It was way after midnight. My first official day in the Navy. The bus that had met us at the airport (the sailor at the airport who met our group had been downright rude - calling us "fucksticks," "limpdicks," "needledicks, "pricks" and other greetings with penis-like meanings) had pulled on to the base and dropped us off at the some cement bunker filled with metal folding chairs. We sat silently facing a wood box with a big slit in the top. An officer strutted in, "All right you assholes, I've got the fucking duty tonight and I want to get some sack time. I've had a long fucking day and I'm not in the mood to fuck around with you pansy little pricks so let's get this goddamn shitting show on the road. If any of you cocksuckers have in your possession any liquor, drugs or narcotics that are not prescribed, guns, knives, pictures of your girlfriend's pussy, pictures of your mother's pussy, pictures of your boyfriend's cock, fuck books, or in other words anything you don't want us to find, you now have the chance to discard these items. If you have any of said items or anything else the Navy decides you can't have you will march your sorry fucking ass to the front of the room and drop it in the hole in the top of the box. This is your one and only motherfucking chance to come clean. If any one of you bastards are caught with these items after the next five minutes are over your ass will be swinging in the breeze. You will be sent to the brig where Marines with huge dicks will bend you over and fuck you in the ass. Is that understood?
Goddamn it! Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir!" We all screamed out.
About half the room scurried to the front to drop some sort of contraband into the box. I didn't have anything to worry about since I had been robbed by the beautiful prostitute less than a day earlier. The guy sitting next to me had pulled out about a half a dozen Trojan brand rubbers (?), a half pint of Jack Daniel's, a Playboy, and a Penthouse, out of his gym bag. As he was dropping his swag into the box the officer caught him nervously looking at him.
"What are you eyeballing you fucking geek?" He shrieked in rage.
"Nothing, Sir!"
"Nothing my rosy red asshole! Drop and give me twenty pushups you ignorant fucking maggot!"
The recruit finished his twenty (done poorly) pushups and charged back down the aisle, propelled by a kick in the ass by the officer. "Move, motherfucker!"
"Jesus Christ!" He whispered as he sat down and rubbed the sore cheek of his ass. "That guy is wearing a cross on his collar. He's a goddamn chaplain!"
***
I've only been in the Navy for a matter of hours and it already sucks the big one. Sleep is granted to us around two that morning. I can hear people crying softly into their pillows. Less than three hours later we are marched into the chow hall for our first meal in the military. We had been woken rudely by two assholes who had charged into the barracks and had hurled empty fifty gallon garbage cans across the floor. The place is starting to take on a sort of prison atmosphere as fellow recruits in the chow hall whistle at our long hair as if they plan on cornering us in the showers and taking our anal cherries from us later on. These sons of bitches have only been in the Navy slightly weeks longer than us and already they think that they are wise beyond their years.
Breakfast, which had consisted of some runny eggs and some gruel that was billed as oatmeal, ends for me early when a guy sitting across from me barfs all over his tray. Our table had already been warned by a sailor wandering up on down the aisles to keep our "pie-holes fucking shut" or we'd find our asses out on the loading dock "pearl diving." Pearl diving we quickly learn is the practice of taking one's dog tags and throwing them in a 50 gallon slop barrel full of wet table scraps and then having to retrieve them. I consider asking the sailor who warned us how we could pearl dive if we hadn't even been issued our dog tags yet but decide to be prudent and keep my yap shut.
After chow our heads our shaven right down to the bone. We look like we belong in Auschwitz. The barbers think they're fucking comedians and leave our sideburns on for comedic affect.
Stripped to our underwear, we are issued a full sea bag and then we are marched over to stencil all our clothes. We will soon learn that the Navy is a den of thieves and if you as much as catch a case of the flu and shit in your pants and crawl into the bathroom (called the "head" in the Navy) leaving your stained underwear on the floor, within minutes someone will rip them off. And probably put them right on and wear them for the next week! So everything must be stenciled with your name.
THE MEANEST MOTHERFUCKER IN THE WORLD (IF NOT THE NAVY) was the son of a bitch who was in charge of us stenciling our clothes in boot camp. Anyway, here I am in my first day of boot camp, guts already churning like a dog trying to shit a peach-pit, and this scary asshole comes tearing in and starts screaming and ranting and raving about what a bunch of scrotum heads we are and how if we fuck up our clothes he's going to hold us personally responsible and have our sorry asses court martialed! Hell, I didn't even know what a court martial was. Right away I screwed up stenciling a t-shirt and this dude, I think he was a first class petty officer, took one of these big brushes we were using to stencil with, gets a bunch of this India ink on it, and jams it right in my motherfucking mouth. I had black teeth and lips for the next four weeks. It takes a long goddamn time to stencil all of those clothes since they give you a whole sea bag full of them and I was shaking the whole goddamn time and I about puked from that ink.
The Navy had the biggest fucking swimming pool in San Diego that I had ever seen. They see if you can swim by throwing you in the pool for about ten minutes and then wait and watch to see if you'll drown. These guys walk around the pool and shove you away from the sides with these long cane poles. Some recruit shouted out "Hey Chief! How long do we have to do this fucking dog paddling?" and was rewarded by catching one of those poles that was thrown spear-like across the water, right in the middle of his goddamn forehead. Now one recruit, me, walks around with India inked stained teeth while another has a big red dot in the middle of his forehead. Several fellows almost drown and are immediately sent to some kind of swimming school Hell which they must complete successfully before actually starting boot camp.
