You will get off at O'Hare in Chicago. From there you go the USO office and wait for a representative of RTC to arrange for you to get on the bus to boot camp. When you get on the bus to boot, it is approximately a 40 minute drive to RTC and during the commute you will be shown a video about boot camp. When you arrive at RTC, you are instructed to get off of the bus, and if you were lucky like I was, nobody was waiting to yell at us. We literally were instructed to get off of the bus and go inside. Most people had a few RDCs ready to yell at them, so you may not be as fortunate as our group. You will go inside, be instructed to throw away a lot of items like gum, garbage, so on and so forth. Next, or eventually I should say, you will perform a urinalysis.
After that, you go to Ditty Bag issue where you receive your sea bag and most items that pertain to your hygiene. You will NOT be given Q-tips or their generic equivalent, and you will NOT be allowed to buy them while at boot camp. Your ears WILL get disgusting, so try your best to keep them clean from day 1. You will be given the options to donate your civilian clothes and other items to charity, or to send them home. When Ditty Bag issue is all said and done, and clothing/unallowable items shipped home, you will be looking at a fee of roughly $600. By the way, do not talk during this time, or pretty much any other time during boot unless you have a question or are instructed to talk, or are allowed to talk. You will save YOURSELF a lot of problems.
Eventually during the next day (no sleep) you will receive your hair cuts, stand facing a bulkhead (wall) with your Recruit Training guide open "studying" for test 1. You will not sleep for almost 2 days, and your patience with fellow recruits will be limited. Try not to be the guy who complains about the crappy situations all the time. It gets old. As far as job distribution amongst the division goes, you may volunteer for most positions, but there is the possibility that you will be voluntold to perform one of these tasks. Here is a list with the most scrutinized positions within the division:
Master at Arms: In charge of keeping the division quiet. Typically yell A LOT, and may even get in trouble for not yelling enough. Ours got in trouble once for not yelling enough. He yelled more after that. Also in charge of keeping deadlines, such as, recruits have 15 minutes to hygiene, get on the toe line, etc.
STARBOARD WATCH= I slept next to him. This is probably the worst job within the division. He is in charge of keeping the deck logs on spot. While at RTC, you will stand watches, which means typically about 2.5-4 hours of your time will be utilized keeping watch, saluting all individuals above the rank of E-3 whilst sounding off a phrase, possibly phrases, and logging things that take place within the division, like division departed for chow, head off spot do to such and such, so on and so forth. Items entered into the deck log have to be perfect, i.e., periods, recruit handwriting, correctly crossing out mistakes, etc. STARBOARD WATCH typically gets in trouble for this, at all times of the day or night mind you. He or she is woken up constantly, ITE'd (intensive training exercises), which are typically 8 count body builders, mountain climbers, the works. He/she will be very tired the first few weeks of boot, and probably cry more than once. But, when STARBOARD WATCH gets sick of people messing up the deck log and realizes he/she writes the watch bill, said people will be standing the worst watches all the time, possibly. This may not mean much now, but on Holiday Routine (Sundays) when you need your time to get your uniforms up to standards and or want to write letters, you might be spending 4 hours of the 6 allocated for such things standing watch. Don't frustrate STARBOARD WATCH.
RCPO= Is actually pronounce arpock, but the acronym is Recruit Chief Petty Officer. This person is in charge of the movement of the division while it is marching, and is pretty much the most scrutinized recruit. A lot of pressure is put on them because they have a lot of things to learn, and if they don't, they either get replaced or just yelled at a lot, possibly ITE'd. Not as much as STARBOARD WATCH though.
AROC= Don't know if the acronym is even in the correct arrangement, but it is pronounced like ayerock. This person is in charge of singing cadence. A good AROC is amazing. About 3 times at boot did I hear AROC's that were just beautiful to listen to. They either had great voices, creativity, sometimes both, but when you hear these people do cadence, you may get out of step listening to them because you probably wont be paying attention to your cadence. This person is scrutinized quite a bit as well, roughly the equivalent of the RCPO.
