THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 7, 1996 TAG: 9610070049
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHARLENE CASON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 157 lines
They have returned to their youths, and a place they probably never looked forward to seeing again. The journey, for some, has stretched back 30 years.
Now, in the blustery chill of this Illinois dusk, they look as though they never left.
They stumble over each other as they spill from their barracks at the Great Lakes Recruit Training Center, 63 of the Atlantic Fleet's seniormost enlisted sailors - men and a woman who, between them, boast centuries of seagoing service, have beheld the world's every sea.
They trip and lurch like raw recruits as they line up in columns. And under the watchful eye of a recruit division commander - the beloved, hated, respected and feared overseer of new Navy recruits - the seasoned veterans march into a 36-hour time warp the Navy has dubbed ``Command Master Chiefs' Return to Boot Camp.''
Culled from their jobs in Hampton Roads and other East Coast ports, these chief petty officers, senior chiefs and master chiefs are here for a reminder of whence they came - and to show the kids undergoing basic that the Navy's backbone lies in its attitude.
It's an education for everyone. ``This is my fourth trip,'' says Surface Force Master Chief Bob Conklin, after the group's arrival last Wednesday. ``When I run the confidence course, the only thing it makes me confident of is that I'm not 19 any more.''
By the time they reach the galley, the chiefs have learned their first lesson: They've remembered how to march.
Spread along the shore of Lake Michigan, north of Chicago, Great Lakes is no stranger to hash marks and gray hair: The center is run by 42 officers and 900 senior enlisted men and women.
Even so, the recruits seem in awe of the phalanx of chiefs piling into the mess hall. Forbidden from speaking for much of their 18-hour days, they stutter, wide-eyed, in the face of multitudinous questions.
Where're you from, sailor?
What're you going to do in the Navy, son?
Why did you join up, shipmate?
The gray-haired guys share some secrets, as well. ``No matter where you go, you make your own success. Remember, nobody wakes up to a bad day,'' says Master Chief Edgardo Abreu-Arocho, command master chief of the Norfolk Naval Air Station and a 1968 graduate of Great Lakes boot camp.
About a dozen master chiefs visit several ``ships,'' or barracks, talking with recruits who are studying, writing letters, preparing for bed. Insignias for ranks and rates are stenciled on the ``bulkheads,'' as are ``Forward'' and ``Aft,'' ``Port'' and ``Starboard,'' all geared to make recruits feel the ``shipmates'' they will become.
The chiefs meet with about 40 young women in one of the few ``integrated'' divisions at Great Lakes. They tell a master chief they joined the Navy for the same reasons their male counterparts have: Travel. Education. To get away from home.
``Let's go back to the ship,'' one of the chiefs finally says at 8:45 p.m., hours before the young recruits will quit their days. ``I'm ready for bed.''
Yawning, stretching, a column of master chiefs leaves its ship and marches off to predawn physical training with the recruits.
It's 90 minutes of wheezy jokes for the men who join 67 women in their third week of training. Thirty minutes into the sweat, one older man yells, ``I smell Ben-Gay already. It has to be you young girls, 'cause us old buggers have had years to warm up our muscles.'' When everyone takes a breather, the recruit division commander shouts a warning: ``Don't let these master chiefs cool down! They're getting ready to wear your young asses out!''
Indeed, the veterans seem in excellent shape. A while back, the Navy ordered that commands give their people time off from work for exercise. The master chiefs know that they'd better use it.
They finish PT, meet outside in near-freezing dark, form columns and march to the confidence course, a 15-obstacle track of ship-style ropes and ladders.
Lead Petty Officer 1st Class Sue Schaaf explains it to the chiefs, warning that certain equipment on the course, used incorrectly, could knock out their teeth.
Yells one: ``I'd better put mine in my pocket, then!''
The chiefs spend the day in every aspect of boot camp: the small-arms practice range, where laser rifles are used; the indoor firing range, where real bullets fly from M-16s; the infamous barber shop.
``Years ago, boot camp was run with intimidation,'' says Master Chief Roger Dumont, command master chief for Submarine Group 10 in King's Bay, Ga., who graduated from Great Lakes 30 years ago. ``Now it's run with leadership.''
Master Chief Dean Stinson, CMC of the Norfolk-based destroyer Hayler, agrees. ``It was nothing when I was in boot camp for a company commander to cold-cock a recruit,'' the 22-year veteran says. ``You were a product, not a person.
``The kids are better prepared when they come in now, more savvy. And the training they're getting here now is more geared to what's needed in the real Navy.''
After supper the group gathers for ``Mom and Pop Night,'' when parents, spouses, siblings and friends of graduating recruits see the young men and women for the first time in nine weeks.
The C.O. concludes brief remarks to the families with, ``Let's bring on the future of the United States Navy,'' and crisp, confident recruits begin to march into the gigantic hall, backs straight, chests thrust forward, eyes locked, striding in flawless unison.
The visiting chiefs are moved. Nearly all have tears in their eyes. One, Master Chief David Lawhorn, CMC of Oceana Naval Air Station, unabashedly wipes away big drops.
Next to him is Dumont, also crying. ``Stuff like this,'' he says, ``makes you want to come back here more often.''
The chiefs watch the next morning's graduation ceremony subdued, contemplative, speaking quietly among themselves.
They have been impressed. They have also been troubled. Master Chief Roy Warman, leading chief petty officer of the air department on the carrier John C. Stennis, has been pleased, in particular, by the firefighting training he's seen. But he detects a softness in the program. ``They're not training people to be recruits; they're training them to be somebody else's citizens,'' he says.
Many of his fellow visitors see the same soft touch. Times, and the Navy, have changed: The service's worries - about sexual harassment, physical and psychological injury - have conspired to create a boot camp very different from the past's.
``What I've seen here is a real lack of intensity, from either the recruits or the staff,'' says Senior Chief Robert Skinner, a dental technician at the Sewells Point dental center in Norfolk. ``It's not necessarily bad, just different. I admire the professionalism of the RDCs.''
Still, most seem glad they came, as their predecessors in the 3-year-old program have been. Warman figures that all chiefs ``ought to come back here for a week, replant their roots and start again.''
On the plane home, conversations center on work, what awaits them at the office on Monday.
Mostly, though, there's just the sound of snoring. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]
MOTOYA NAKAMURA PHOTOS
The Virginian-Pilot
Raw, freshly shorn recruits take in a boot camp speech, while those
who came before them look on.
On a journey to their military roots, 63 Navy chiefs return to boot
camp at the Great Lakes Recruit Training Center in Illinois last
week - not as recruits, but to inspire the young men and women
following in their footsteps.
Someday she may have her finger on a nuclear trigger, or be at the
controls of a jet fighter. For now, this recruit's priority is to
get the table clean.
Before they fly or float, they march. Like recruits in every branch
of military service, the Navy's newest must master this test of
their ability to work as a team and respond to orders.
MOTOYA NAKAMURA PHOTOS
The Virginian-Pilot
The smart recruits listen up as David Lawhorn, command master chief
of the Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, offers insight
into boot camp survival over chow.
Recruits become sailors at a graduation ceremony watched by their
families and future bosses, some of whom went through basic training
three decades ago. The visiting chiefs found the Great Lakes Recruit
Training Center's modern boot camp long on teaching, short on
intimidation. by CNB