As part of the Naval Leadership and Ethics Course curriculum I am going through these two weeks, we spent a whirlwind 36 hours in Great Lakes, IL, at Navy Recruit Training Command, aka bootcamp.
We flew into Chicago on Thursday afternoon, changed into our dress uniforms, and immediately went to work. We got to see the recruits in their routine, walked through one of their barracks, and sat down at dinner to break bread with some Sailors who graduated today. Those young men and women humbled me with their enthusiasm and desire to make themselves and their surroundings better. I'm usually the first one to tell you how f&$%ed up the Millennials are, they're only concerned with themselves, untrainable, the whole nine yards. Not all true. These kids were hungry to go. They have fresh, unjaded eyes (which I admittedly do not), and they want to make a difference. Yeah, they will present their own leadership challenges, especially to an old dog like me who comes to the fight with his own biases and stereotypes, but not impossible to overcome. I need to rethink those, no doubt.
This morning, we woke up and got ready to be on the bus at 0530, to go walk through the bootcamp capstone course, Battle Stations. It is a 13-hr scenario during which all the Sailors are tested in routine tasks like line handling and supplies onloads, all the way to damage control scenarios based on USS STARK, USS FORRESTAL, USS COLE, and others. The realism of the environment is astounding, and moving. I have a friend who was on COLE when the bombers hit in 2000, and I thought of him all morning. These kids - truly, children - got put through as realistic and complete a scenario as I've ever seen in 21 years, and they all succeeded. They're going to the fleet with a taste of some of the worst things that could happen, and they're ready to fight. I don't know that I could have done what they did at their age. We got to watch the culmination ceremony in which the RTC CO, a full bird Captain, congratulated them on their achievement, gave them the ballcaps that say "Navy" to replace the ones that say "Recruit," and he called them "Shipmate." It was moving, to say the least.
We then got to observe a graduation, the Sailors we sat with at dinner the night before. They're on their way to follow-on training of various types, en route to the fleet. It was an impressive show, much more enjoyable than standing in ranks, but their joy, and their familys' pride, at completing this first major milestone, was more impressive. Very powerful.
We got to meet a bunch of Recruit Division Commanders, or RDCs, the Navy's drill instructors. These Sailors, E5 through E8, volunteer to come to a duty where they work 12-16 hrs a day, 7 days a week, for 8 weeks straight, training recuits. Their division graduates, they maybe get a week off, then they start again. FOR A YEAR. Then a year doing other things, to get a bit of a break, then back to another year pushing recruits. Now, they do get compensated in a few ways, but the ones we met today sure didn't need that. They spoke of wanting to train their future Shipmates, leave the fleet better than they found it, make sure the Sailors who they'll lead in the fleet are worthy of the title Sailor. Without question, powerful stuff. Motivating. Again, humbling.
A few other events, more Sailors to talk to, and now we're on the way to the airport. By the time I get back to the base in Newport tonight, it will have been a long 36+ hrs. They won't remember me next week, or the few words we shared here and there, or whatever advice I may have given them, but I'll remember them. I feel a little better about the human future of our Navy, because I've seen it. Not a perfect one, of course, but perhaps better than advertised, and certainly more promising than I thought.
Fail
