Well I have been cut off from the world for the past two months and it feels weird to be back!
Bootcamp was a really good experience & oddly enough, I had a really good time! I'm going to try to include all of the details about my journey, but I'm sure I will forget something along the way.
To start off, when I landed in Chicago, we flew into a "storm" which just happened to be a tornado. I spent the first hour in Chicago hiding from a tornado in a staircase, fun right? Once the storm was gone, we mustered up and checked in, then we waiting for the bus to take us to base. We got on the bus at about midnight, and drove the 30 minutes to base to begin P-days. We got off the bus, filled out some paper work, peed in a cup, and got our all inclusive seabag, which included the only stuff we could have for the next 8 weeks. We boxed up our civilian stuff (cell phone included) and shipped it home.
We were then taken to our compartments to meet our RDC's (Recruit Division Commanders) and see where we would be living for the next week. We marched in a single file line into our compartment, and being the person I am, the first thing I did was smile (BAD MISTAKE!) My kind smile was responded with "Female, fix your face!" (little did I know, this was coming from the RDC who would be my biggest motivator) The next 12 hours were kind of a blur for me, mostly because I was running on about 4 hours asleep and was on over 24 hours awake. The rest of the week was filled with stamping & stenciling all of our new clothing items and learning how to properly fold and stow them in our lockers.
I was volun-told that I was going to be the divisional yeoman. Basically I was in charge of doing all of the paper work for all of my fellow recruits. I had to make sure that they got to all of their medical and dental appointments and anything else that they had to do. It was a super busy job but it kept me busy and made my days go by quickly. It also gave me a lot of time in the office to miss out on beatings and to get mentoring from my RDC's.
The next significant event that occurred happened one day after one of our first PT sessions. We were leaving Freedom Hall (the gym) and the sky was a little cloudy, but nothing new for Chicago. Being the new recruits we were, we were leaving late & we were struggling with getting lined up. Once we finally got on our way, it was like any normal day, until the wind started blowing & the tornado sirens came on! I looked to my right & I saw a tornado forming! The entire division starting running faster than I had ever seen any person run before! All of the closest buildings were locked so we had to go back to our ship, which wasn't too far away, but far enough to not be close enough in a situation like this! Who would have known that after 20 years of never seeing a tornado, I would come to Chicago and see 2! Luckily that was the last one for the rest of my time there.
Week 5 started all of the fun activities! We kicked it off with live fire! Shooting was so much fun...they rushed us through it but it was still a good experience & now I really want to get a 9MM to play with :)
After that we had Marlinspike. Marlinspike is a ship that we practice working the lines with. We learned how to come into and leave ports & how to respond to man overboard. It was really cool to see the motivation and learn how to do everything.
Then we had firefighting. Who would have ever guessed that I would have liked firefighting so much! I had a blast...it was cool to get to do something that will be useful for the rest of my life & it's something that a lot of people never get to do.
We had a total of 6 major inspections (which I passed all of them!), our swim (which took me twice to pass, but I passed), and 3 PFA's (I failed my first run at 15:56 and passed my last one at 13:36). I would say that's some improvement.
I won the Navy League Award, which is the 2nd place award for the entire training group (which was 586 people). I was pretty happy about that. My chief told me that I had a perfect interview, except that I answered all of my questions standing at parade rest (oops!)
Overall I had a great time & met some amazing friends & people that I hope to stay in contact with for the rest of my life. I owe a lot to my RDC's, they continued to push me and motivate me when I thought I couldn't go anymore. All of my shipmates said that I acted like my 3rd RDC and I started to agree with them after awhile. She is an amazing woman & if I'm half the sailor she is, I will be happy.
Currently, I'm located in Meridian, Mississippi (AKA hell!) This place sucks so far! The airport is the smallest thing I have ever seen and we are in the middle of a freaking forest. It's really pretty but that's about the only perk. Its hot and humid all day, every day. The galley food sucks & we have to PT harder than we ever did in bootcamp. I found out that the AZ's here (I'm an AZ) do all of their training & PT with the Marines, so I'm going to be one in shape mo-fo when I get out of here!
Lately I have been missing everyone a lot. It's weird to have communication but know that I missed out on everything that happened in the past 2 months. I tried to catch up on facebook, but it's hard. I miss my Alpha Phi's more than anything. It's so hard being so far away from all of my sisters. I knew that being an alumni would be hard but I didn't know it would be this hard. I miss you ladies! AOE!
I think this is enough for now...
