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You’re in the Navy now On February 8, 1993, I was sworn in to become a part of the United States Navy. I was inspired to join by my best friend Doris, but when she had decided to join the Navy, I was the one trying to talk her out of it. One evening, she had a meeting for “new sailors” and we had previously made plans to hang out that night, so I went along with her. I received a lot of information at the meeting and became interested in joining the Navy, but I told the recruiter, Chief Diaz, I would join only if I could go along with Doris. Chief Diaz told me I had a lot of catching up to do: Doris had been preparing for a month and was leaving in a week, but Chief Diaz assured me I would be ready if I woke up early every morning the following week to undergo the necessary preparations. Chief Diaz told me Doris and I could go under the “buddy system,” a program allowing friends to be in the same company during boot camp and be stationed together at their first duty station. Every day that week, I woke up at 3:00am, and Chief Diaz drove me to the Military Entrance Processing Center (MEPS). MEPS is a facility where newly recruited individuals take their ASVAB test (a test similar to the SAT containing math and english questions), complete a physical, and undergo background screenings prior to joining the military. Upon completion of the required evaluations, I was sworn in and notified that I would be able to leave with my best friend the following day! That evening Chief Diaz arrived to transport Doris and me to John F. Kennedy Airport. At the airport, we saw others who were going to boot camp. When the plane took off everyone was trying to get some sleep, but we were too anxious and excited to rest. We arrived at the Orlando, Florida airport, and the smokers were running over the passengers trying to get outside to smoke as many cigarettes as fast as they could: it would be eight weeks before a cigarette would touch their lips again! A few more groups of new recruits joined us, and we were all sitting in the terminal looking at each other with confused looks: we didn’t know what we were supposed to do. When a large, white United States Navy bus pulled up, we said to each other, “This is it.” After driving for about thirty minutes, we saw the boot camp facility ahead of us. Company commanders were lined up like they were going to pounce on us as soon as we stepped off the bus. The bus stopped, and a really nice guy got on and said, “Welcome to the Naval Training Center (NTC) in Orlando, Florida. I’d like everyone to get off the bus and line up.” For the next eight weeks, we would not hear anything polite come out of anybody’s mouth. Doris grabbed my hand, squeezed it, and we gave each other a hug before standing up. This was our way of assuring each other that everything was going to be okay.
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