When sleep finally came, it seemed over in an instant, because the early reveille came far too soon. We moved into modern brick barracks with tiled floors. Only we learned that they weren’t floors; they were “decks.” Many other things had unfamiliar names as well; the bathroom was called “the head.” The man sharing this wisdom with us was a short, slender chief torpedoman’s mate named W. W. Sether, our company commander. I can still see the letters WWS that were tattooed on his forearm in blue ink. During one of his rare frivolous moments, he suggested that the initials stood for “wine, women, and song.” For the most part, however, he kept us so intimidated that we didn’t have time to laugh. He insisted that we address him as “Sir,” and there was no question that he held total control over our lives.
That first day we went to small stores to get uniform items. I bought two pairs of black socks. A couple of days later, I nervously went to Chief Sether and asked permission to make another trip to small stores for more socks. I told him I hadn’t had time to get enough during the first trip. He did not approve my request, explaining, with impeccable logic, “It doesn’t take any longer to ask for six pairs of socks instead of two.”
Soon after our hair was shorn, we fell into an exhausting routine of too-long days and too-short nights. Marching was the one overwhelming constant, and I seemed to have perpetual difficulty staying in step. Chief Sether’s voice echoes in my memory from those many times he marched alongside us, counting cadence and exhorting us, “Keep in step, swing them arms, guide right.” We learned the 16-count manual of arms with our rifles, trying to remember the 16 separate procedures at the same time we were trying to remember how to keep in step and guide right.
The food was consistently good, although we were forced to shovel it in so quickly that we scarcely had time to taste it. The mess hall master-at-arms seemed especially concerned with avoiding gaps in the chow line. In telling how close each of us should get to the man ahead, he was so specific anatomically that I doubt his language would hold up in these politically correct times.
We went to classes, where we learned all sorts of unfamiliar Navy material. We memorized information about ships and the men in their crews. We even had a lecture from a dental technician on how to brush our teeth, though that was one of the few skills I had mastered beforehand. We went to the rifle range and shot at targets. Because we were lying down in one long row of parallel bodies, we all had to shoot right-handed. Since I am left-handed and was looking through the sight with the wrong eye, I’m sure my shots went on the wild side.
Another day we went to the fire fighting trainer. A huge tank of water with oil on the surface was set afire, and we had to move forward, gingerly carrying a hose with a special nozzle on the end.
At Great Lakes today there is a modem fire-fighting trainer in which the flames can be turned off and on by remote control. We, dressed in our dungarees and watch caps, dealt with the real thing. Another time we went into a gas chamber as a demonstration of the effectiveness of gas masks. The place was filled with tear gas, and we were allowed to exit only when everyone had taken off his mask. We did not look kindly on the slower men in the group.
Cleanliness, as in the proverb, was next to godliness, and that included our barracks, our uniforms, and ourselves. In the evenings, after marching and classes were over, we went back to the barracks and used scrub brushes to wash our white hats, our white uniforms, and our skivvies. Then we used clothes stops, which were short pieces of line, to tie the uniforms—stenciled with our names—to the clothesline. The next morning, at personnel inspection, Chief Sether gave us the verdict on how well we’d done. Even though I had only peach fuzz on my face at the time, I still hacked away dutifully every day with a safety razor. And at inspection the chief would solemnly tell me that I needed to do a better job of shaving. He must have been smirking inwardly as he said it.
Finally, after all the threats he had issued and all the names he had called us, Chief Sether did take a fatherly approach when it came time for us to graduate. Even though our middle file was out of step when we marched by the reviewing stand, Sether pronounced himself proud and satisfied with the transformation we’d made during our brief time as boots. Despite—or perhaps because of—his typical gruffness, the chief had accomplished what he set out to do. We’d arrived as individuals; he got us to think and act as a team.