Our company is christened #149 and we meet our company commander - Boatswain's Mate Chief Johnson, a short, burly black man, and a world class jack-off. He’s also a fucking thief. He immediately confiscates everybody’s cigarettes and informs us that only two cartons of cigarettes are allowed in the barracks at one time. One carton of menthol, the other regular. He proceeds to collect two bucks a week from close to fifty people for cigarette money, yet we don’t get to smoke but a day or two a week and only one cigarette per person at that. This goes on for the entire nine weeks of boot camp. The dirty son of a bitch is making a small fortune off of us but since we are held captive we are basically helpless.
I take my first shower in the Navy - the comparisons to prison life are becoming frightening realistic. My brother has told me about friends of his who have done time at the reformatory in St.
Cloud, Minnesota, and how blacks love to rape skinny white boys in the shower. Obviously this doesn’t happen much in military boot camp and I’m goddamn relieved about that fact. One black dude in our company by the name of Bolds has a hunk of pipe that damn near hangs to his knees. If he got a hard-on while taking a shower there wouldn't be room enough in the shower for all of us.
While in high school I had blown a knee out while running from the cops after a pot sale had gone down the shitter and later had surgery to remove the torn cartilage. This old injury flares up again in boot camp from all the marching and running and at sick call they give me a jumbo jar of Darvon. They hand the shit out like candy. It’s my first excursion into the world of prescription drug abuse as my bunk mate and I begin to gobble down three or four a night. Grissom, a big old fat boy from Texas, is getting loaded the old fashioned way, with illegal recreational drugs. His girlfriend mails him hits of acid by hiding them behind the stamp on his letters. He tells me that tripping while in boot camp is “fucking awesome, pilgrim.” It appears that Grissom has watched quite a few John Wayne movies.
About halfway through our training people are starting to feel the stress and the tension of military life. There is talk of giving blanket parties to the company fuckups and several are then carried out. A blanket is throw tight over the unsuspecting recruit and then he is pounded in the body with fists and bars of soap shoved in socks. Chief Johnson appears to sanction this behavior, especially when it’s done against the white guys in the company. All of us from Minnesota agree that if one of us is singled out that we will all respond to that person’s dilemma and beat the shit out his attackers. Joe, a lad from St. Paul, has irritated several people because he has pissed the bed several times but nothing happens after it is realized that we Minnesotans have formed a posse.
There is a rumor going around that we are being dosed with saltpeter - which is a chemical that supposedly keeps a man from achieving a good stiff woody - in our food. I suspect this isn’t really true but I then realize that I haven’t been being experiencing morning wood or any kind of wood for that matter. I don’t masturbate even once while in boot camp and I was a twice a day guy - sometimes three - back home. I suspect something is rotten in Denmark.
Close to graduation, Chief Johnson tells us that he is going to break the rules and bring in pizzas for the company. He’s only going to charge us five bucks a head so with eighty recruits in the company he walks out of the barracks with close to four hundred bucks. Days later when the food arrives, there are only twenty five pizzas and most of them are cheese only. Chief Johnson is obviously building up quite a retirement nest egg at our expense.
There is talk and fear of a snitch in the company. It seems like when anyone is stupid enough to bitch about Johnson in public, he is quickly singled out later for a “marching party.” A “marching party” is a invitation that you can't turn down to an event where you are forced to don a rain coat and are then forced to exercise for one to two hours straight until you drop, puke, shit your pants, or pass out. Which ever comes first.
It’s three days before graduation. I wake up around one in the morning and get up to take a leak. Again I’m eighteen years and I don’t have a piss hard-on. Strange! Anyway, I pad down the aisles of bunks to the head, take my leak, and then notice something out of sorts when I walk out the door of the head. There is always a assigned night fire watch for the barracks and they almost always approach you when you get out of your bunk. Usually not because they are taking their job seriously but they are fucking bored beyond belief and just want to chat. I see a light streaming out the partially opened door of Chief Johnson and when I step off to the side to peek in what I see almost makes my legs give out from under me. Johnson is leaning back in his chair and his pants are about a quarter of the way down. On his knees in front of him is a recruit named Murphy. Murphy is the company yeoman, he handles the office paperwork, and he is also the fire watch that evening. By my angle I can’t be sure but it looks almost 100 percent that Murphy is blowing Johnson. I sneak back to bed and never tell a soul.
At lunch the next day, Cooney, who is the recruit chaplain, (his job consists of giving the evening prayer before lights out - “Shut the fuck up for evening prayer” becomes his standard line) tells me that he thinks Murphy is the company snitch.
Cooney has told Murphy to fuck himself on several occasions and was always awarded with a marching party and if he has his way he’s going to track Murphy down after boot camp and beat the shit out of him. I almost tell Cooney what I think I saw the night before but decide to keep my hole shut.
Our orders are in. I’ve been assigned to the CINCPACFLT headquarters building in Pearl Harbor. I'm happy as a son of a bitch. I luck out in that I don't get assigned to a ship out of boot camp, a major coup, and Hawaii is suppose to be crawling with hot babes and kickass marijuana.
The night before we graduate and ship out everybody is busy packing their sea bags. I look up and find Chief Johnson standing by my bunk. He's got this weird look on his face and it's the first time I've noticed that he has eyes like a fucking snake. Predator eyes. He gazes around the squad bay and steps closer to me. His voice is a whisper, "I know you were there. Watching me. Weren't you? You sneaky little bastard. You ever say as much as a word to anyone, I swear to baby Jesus I'll have you fucking killed. I've been in the Navy a long goddamn time and I know a lot of people who can hurt you." He winks, slaps me on the shoulder, and walks away. "Have fun in Hawaii. Lots of hot beaver over there," he throws over his shoulder.