Back to School!

With our up and coming PCS to Misawa Japan, I had to go back to school for another Navy Enlisted Classification (NEC) other forces call this their MOS. I checked into school Monday morning bright and early feeling like the new kid starting a new school. After all of the BS of waiting in line, boring indoc, and waiting in more lines.. I was told to go home and get my Dress Whites ready for a uniform inspection.. WHAT.. I've been TAD all of 6 hours and you spring a uniform inspection on me.. I knew what they expected me to say "My uniform isn't ready yet" or the popular excuse "Oh man, my uniform is at the dry cleaners". But I calmly said "OK, what time should I be here?"  To be honest my uniform was mostly ready, except for my ribbons, I normally update my ribbon bar every time I transfer to a new command and I always hold out getting my medal mounted until they are needed.. $80+ each time to get this done, but can be much more depending on the medal type and company doing it. So that was day 1 down, military hooyaa wins.

Day 2.. So I get there early as I always do when I check into a new command, and I seem to be the only one in my dress whites. I assume that everyone else hand carried theirs in and will dress after muster. Nope.. When we formed up there was 3 instructors in their whites and the rest were students. After we changed uniforms I went to class and was told that there wasn't a qualified instructor available for this course yet, but he will be back from leave on Wednesday. Don't mis-understand me, I'm not complaining I'm just telling a story. Because there wasn't an instructor available I was told to just go home and come in for PT Wednesday morning.. this was 9am.. So I did.. I had the best nap ever.

Day 3.. PT day.. I'll be the first to admit that I am not the most physically fit guy around, and I could use a bit of the old strenuous activity. PT was actually hard for me, but it was the best PT session I've had in a long time. The unfortunate thing was the lack of participation. I believe I counted maybe 15 instructors, and maybe 8 of them actually did PT with us. Who knows where the rest of them went. The only reason  I mention this is because this is a command PT with students participating. I'm sure that there are many medical issues that I am not privy to, but funny is they don't really know my medical history either. We did alot of plyometric exercises and ran at the end only 1 1/2 miles though. See I have a documented condition known as  Plantar Fasciitis which in my case is an extreme swelling and pain on the bottom of my feet after high impact exercises. The Navy knows about it and has told me time and time again that this is normal and do some stretching exercises and ice down my feet in the AM, but every time I run or walk for any period of time I am in pain for weeks. Thus is the case right now, but I will continue on as I have always done in the past, deal with the pain and do my best to manage it. Anyway back on topic, after PT we were to show up for class at 0900 ready to start our training. well 9 turned into 0945-1000ish. We started a brief introduction and then went to chow from 1100-1300, apparently the instructors had a meeting today that couldn't be postponed until after class hours. So after a 2 hour lunch break, we came back and briefly started our first lesson, which only lasted for all of 30 minutes I think.  I am all for early days once in a while, but I am starting to feel like I'm just a job, a minor inconvenience that is in the way of something more important. I want to mention however that there is one E5 instructor that isn't even technically qualified to teach the material we're there for, but he has been trying to teach the junior personnel about the navy and Basic Military Requirements. From what I have seen the past 3 days I think that he has the drive and motivation to make a change for the better.

The reason I chose this as a topic to post is because this is what out junior sailors are getting as a first impression of the fleet. This situation so far reminds me of a US NAVY film called the FIRST 72 HOURS. It depicts a young sailor that is pushed aside by most of his command and is made to feel like he is a burden, so what happens? He attaches himself to the only one who doesn't make him feel that way.. another young sailor who is on a self destructive path. The new sailor sees and participates and quickly begins his downward spiral right out of the navy. I wanted to add this video to my blog but I was unable to find it anywhere on the Internet. ◦

Back to School!