I joined the United States Navy in the summer of 2000. While I was a bit older that the typical recruit even at the ripe ole age of 23 I now realize I was clueless. I had no idea what I was getting into.
You would think I should know. After all I was born at the Naval Hospital in San Diego, CA. Both my parents had been enlisted in the Navy, and both of my grandpas too. The blue blood of a sailor coursed through my veins.
That didn’t seem to mean much when confronted with bootcamp. I will admit I was somewhat prepared. Certainly better than some of my counterparts. I still remember waking up to the young woman in the bunk beside me banking her head against the wall over and over and over. She got to go home.
But I stayed. And when I was the first female in my division to get dropped (that means do push-ups on command as a disciplinary measure), I pumped out twenty like nobody’s business. Subsequently, I’m sure I couldn’t even do one if dropped right now.
I hung in there with the best of them while large men screamed in my face about what an absolute moron I was, and I pushed my body to physical and mental limits that I never imagined could be possible. I mentioned I entered the service someway naively, right?
There was all kinds of stuff I didn’t know. I never knew what “make it rain” meant. No, I’m not talking about throwing dollars at private dancers. In bootcamp “make it rain” had another meaning all together.
Our RDCs (Recruit Division Commanders) would make us exercise inside our barracks in July in an extreme manner. We would perform our different PT exercises and the heat from our collective bodies would rise to the ceiling and form a veil of condensation there. We could finally stop when this vapor began to fall, or “rain” back down upon our sweaty bodies.
That was almost as fun as “ice cream socials,” where our RDCs ate ice cream in front of us while we performed the grueling PT.
But while bootcamp was challenging, in essence it went quickly. It’s my time in service afterwards that would truly show me how clueless I was.
My deployment platform: The USNS Comfort
I didn’t know who hard it would be to be ripped from my comfort zone, to spend long lengths of time away from my friends and family. I will always remember returning home after a long time away due to deployments. I cried when my baby brother stood, and I realized he was taller than me.
I didn’t realize that the world would change while I was in. I didn’t foresee 9/11, or the War on Terror that followed. I didn’t know a part of me would be so very scared about the possibility of a deployment to Iraq. I didn’t realize how very emotionally tired I would grow of seeing young men with so many limbs lost.
But out of all the stuff I didn’t anticipate I guess what really amazes me the most, what really grabs me and shakes me is how it changed me. I didn’t realize it would do that. Not like it did anyway.
I had no idea that the young, directionless woman would become so certain of her future goals. A struggling nursing student became an enlisted Hospital Corpsman determined to get her degree and become the best RN possible.
The word honor would have new meaning to me. Any job worth doing would be worth doing well. I would conduct myself in a manner that reflected highly upon my field.
I would learn true courage, and even though I had momentary fear like in moments where war was inevitable, in the end I would stand firmly, proudly, and defend my country. Even if it meant to the death.
Because of the commitment you see. I learned true commitment to duty. Non-wavering dedication to the task before me.
It was more than a job. It was a lifestyle, and it changed me. I didn’t know it would, but it did. And for the better.
I was able to take that honor, courage, and commitment and apply it to my civilian life. And even to this day I feel like my time in service has made me a far better nurse than I could have ever hoped to be without it. And for that, that one, huge thing I did not know, I am eternally grateful.