My Naval Adventure

Robotnik's post about an Army recruiter harassing him in a parking lot reminded me that I have a story to tell about the military & recruiters. Like to hear it?; here it go.

At 18 ish, just a summer out of high school and no idea how I was going to pay for college, I wandered in for some reason to the local Navy recruiter's office. My mom was in the Navy, long ago, and so was my Dad (that's how they met, actually) so it was a long tradition for me. My boyfriend of the time (evil ex) was going into the Navy Reserve and it seemed like a great way to get money for college. (I didn't know about Pell Grants at the time).

When I got there, the Navy Reserve guy was not in. I think I wandered in fairly late-- after business hours. The regular Navy Recruiter, though, and a guy not at all shy about stealing his buddy's potential suckers recruits, WAS there. He talked to me about the regular Navy being a much better deal. At that point I was pretty damned desperate to get out of Fort Walton Beach, have some freakin' prospects, and so I was game for listening.

The recruiter was an interesting study. He was African-American, and he actually had long fingernails, the first man I'd ever seen to have something other than blunt cut short nails, and the pinky nail was extra long, pointy. They were not painted, but buffed carefully to a white shine. You could tell he had spent a lot of time on them. I remember staring fascinated at his hands as we filled out paperwork. His hands looked delicate and yet the contrast with his white military uniform was intense.

I took the ASVAB, scoring higher on it than my hubby the officer (found this out later. I am sooo smart!) While taking the ASVAB, this "incident" happened. We had to catch a bus from the recruiting offices to the military base, and there was a big group of people interested in the military, from all four branches. We were all sitting there, waiting to take the test, and this hard-core, good looking Marine came in, trailing a thin goofy guy with curly brown hair-- think Tom Green without the sense of humor. He was the kind of guy that in a movie about WW2 would get a nickname like "Radar" or "Shithead". The Marine said to the testing lady, off to the side but we heard it anyway, "They can never make it in time for the bus". (Which to me sounded a bit like someone who ought NOT be considering the ultra-regimented Marines as a career choice, but hey, what do I know?) While filling out the bubbles for the scan-tron style test, we came to a section where we were supposed to fill out which branch of the services we were applying to. I bubbled in Navy, of course. The curly haired Tom Green type raised his hand and said he wasn't applying to be in any branch of the military. The proxy lady looked perplexed. Well why are you here then? She said, trying to keep the flow of form-filling-out going. I dunno. he replied. Some guy just called me on the phone and told me to come and take this test. As a group, the entire room said "Marines. Just put Marines there." Proxy lady, struggling to keep from smiling, asked him which recruiter he was talking to and eventually settled on putting the Marines in the spot.

I always thought Tom Green must have been living at home and had his dad call up the Marine recruiter and say "Look. You've got to get my son off my hands for me. He's been sitting in my basement since he graduated from high school. Call him and recruit him. He's won't ask too many questions, just get him to sign on the dotted line and you got a body to chunk in front of the bad guys."

I went to "military processing" and everything, which included the swearing in ceremony and a night at a cheap hotel in Birmingham, AL, where there were several black girls in the pool who were terrified, swore they couldn't swim, and were on their way the VERY NEXT DAY to boot camp IN THE NAVY. We all asked them whey they enlisted in the Navy when they were afraid of water. (Since there are three other non-aquatic service-choices). They had no answer; they just smiled and tried to force themselves to pry their hands away from the edge of the pool. Seemed like a late start on water acclimation, though.

My room mate at the hotel was a slutty chick who wandered off after the pool to make out with one of the other guys processing. She told me she sucked his tongue, that all guys liked that "It made them think of other things you might do the same thing to." At military processing, I took the "oath". Mostly. When we did the "I [state your name]" part, I, smartass who had seen Stripes too many times, actually said "I [state your name]" while the other recruits said names (including slutty room mate and her victim short-haired guy). But I guess raising the hand and saying the rest worked just as well in the long run, and I was officially in the Navy for about 8 months while waiting for my "slot" to open up. I went to Illinois and worked as a shoe-sales person in the meantime, with a male boss who used to like to try on the large sized women's shoes. Pinstriped business suit and long lanky legs wedged into black patent leather high heeled pumps, wandering around in the stockroom.

I never did actually go to boot camp, however. I left for it, rode the bus and woke up in the ungodly hours of one Birmingham morning, about a year later, remembering the girls who couldn't swim from before. Same hotel; no roommate or time to swim in the pool. I got to the bus late, and learned my only personal-experience military lesson-- always get to the bus early if you want a seat. I had major woozy tummy that morning, at 4 am holding onto a bar above me while I tried to stay standing in a moving bus packed with people.* Too damn early. I never get up that early and it made me feel sick. I wasn't looking forward to that continuing at boot camp.... but....

Luckily for me, in the long run, I didn't need Uncle Sam's military money to go to college because I was poor enough to qualify for Pell Grants, which pretty much paid all tuition and books. While preparing for that collegiate debut, I met Andrew, and we dated while I attended my first college (some of it long distance dating but still) for about 1 year 1/2 till we got married, and then, instead of a Navy Ricky I got to be a Navy Spouse.

I don't knock it. The military is NOT the life for everyone but it's been pretty good to me and my family in the long run. It paid to have my teeth fixed, it's paying for me to have my babies, it sent me to London where I walked the same streets as Shakespeare, touched the rails at Canterbury cathedral and bought a Wife of Bath charm for my bracelet. It's not a bunch of fascists gung-ho about killing people, but it is home to a lot of good, well-meaning folks who really do feel they are serving their country and protecting the rights of the U.S. But in the long run, I'm glad I didn't go into the Navy, myself. I'm much better at being the supportive liberal wife. :)

I think you probably need to be pretty young to enlist as anything other than an officer, because they put you through the kind of stuff only young people will put up with. But it would have been a good opportunity for me. I was going to be an X-Ray or sonogram med tech. I could have made good money doing sonograms for people-- and seen a lot of babies and happy parents. Of course, that was way before the first Gulf War and years away from any armed conflict, and I can understand why nowadays the Army is not meeting its recruiting goals. Who wants to go over and be blown up by an IED? I'm not even sure you could have gotten old Tom Green guy to bubble in his preference for the Marines nowadays. He'd have tried a little harder to miss that bus.

*(The reason I didn't go is a story for another day, though. I'm going to have to leave you with a cliffhanger to see if you really love me enough to deserve the tale. Maybe, if enough people comment, I will tell it. Maybe not... though, it's a long, sad how do you do and I'm not sure I want to come out of the closet with it.