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Echo War Eagle


ChrisL

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2 hours ago, jsharr said:

hoorah!  I know I am probably not allowed to type that.  Watched an online grad ceremony for a friends son you just completed basic and earned the title of airman today.  Their yells sounded bad ass.

The vets know what it’s like but the sound of hundreds of soldiers in formation qued up for mess hall is amazing. They would feed one company in about 15-20 minutes m. One company is filing in while another company is marking time outside & calling a cadence.  As the outgoing company is forming up outside they start sounding off. 

About 600 soldiers sounding off around one building is a sound hard to describe in words.  Add in the smell of the mess hall food on a cool fall morning... I wish I could time warp & record it for you. 

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6 hours ago, ChrisL said:

The vets know what it’s like but the sound of hundreds of soldiers in formation qued up for mess hall is amazing. They would feed one company in about 15-20 minutes m. One company is filing in while another company is marking time outside & calling a cadence.  As the outgoing company is forming up outside they start sounding off. 

About 600 soldiers sounding off around one building is a sound hard to describe in words.  Add in the smell of the mess hall food on a cool fall morning... I wish I could time warp & record it for you. 

I went to Navy boot camp in the middle of winter in Great Lakes located in between Chicago and Milwaukee.  We did a similar thing, standing organized in a line outside the mess hall in temperatures and wind chills below 0.  To keep from freezing, the lines were compressed tightly so each sailor was warmed by those behind and in front.  Instead of a fond memory of the smell of food on a cool fall morning I remember the screaming of drill instructors "Nuts to buts sailors, nuts to buts."  Couple that with being the only country mouse in a boot company of New York City residents and you can understand that I have few good memories of boot camp.........other than the one about being the only person I know to have ever broken into boot camp by going over the wire, but that's another story.

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3 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

I went to Navy boot camp in the middle of winter in Great Lakes located in between Chicago and Milwaukee.  We did a similar thing, standing organized in a line outside the mess hall in temperatures and wind chills below 0.  To keep from freezing, the lines were compressed tightly so each sailor was warmed by those behind and in front.  Instead of a fond memory of the smell of food on a cool fall morning I remember the screaming of drill instructors "Nuts to buts sailors, nuts to buts."  Couple that with being the only country mouse in a boot company of New York City residents and you can understand that I have few good memories of boot camp.........other than the one about being the only person I know to have ever broken into boot camp by going over the wire, but that's another story.

My boot camp is a mixed bag of experiences.  I have always said Full Metal Jacket was really close to my boot camp experience. Except R Lee Ermy combined my three Drill Sergeants into one character. 

There were a lot of suckage and some things I recall fondly. 

 

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“3723 BMTS!”  Never forget that shout. Or, when in the chow hall, someone dropped a glass, and every airman synchronously yelled, “Gravity check, ah oooo!”

Basic training was a mixed bag. Good memories, crappy memories. 

Tech school was different.  At Sheppard AFB, we’d march as flights from the dorms to the school, which was on the flight line. We’d get there just before dawn. The runway was lined up with the sillouettes of B-52s some of which were running. The early morning coolness, the smell of aircraft fuel, the sounds of the aircraft running - all took me to a different place in time. It’s with me still. 

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30 minutes ago, Zealot said:

“3723 BMTS!”  Never forget that shout. Or, when in the chow hall, someone dropped a glass, and every airman synchronously yelled, “Gravity check, ah oooo!”

Basic training was a mixed bag. Good memories, crappy memories. 

Tech school was different.  At Sheppard AFB, we’d march as flights from the dorms to the school, which was on the flight line. We’d get there just before dawn. The runway was lined up with the sillouettes of B-52s some of which were running. The early morning coolness, the smell of aircraft fuel, the sounds of the aircraft running - all took me to a different place in time. It’s with me still. 

I'm afraid that sailors in Fleet Sonar School in Key West were much less formal than that, especially those pegged for submarine service.  We would sort of amble down to the school buildings from the barracks, arriving just in time to not be late.  Near the end of my second year there when Bupers became sort of confused as to my future with the Navy I served as an instructor there.  I was the guy who came in at 5am for an 8am school start to fire up the training systems and get everything ready.  That would also turn into some late evenings of repair work.  The best part though was that my chief recognized that work load and gave me every Friday off so I could have a 3 day weekend in Miami with the Mt. Sanai nurses.

The yin and the yang.  :party:

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1 hour ago, maddmaxx said:

I'm afraid that sailors in Fleet Sonar School in Key West were much less formal than that, especially those pegged for submarine service.  We would sort of amble down to the school buildings from the barracks, arriving just in time to not be late.  Near the end of my second year there when Bupers became sort of confused as to my future with the Navy I served as an instructor there.  I was the guy who came in at 5am for an 8am school start to fire up the training systems and get everything ready.  That would also turn into some late evenings of repair work.  The best part though was that my chief recognized that work load and gave me every Friday off so I could have a 3 day weekend in Miami with the Mt. Sanai nurses.

