about to ship

[cave_dog42]

I am shipping to boot camp in a week and a half and I was just wondering if anyone had any last minute advise for me before I ship. I also wanted to thank all of you for taking the time to share your knowledge about the nuclear navy with everyone and I hope to continue to utilize this website when i am actually in the nuclear training pipeline.

[Rad Sponge]

 There are numerous threads posted by many senior nukes on this board for you to read and gain perspective into what you are volunteering to do. However, I'll give you my 2.00 cents worth:

a. Attitude is more important than aptitude. Keep a positive attitude and professional appearance and everything else will be easier to handle.

b. Stay away from the negative people. Misery loves company and there is nothing a bad attitude likes more than another bad attitude to share time with.

c. This may receive mixed reactions but I attribute my success in the pipeline to totally dedicating myself to the training. I did not drink, chase women, party excessively, or get myself into risky situations. I pretty much had a socially boring experience but it formed the foundation of a very successful career. I had one or two close friends and we would hike/bike/run/movies for entertainment. Ten years later we are still best friends and had equally successful Navy Nuke experiences.

d. Get all weekend assignments done Friday night. That way its out of the way and you have the whole weekend to relax and do something fun. You still may have to come in on Sunday for required study hours but you can focus on studying and not assignments.

e. Get as much homework done during the day. Utilize breaks, study periods, and lunch to get a jump on your homework. You'd be surprised how much you can get done that way.

f. After your last class go veg for an hour/work out/something.

g. Don't take it personally and don't buck the system.

Remember what i was told way back when before Class 9631-B Machinist Mate started, when I was you:

"THIS TOO, WILL PASS"

Good luck

MM1(SS) Rad Sponge

[Fermi2]

Good luck, I'm sure you'll enjoy it, years from now you'll look back and realize how much you really enjoyed the pipeline.

Just remember, the endpoint makes everything you went through more than worth it.

PLUS, the people, both Navy and Commercial are fantastic. I can't imagine being associated with a better group of people than when I was in the Navy, at Fermi2 and now at Sequoyah. Nukes are just plain fine folk!

Mike

[irmechanek]

keep an open mind. no one WANTS to learn how to iron, but it will happen. prepare to work out quite often. Try and know your 11 general orders.. whatever you don't know, don't worry, it will be beat into you. you will know it.

[hamsamich]

if you want a good life in boot, try to get: yeoman.   if you can't get yeoman, try to get on the choir unless you like to drill and probably work in the galley during workweek. which sucks. choir is one of the only places you get to hang out with babes unsupervised except for maybe during workweek.  but you are on choir the whole time, so you get chicks on a daily basis.  don't try to be on things too hard though, they may just not give it to you because you are TOO eager. also, our RCPO hated being the RCPO, so you may want to watch out for that.  if they allow you to, when you go on liberty with the boys, try to get some pics with a digi camera.  I wish I had some pics of my old boot camp boys.  I don't know if boot is still like it was back in 88, but just a couple ideas.  jim

[Already Gone]

keep an open mind. no one WANTS to learn how to iron, but it will happen. prepare to work out quite often. Try and know your 11 general orders.. whatever you don't know, don't worry, it will be beat into you. you will know it.

We only ironed the stuff that was on the shelf during inspections.  There was a minimum required number for shirts, pants, skivvies... etc. that had to be on the shelf at any given time.  We ironed the folds into those (including underwear) and never took them off the shelf.  Everything else went into the laundry the morning of the inspection.  That way we only ever ironed that stuff once for the whole time of boot camp.  The only other ironing we did was for a personnel inspection.  Although that was not required,it did get you ahead if your pants had a crease.  Military creases in shirts were a big plus.

Shining shoes was the most important part of inspection.  The procedure is easy: 1-spread polish on thick with your hands (the heat of hands makes the polish flow into the creases and cracks better)  2.-use a brush to spread polish around edge of soles and in the space between the leather and rubber. 3.-sprinkle with water  4.-buff with an old towel or soft rag.  5. Wipe excess polish from crevices and soles. 6.-repeat over and over until you can see the ceiling lights reflected in the shoes while wearing them.

[irmechanek]

if you want a good life in boot, try to get: yeoman.   if you can't get yeoman, try to get on the choir unless you like to drill and probably work in the galley during workweek. which sucks. choir is one of the only places you get to hang out with babes unsupervised except for maybe during workweek.  but you are on choir the whole time, so you get chicks on a daily basis.  don't try to be on things too hard though, they may just not give it to you because you are TOO eager. also, our RCPO hated being the RCPO, so you may want to watch out for that.  if they allow you to, when you go on liberty with the boys, try to get some pics with a digi camera.  I wish I had some pics of my old boot camp boys.  I don't know if boot is still like it was back in 88, but just a couple ideas.  jim

work in the galleys? we don't do that anymore. thank god.

[irmechanek]

don't know when you went through boot camp, but we ironed about 5 times a week. This was in feb-apr

[cincinnatinuke]

Then who works the Galley's?  Also heard rumors that new recruits slept until 6am?  And got to wear tennis shoes when they marched?  I hate wondering about this stuff since I sound now like the old crusties that always pointed out "When I was in the Navy............"

[cave_dog42]

well i made it through. boot camp was a breeze except for being around some peoploe that couldnt get their stuff straight and dragged down the rest of the division with them. it is true we got to sleep from 2200 until 0600. we never marched in tennis shoes though, always boots.if anyone has any other questions about boot let me know.

[taterhead]

well i made it through. boot camp was a breeze except for being around some peoploe that couldnt get their stuff straight and dragged down the rest of the division with them. it is true we got to sleep from 2200 until 0600. we never marched in tennis shoes though, always boots.if anyone has any other questions about boot let me know.

Congrats.  This is the first of several milestones for you!  Well Done!

As far as "being around some people that couldnt get their stuff straight and dragged down the rest of the division", get used to this.  There will always be those people.  Just don't be one of them.

Sleeping til 0600?  Hell, I haven't slept that late yet in the fleet...

[hamsamich]

I'd like to hear more about the whole thing if you don't mind.  I went in 88 and I wonder how it's changed?  Like is there a work week anymore, or did anyone get punched?  I don't even know where boot camp is nowadays.  I went in Orlando.  Tell us some stories.

[cave_dog42]

there is no more service week any more, they thought that they could do more training with the extra week, they didnt though. for us boot was a lot of sitting around and folding skivvies. we had pt about 4 days a week and it wasnt intense at all, the most we ever ran was 2 miles. in my opinion boot camp was way to easy. all the galleys are now in the ships so there is no marching to chow. battle stations was my favorite part, except for the extreme exaustion the day after, i fell a sleep in our RDC's office, luckily he was cool and didnt care. the only boot camp open is great mistakes...i mean great lakes.

[blackwater]

hey cavedog, what rate did you end up getting...i'll be leaving power school in a couple of weeks..so let me know if you have any questions about the pipeline.

[cave_dog42]

im an  EM. in week 5, we should have our green dot but our class is a bunch of screw ups so maybe we'll get them this friday.

[sometoasteroven]

i hope you liked chicago, and i heard many of the same things about RTC while i was at Ogilive Trans Center in Chicago over the weekend (many many recent RTC grads were hopping around). Talked to a whole bunch of them, i was an easy target while waiting for the train, a copy of big red and blind mans bluff on the table and my navy hat... that and i had three hours and felt like calling on the kids asking them stuff about how it was, how is it... the like...

anyways...