05 December 2010
 
The Old Navy

(Keepers of the Old Navy traditions. USMC Drill Instructors. Photo USMC.)

My Candidate Officer called from Newport late yesterday, right before the evening chow hall formation. He has ceased to be an Officer Candidate, which is the lowest form of life imaginable, lower than whale-shit, and the new Class will be Poopies.
 
The minor juxtaposition of words means that the world has changed utterly for him.
 
Now it is two weeks to go, and then the big break for the holidays. It must seem unreal to him, the fact that something so big in life is nearly complete.
 
A new class is reporting this morning, ten o’clock, and the inmates of Class 04-11 will be running the Asylum until the Marine DI takes over the new class for instruction on Wednesday. .
 
“Are you going to be the officer with the clipboard in the parking lot?” I asked.
 
“No,” he said. “I will be in Poopyville in the uniform issue room where they get the Chrome Domes and the fatigues they wear for the first two weeks. It is going to be interesting. They have changed everything. We are not allowed to get in their faces or yell at them. We cannot get within twelve inches, can’t point at them, can’t ask them rhetorical questions.”
 
“I remember some of those. That’s interesting. You went through what I did, and now, going forward, it will be completely different. I recall that our class, 11-77 got yelled at for yelling too loud at the new kids. You know the Old Navy.”
 
“Yeah,” said my son. “I am glad I got a chance to see it. I wasn’t looking forward to doing the screaming. It is a kinder and gentler Navy now.”
 
I wondered about that, about the winds of change sweeping through the military. The “Don’t ask, Don’t Tell” policy about homosexuality appears to be on the way out, and I am glad that it is. But I am filled with trepidation on what the impact of the transition will be.
 
I vividly recall the collapse of the West was imminent when women were integrated in the force. It was a huge social-religious issue for a couple years, and then everyone got on with the mission. I have not heard it as an issue lately, though when I walked through a Pentagon corridor a few weeks ago and passed a female amputee in mufti, I was struck by how profound the change has been.
 
This will all change, ins’hallah, and we will get on with life. “That was the Old Navy, I said. I imagine the new kids will hate the kinder and gentler system just as much as you did.”
 
He sounded dubious about that, and went on to describe the major change in his life, now that Class 04-11 has become the Alpha Dog at OCS. Everyone made it. Chow is taken in a section of the Mess Hall with the Drill Instructors and the Senior Chiefs. They apparently have a full complement of silverware now. Academics are done, and so is the final Physical Readiness exam.
 
He had his outcall with the most squared-away Marine in the world who has ruled his life for the last sixty-three days. He will know his name, indelible, for the rest of his days.
 
They laughed together, the first time my son was able to acknowledge the elegant humor of the DI’s trade. “I told him I was glad I had a chance to experience the training in the old way, before it changes.”
 
“What do the Marine’s think about it?”
 
“You know them. They don’t like change. I told him you still know your DI’s name from AOCS in 1977.”
 
“Yeah, never forget it. Staff Sergeant Ronald M. Mace, USMC.”
 
“This was the last class for mine. He is a Marine Scout Sniper as his primary MOS. He used to teach at the sniper schoolhouse. He is headed back to the Show. He said he was excited to be going. He said he was a war junky.“

(Marine Scout Sniper. Photo US Marine Corps.)
 
“You might see him in the Fleet,” I said. “It is a small world, you know.”
 
“Yeah, he supports Special Operations. They had a SEAL come talk to us, and it sounds really cool. I would like to support the mission.”
 
“There are a few slots for kids coming out of basic intelligence training,” I said thoughtfully. “I heard that at the bar the other night after my pal Maverick retired.”
 
“I imagine those slots are for the top performers,” said the Candidate Officer thoughtfully.
 
“I imagine so,” I responded. “But the schoolhouse sorts people out by their personalities as well as by performance. That is how I wound up in a fighter squadron. They must have thought I was cocky enough to survive.”
 
He said it was 1645 and he had to go to chow early because the fireworks that are going to start tomorrow, and I told him I loved him and how proud I was that he was now someone who remembers the Old Navy.

Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
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