Battle Stations: part two

At 2:00am the switches are thrown and the battle stations alarm rings through the barracks. Instantly every recruit is awake and at attention in front of their rack. Drill Instructors are fully dressed in battle gear and instruct us to dress the same. Same uniform as before, the only additions are a towel wrapped around the beanie and under the metal helmet and our seabags with a change of clothes.

The division is split into four groups, each is sent in a different direction. Our group numbered twenty one men. Once out of the barracks the need for the uniform became clear, the thermometer was reading -15 degrees. Drill Instructor Delaney started us down the middle of the road at a light jog. Station number one was the practical seamanship test. Believe it or not, there is a room on the base with a life-size midsection and forecastle of a ship. And tonight we had to show that we knew how to steer, control the speed, and yes even moor to a pier.

From there, we went for the long jog to the administrative side of the base, where the fire and water tests would be, all the while singing and chanting at the top of our lungs. The night we arrived at boot camp we were all tired, confused and out of our element stumbling around in the dark, and as we were marched to our barracks wearing nothing but a navy sweat-suit, the more senior divisions did their best to scare the hell out of us while doing their own battle stations. So as we ran past the new recruits in their smurf suits freshly shorn, shivering and scared, we screamed, and cried, and made all kinds of horrors for their benefit.

I am from southern California, so swimming comes naturally to me, but that night in the pool, I came as close as I ever have to drowning. It seemed like a simple and fun test. We changed into the spare set of dungarees we had brought with us, and filed into the pool area. One by one we climbed to the 20 foot diving platform and jumped off. I was one of the first to jump, and when I broke the surface and started swimming toward the side the drill instructor pointed me and the other guys back toward the middle of the pool.

When all twenty one of us were in the water, he started the clock. Ten minutes of treading water. The first few minutes seem easy. You take off your pants, tie them into knots at the end. Then by scooping them over your head (dunking yourself in the process) you eventually fill them with enough air to wrap around your neck and use to float on. This takes your mind off the burn momentarily, but it eventually takes more energy than you can muster.

At about five minutes you start to really wonder if you can do it. Already your legs are fire and your arms are beginning to tire. You try just floating on your back on top of the water, but after about a minute of constantly having to kick and then kick some more to readjust for kicking too much, all the while flailing your wrists, elbows and shoulders, you just keep moving trying to find the easiest way to keep even the lips airbound.

At about nine minutes, I was pretty sure I was done for. My legs were putty, my arms were infernos, and I was starting to see the shadow of panic in the corner of my eye. At that very moment, an arm grabbed me under the shoulder and started to pull me. I turned in the water and saw that several of my shipmates had linked arms in the water to help keep each other afloat.

When the ten minutes was up our drill instructor pointed to the far end of the pool, where he had pushed into the water a tented circular life raft. We swam to it and I immediately grabbed the support rope along the outside. We formed a line in the water and me and a couple other guys formed a sort of human ladder for each other to climb into the raft with. All told I was the last man in the raft, and I wish I could say it was under my own steam. My arms were blown, and they pulled me in.