The yin and the yang.  :party:

MP’s went through OSUT or one station unit training. Essentially 16 weeks of boot camp as the subject matter changed for AIT but the Drill Sergeants stayed...

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18 minutes ago, ChrisL said:

MP’s went through OSUT or one station unit training. Essentially 16 weeks of boot camp as the subject matter changed for AIT but the Drill Sergeants stayed...

Fortunately my boot camp and my school were separated by a wide gulf of attitude in addition to climate.

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2 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

Fortunately my boot camp and my school were separated by a wide gulf of attitude in addition to climate.

My basic was in San Antonio, TX and my tech school was in Wichita Falls, TX. Climate wand geography weren’t that far apart. And we had ‘phases’ in tech school that were designed to ‘re-acclimate’ recruits to a certain amount of freedom over a course of time.  The first several weeks of school were very similar to basic training.

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4 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

I'm afraid that sailors in Fleet Sonar School in Key West were much less formal than that, especially those pegged for submarine service.  We would sort of amble down to the school buildings from the barracks, arriving just in time to not be late.  Near the end of my second year there when Bupers became sort of confused as to my future with the Navy I served as an instructor there.  I was the guy who came in at 5am for an 8am school start to fire up the training systems and get everything ready.  That would also turn into some late evenings of repair work.  The best part though was that my chief recognized that work load and gave me every Friday off so I could have a 3 day weekend in Miami with the Mt. Sanai nurses.

The yin and the yang.  :party:

“Bupers”?

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55 minutes ago, Zealot said:

“Bupers”?

Bureau of personnel. After spending all that time and money on my sonar and electronics school the Navy attempted to send me to Purdue as an enlisted sailor to graduate as an engineering officer.  The doctor proved to be the stumbling block as he declared me to be legally blind without my glasses and not fit to be an officer or a gentleman.  In fact he declared me unfit for military service.  What would have been the golden ticket out of the draft for some pissed me off and I chose to fight it as did the commanding officer of Fleet Sonar School who pushed the Navy with the idea that they really didn't want to lose me.  This conflict in the rules vs common sense resulted in about a 6 month period during which I was sort of in limbo, graduated from school but not assigned to a duty station. FSS chose to use me as an instructor since I was still their property until told otherwise.

 

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3 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

Bureau of personnel. After spending all that time and money on my sonar and electronics school the Navy attempted to send my to Purdue as an enlisted sailor to graduate as an engineering officer.  The doctor proved to be the stumbling block as he declared me to be legally blind without my glasses and not fit to be an officer or a gentleman.  In fact he declared me unfit for military service.  What would have been the golden ticket out of the draft pissed me off and I chose to fight it as did the commanding officer of Fleet Sonar School who pushed the Navy with the idea that they really didn't want to lose me.  This conflict in the rules vs common sense resulted in about a 6 month period during which I was sort of in limbo, graduated from school but not assigned to a duty station. FSS chose to use me as an instructor since I was still their property until told otherwise.

 

How did it conclude?

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8 minutes ago, Zealot said:

How did it conclude?

Because the school I attended got me a secret clearance near god level I ended up working basically for a submarine squadron in Norfolk VA but actually seconded to some folks named Smith and Jones with whom I installed various bits of equipment that didn't exist on submarines that were not going anywhere in particular on missions that no one would talk about.  During my second enlistment I spent more time working for Smith and Jones on acoustic sensor systems and less time working on submarines even though the submarine squadron still carried me on the payroll. In the end I got much closer to combat than the Navy ever intended....or I suspect knew about.

 

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38 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

Because the school I attended got me a secret clearance near god level I ended up working basically for a submarine squadron in Norfolk VA but actually seconded to some folks named Smith and Jones with whom I installed various bits of equipment that didn't exist on submarines that were not going anywhere in particular on missions that no one would talk about.  During my second enlistment I spent more time working for Smith and Jones on acoustic sensor systems and less time working on submarines even though the submarine squadron still carried me on the payroll. In the end I got much closer to combat than the Navy ever intended....or I suspect knew about.

 

That’s interesting.

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27 minutes ago, Zealot said:

That’s interesting.

It was very interesting.  However with the end of the war in sight the rules began to tighten again and I was back to being the guy that was 4f by the rules and less valuable for my skill set. I had a house in VA Beach and sort of a life outside the Navy where I got to play with my race cars. I had been injured and spent the better part of the last year of my enlistment back working for the submarine squadron as a special weapons guard as Fast Attack squadrons at the time did not have Marine detachments to provide that task.  The marines were only assigned to Boomer squadrons (Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarines)  We were trained to handle firearms but not trained for any meaningful combat.

With the handwriting on the wall I opted to end my service after the second enlistment.  Sometimes I'm sad I did and others I'm very glad.  I had a run of "outside" the system and I'm not sure I could have done another 20 into the 90's with the new navy.

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