Becoming the Newest Old Recruit

Author's note: The following is as accurate account as can be expected under the circumstances, as any reasonable reader can imagine. Names and dates are presented exactly as remembered.

"Who the hell is 31?"

It was either Day One, or Stardate 310762.2 of boot camp and my first Recruit Division Commander (RDC) Chief looked up from a sheet of paper, presumably a list of everyone who was supposed to be there. I raised my hand, and for the rest of time (or until Memorial Day weekend, depending on who you ask) my name was "Thirty-One".

When I signed that contract, I was sure of one thing. I needed a reset. A do-over. A burn it to the ground rise from the ashes as a phoenix reborn event. How many people have made that wish? Let me tell you a secret. You can do it. Time travel is real. Just enlist in the military in your thirties.

Thirty-One and Thirty-Two: Phase 2 of 3

In the military, age isn't a number. It is a myth. The only time it even matters is when it's time to take your physical fitness test, and in boot camp? Not even then. Praise heaven I was 18 again...oh wait. No. That was pretty much the other 35 or so females that I was incarcerated with 24-7. (I say 35 because some were in their mid-twenties and there was one angel, my harbinger of sanity, counterpart. "Wilson" aka "Thirty-Two"). My last thought when I went to bed every night was, "What the hell was I thinking joining the military?" My first thought every morning was, "Oh my god, I'm still here." And when I was able to think in between times, I alternated between hearing Godsmack's "Serenity" on loop and wishing I had some tequila.

Sidenote: I don't drink tequila, and I didn't then, either.

But at some point in that fugue state, between Chief banging her stick on the floor while we did eight counts (One two three four three four three four seven two six seven eight NOT TOGETHER HOOYAH ZERO!) and Petty Officer inspecting us while we stood on the toe line in parade rest (while wafting her coffee mug under my nose, smiling, and saying "mmmm"), I did it. I got my reset. It snuck up on me, but I got it.

Once I got over the cognitive dissonance of my environment, I was able to let go of the limitations I had set for myself and for the first time in my life truly step out into the unknown. My contract was to train as a Mass Communication Specialist, but I didn't know what that was, not really. No one I asked knew either. The best answer I got was, "They take pictures."

It was so much more than that!

Boot camp is not where you learn your job. Well, not exactly. Let me be clear. Boot camp is where you learn to be a Sailor, and technically, being a Sailor is your primary purpose in the Navy. You are a Sailor, first and foremost. A-School, however, is where you learn your trade and it is a completely different animal.

Finding Focus

Mass Communication Specialists receive their training at Defense Information School (DINFOS) at Fort George G. Meade, MD. It's a six-month long program; three months spent training jointly with Army, Marines, Air Force, and Coast Guard counterparts and three months spent training in Navy specific areas. The first three months are spent solely on photojournalism, that is to say, photography, news, and feature writing, with some basic public affairs thrown in. The last three months is spent on videography, graphic design, web design, more specialized photography (like studio and crime scene), and print production. I feel like I'm missing some things, but you get the idea.

It was stressful. It was exhausting. It was right next to the freaking NSA, and there we were running around with cameras. If we took a wrong turn, we were staring at the business end of not-a-hippie holding out a wildflower. IT. WAS. AWESOME. It was a place where the things that I enjoyed and had always come by easily were elevated to challenging. It was a place that taught the ABCs of journalism, rather than focusing on the sensationalism or the "sexiness" of a story. This gifted child who decided journalism wasn't for her, who became a teacher and hated it, burned her life to the ground and rose from the ashes as a storyteller in the world's greatest Navy.

And now the story begins in truth.