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Locust Fork history lesson req: women in service

mrmike08075
Kasey,

I have as of late been witness to tales of the experience of women in the service through makailas coast guard vet coworker Amy

Her perspective and tales of dating while on active duty and party activity while on leave are new to me - and as I reflect on it I have not read much on the subject in fiction or consumed much of it through other media

Perhaps you can relate some stories witnessed or experienced when you were in the service from a young women's viewpoint now tempered by a lifetime of experiences

Or tell us about how you signed up and about basic training and deployments / duty stations

Perhaps you would entertain good spirited questions from the membership

We all like to follow your stories

Mike
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  • mrmike08075
    Bump - BTT

    Mike
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  • Locust Fork
    Welllllll......

    The Navy was my choice because both of my Grandfathers were in the Navy. My mother's father went in and was on the USS Enterprise for almost all of it's battles during WWII. My father's dad was stationed on Johnson's Island and was a welder. Neither of them really said much about being in the service, but I had seen pictures of them in uniform. My mother's dad was a steel worker after the war and my father's dad traded commodities along with starting several businesses over the years (the only one I knew of was a small steel company that my father worked at before he started his first gun store.) All I remember about the steel company was this clear block thing on my father's desk that had pennies in it and the red rock parking lot.

    After high school I tried going to a local college, but I was VERY tired of school and just showing up for classes was not going to be enough to pass. Alabama didn't have a lot of options. It seemed like you could be a nurse or work as a bank teller....neither were very appealing.

    My father had been a gun dealer all my life. He went to gun shows and during the week he was always tinkering with some broke thing. Before the shows he would have everything laid out and you couldn't walk without having to tip toe around all the guns. Then, he quit working at the steel company and had a store. He eventually moved the store and opened a bigger place in a busy part of town. Around then I was a preteen and just old enough to "work" at the store.....which was just handing people boxes of ammo, running the vacuum, cleaning the glass, and such. When I got old enough to drive my mother would call and tell me to run some errand for her and I'd get home to find that I was "fired" from the store for leaving. I just knew when I got old enough I was going to ANYTHING but work for my dad in that dang gun store. (funny to think back at how silly that was)

    So, when I joined the Navy I told my parents and neither believed me. I was this spoiled brat that wrecked three cars and had been fired repeatedly for nonsense like picking up a bird from the vet or wearing sweat pants to the store. My mother actually had to meet me at the bus station and there was this list of stuff I was supposed to bring with me to the MEPS station...but all I could remember was 6 pair of white cotton underwear. So, there I was on a Greyhound bus with a pack of underwear and my mom yelling at the window that she "was not coming to pick me up" if this was some joke.

    I got to the MEPS station and they processed me through and off to boot camp I went. All women go to Orlando Florida (or they did in the 80s.) So, once you make it to Orlando the first thing they do is drag you through these lines where you are given this STINKING green back and they drop all of these clothes in your bag as you go down the line. It was amazing how fast it all went. The first night I must have been a bit out of it because I actually did a little sleep walking and told the other girls that I was late for my flight and tried to gather some belongings together.

    Once you are put in the barracks you realize you are in a group and this is "for real" and you are in BOOT CAMP. Its amazing how fast it all goes......daybreak you awake they make you run and do what might as well be the very first real exercise I have ever had....then make you grab a tray and eat something in less time than you usually take to decide what you want off a menu.....then they put you in a room with some boring video tutorial and DARE you to fall asleep.....periodically you are taken to something strange and new like a swimming pool where you have to jump off a diving board and INFLATE YOUR OWN PANTS by slapping them on the top of the water (that crap is for real and still some of the strangest mess I've done)....or shots by a gun-type device (no need to actually know what you're getting just hush and step forward).....or a gun range for five rounds out of the only firearm you will see your entire enlistment.

    Eight weeks is how long it lasts.....somewhere around week two we got mail.....they gave us our mail JUST before we went to bed and it was the eeriest thing to hear everyone crying in their bunks. Somewhere around week 6 my mother....in all her wisdom.....sent me a box. I didn't know this was coming, but I was called to the C.O.'s office.....the commanding officer of the BASE! I spent my entire existence trying not to be noticed at all.....no eye contact....like a dang GHOST just to get through this, but here we were getting called to the C.O.'s office for some unknown reason.

    There is a protocol to get into an office that is like going onto a ship. It took me two times to get it right and make it into the door. This is where I see a box on the desk with UZI on all sides. My mother had sent me a care package in a dang UZI box......to boot camp. They made me open it there. It was about 200 full sized Snicker bars. She sent enough for me to "share." I didn't get one of them. I was just glad to be let go without any further eye contact from anyone.

    Once we got to the end of boot camp my mother came down and went to graduation. She took me and another of the girls to Disney for the day. It was a lot of fun, but just the car ride made me a bit drunk. Its amazing how things can affect you if you are out of pocket for a bit. At the end I learned I was meritoriously advanced to E2, but I don't know why? It was either my ninja skills that kept me from being noticed....the fact that I was in such bad shape when I got there, but could do all the exercises at the end, the snicker bars, or the fact that I didn't flinch at all when this giant gal behind me sneezed that loogie onto my back this one day. Who knows???

    The last part of boot camp they line you up to sign you up for A-school if you aren't already headed in a particular direction. I lined up without knowing anything that was going on.....and when I got to the front of the line some guy asked me if I was an "MS or MR".....I didn't know so I just looked back to see if anyone could translate this for me. Someone from the back yelled SHE'S AN MR! So I turned back around and said "MR". Later I found that this was chef or machinist. I had NO CLUE what a machinist was, but I was VERY glad I wasn't headed to being a chef.

    So, off to San Diego I went for MR School! It was a lot of fun. I actually did better than everyone else in the classes.....except this one guy that was already a machinist in the civilian world. So, when they wrote all the duty stations that were available the people got to choose according to their scores. I saw Hawaii, Italy, and the rest of the choices were all Norfolk. I was DESPERATE to get Hawaii, but I just knew that guy that scored higher was going to pick that.....so I thought I was headed for Italy. He picked Norfolk! It was like that gal that whipped off her shirt at the end of that soccer game.....I JUMPED UP (flinging my desk back) and yelled HAWAII! I ran out of the room and called my mom.

    So, I spent the remaining time of my 4 years in stationed at Pearl Harbor working on Sub Base. Lots of crazy tales to share....but that is the layout of how it all went down at the beginning. At the end of my enlistment I was an E5 and I thought seriously about staying in, but the next thing I was in for was 6 straight years of sea duty. I was engaged to an officers son (that didn't go so well, but we are friends now.)

    I wouldn't have traded that path for any other.
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  • montanajoe
    • Community moderator
    [:D][:D][:D][:D]/[8D][8D][8D][8D][8D]
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  • mrmike08075
    Coastie Amy tells a similar story - as a whim she selected arctic circle ship duty as her second choice...

    After a special class on arctic conditions it was train and planes and ship and pow in the arctic circle on a core drilling vessel supporting polarc research stations

    I have seen videos of her in a survival suit working on deck - the only way you can tell she's a girl is her hair and diminutive stature amongst the men

    She wintered over at the research station within sight of the pole - amazing pictures - helping do research and maintain equipment

    They don't allow back to back tours in the arctic so she went into training as boarding party security with cross training as a medic

    Ended her time as a paramedic

    It's fascinating to me - the female perspective seems to get lost in popular fiction or media - when she drinks she tends to recollect about the service if you draw her out

    She took leave in the Maldives when the ship ported at a British naval station in the Falkland islands

    She never expected to travel like that in the coast guard

    I appreciate the reply - I am certain many of us do as well

    Mike
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