My military experience – a three part series
Back in July 2001, the daughter of one of my mom’s friends decided she might be interested in joining the military, and I was asked to write to her and answer some of her questions – provide my own perspective. Well, I can’t just write a few lines, or even just a few paragraphs, or even just one letter. This post and a few following are lightly edited excerpts from my second letter (I don’t have a copy of the first). I can’t claim that the information is current for 2009, but the general ideas I talked about are probably still sound.
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Like you, I considered joining the military for a long time while I was in high school. I was interested in going to one of the military academies, though; I didn’t even consider enlisting at the time. I didn’t realize it, but I was looking for a challenge, and looking for some place to fit in, some group to be a part of (high school definitely didn’t do either for me). I initially went to college on an Air Force ROTC scholarship, changed majors, lost the scholarship because of the change of major, then enlisted in the Navy after dropping out of college after seven semesters. I wish now that I had enlisted as soon as I lost my scholarship, because I accumulated $8000 in school loans that took forever to pay off [of course, that's a small debt in 2009!]. I enlisted because I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and I didn’t want to live like a hobo for several years, working a minimum wage job in Quincy, until I figured it out. Getting away from the Midwest for a few years was good for me too, but I hadn’t anticipated that when I enlisted. I really appreciate the Midwest now, and I can’t wait to move back there someday.
I suppose most people consider discipline the challenging part of being in the military. Well – IT’S NOT. The discipline the military is supposedly famous for is actually almost non-existent in day-to-day life. All those immature people in your high school class – lots of people just like them will be joining the military with you, you will be surrounded by them from day one, and if they make you nuts now, just wait until you have to share a room or a job with several of them! You will never get away from such people. “Military” discipline doesn’t change most of them AT ALL. (In a similar vein, something I was looking forward to when I graduated high school, was that out in the “real world” people wouldn’t be judged by how much money their daddy makes, or what kind of car they drive, etc. Turned out, high school was just like the real world. The only difference is that in high school, teenagers (being teenagers) have an excuse for being shallow and immature. The same shallowness and immaturity exists in the military, because the military is manned by human beings, and not the super-disciplined-looking, spit-shined, mature and selfless robots played by actors you see in the movies or on TV.) Immature, disruptive people are everywhere, civilian and military, and you will never stop meeting them. For the kind of discipline I think you are talking about, you would probably have to go to the academies – and even that discipline is only for four years, and then you graduate and have to face the messy, undisciplined regular military world. The discipline you face in the everyday military is the same amount of discipline you have to face in the civilian world, it’s just more self-imposed – or at least more of a personal choice – in the civilian world.
You asked if I wanted to quit boot camp – yes, constantly. Not because boot camp itself was hard, but because I was surrounded by idiots who couldn’t shut up when the company commander told them to shut up, so I and everyone else had to get punished all the time because the idiots refused to follow simple directions (this supposedly teaches teamwork – it doesn’t). No service’s boot camp, however, is made to be impossibly difficult. In fact, most of the time, all you have to do is shut up and listen to what you’re being told – but you’d be amazed, the number of people who can’t even do that. So, the ABSOLUTE LAST PLACE you should go to get away from immature people, is the military. I can’t emphasize that strongly enough!
You asked, what kept me going through boot camp? Well, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to quit boot camp – they do make it difficult. Mainly, though, it was the lack of options back home (I believe this is true for most of the people who join the military, regardless of the patriotic cover story). I didn’t know what I was going to do if the Navy didn’t work out, so I knew I had to try. Also, a few of my fellow sailors weren’t idiots. Some of them were really great people, and it really helped having them around; they kept me from going completely bonkers. I suspect you won’t have any problems with the discipline or training part of boot camp. Unless you’re the type that gets homesick real easy, or can’t handle sleep deprivation well for several weeks, then you should do fine. And there will be at least a few people in your company who you’ll get along with really well, so you might even end up having a good time. I’ve met a few people who said they actually enjoyed boot camp, I guess because they had a few good buddies to help them laugh at all the silly stuff. Going through boot camp together can help people forge a really strong friendship.
Also, you asked about personal time at boot camp – there is no such thing. You will probably be sleeping in bunk beds in open bays (large open rooms, the size of a large school cafeteria) with your entire company of several dozen other females, using big group bathrooms and showers at the same time, etc. The bathroom stalls at my boot camp didn’t even have doors! Absolutely do not plan on having ANY privacy. If you are at all squeamish about undressing / showering / being butt-naked etc in front of other women, you will have to get over it real quick because you simply don’t have any privacy options in boot camp.
Speaking of no privacy, something you will have to do many, many times while in the military is an observed urine test. That is where someone (of the same gender) hands you a plastic cup, follows you into the bathroom, and literally watches you pee into it. The urine tests are for drug testing, and devious druggies can be pretty ingenious in getting around it, hence the observation. In the navy, we even have to roll up our sleeves to the elbows while we do this test, so the observer can see that we don’t have any hoses up our sleeves. Also, I don’t know if the navy still has this rule, but they required females to get their hair cut above the collar for the duration of boot camp. That’s pretty traumatic if you like having long hair, so you might want to ask about that. The navy is the only service that has this requirement. You can grow the hair out though, after boot camp, and just put it up in a bun or braid or something above the collar. I have long hair, and I put it up in a bun every day.
All boot camps are segregated by sex for sleeping arrangements, hygiene time, etc, but for the most part, you will be training side by side with males. Your company will probably be all-female, but you will have a brother company of all males that you will go through training with. This is true for the Navy, and also what I remember from talking to some Army and Air Force chicks. I don’t know about Marines, although I’m sure females share some training time with males there, too.
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Next post – more about boot camp, and dealing with sexual harassment and discrimination in the military.
Reenlisting on the USS Missouri, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, April 2003 (thanks to my friend Diane R. for the pic!)
Tags: military
Uncategorized | Angel | 
January 6, 2009 1:49 pm
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