Section leaders= All of the aforementioned positions might fall under this clause, but for the most part section leaders exist for all primary duties to keep the division functional, whether it be for laundry, cleanliness of compartment, head (bathroom), mail, all of that.
Yeoman= Call muster and keep track of hard cards. A hard card is something that is documented when successfully/unsuccessfully complete an evolution or when a good or bad deed has been incurred by an individual. Yeoman need to be responsible not just for the materials they physically carry around them in a pouch, but because they are also in charge of getting people to appointments and things of that sort. Secretary, pretty much.
First literal week is known as P-days (processing days) and can last for up to 2 weeks, but is usually 1. During this time you will not be physically punished because they are waiting to see if you are medically cleared to be Fit for Full Duty (FFD) or commonly just called Fit for Full. Once you are fit for full, you will be punished physically. I think our first official week on a Saturday we were ITE'd for about 2.5 hours. The ground will become very slick with sweat, so be careful doing the exercises lest you become injured. Words to fear the most at boot camp will be ITE, ASMO, and female. ITE, potential to get hurt during this. ASMO, you get sent back in training usually a minimum of 2 weeks. Female, for males, do not touch them, do not really talk to them. If your name and a female's name are mentioned in the same sentence, you are probably in deep trouble. ASMO trouble more than likely.
Usually around week 3 or 4 your division will start to perform well together. Do not be the person/people who always feel they have an inspirational Band of Brothers moment to give to the division, because you are not at boot to love the people you are with. You are there to make it through and get on to the respective occupation you chose within the Navy. Get along with them and make things easier for the division. If you do make friends within the division, good on you. But the hardest thing in boot camp is putting up with the recruits within your division. All of them are "tough", all will talk crap, and most will get you in trouble if you give them the fuel to do so, i.e. cuss at them or do not do something correctly. You will get ratted out by people when the division is threatened with ITE.Even if someone thinks they saw you do something, they will rat you out. Don't be the rat.
Weeks 3 and 4 things become interesting. You will learn in week 3 about basic line handling and seamanship, week 4 you will shoot the m9 9 millimeter pistol and Mossberg 12 gauge shotgun. Week 5 is the gas chamber. Do not be the person/people who act like they are dying when they haven't even removed the mask. Laugh at the people who end up with spiderwebs between their fingers from the mucus that has secreted from their nostrils and mouth.
Week 6 will be Damage Control and Fire Fighting. PAY attention in these classes. This is some of the most important information you will receive at boot. If you feel tired during these classes, stand up. If people around you start to nod off, tell them to stand up. If you fall asleep in some classes, you may get kicked out of them, and some of these classes are MANDATORY. If you miss MANDATORY classes/events, you WILL get ASMO'd.
Battle stations is usually week 7. All I will say about Battle Stations is that you had better pay attention during Damage Control and Fire Fighting, and to remember that EVERYBODY is tired as well.
You will have a graduation rehearsal, then graduation the following day, possibly liberty after. If you are going to the base located right next to RTC, you will have an hour of liberty AT RTC before going to that base. When you get to that base, you will usually receive more liberty. You may be flying out to Pensacola the day after graduation. For nukes, we flew out 2 days after graduation.
HELPFUL HINTS= Do not talk in the P-ways or the galley. Our RCPO was caught talking by another RDC in like week 3. We didn't think he would get in trouble because boot was almost halfway over, but he was removed from this position and other recruits tried out to replace him, and 1 did.
Study for your tests, don't just look at your manual. I just looked at my manual most of the time, still passed, but on test 3 I earned a 3.21 on the final test. 3.2 is failing. A lot of the people you think are "dumb" will outscore you if you do not study. Plenty of "dumb" kids did VERY well on those tests.
Mind your own business, and try to avoid forming large groups.
Be able to pass the PFA before going to boot camp.
KNOW YOUR GENERAL ORDERS, CHAIN OF COMMAND, RANK AND RECOGNITION, AND SAILOR'S CREED PRIOR TO BOOT CAMP.
Good luck,
FN BOROTA
