I’m from the old, “New Navy”. We didn’t have Drill Instructors or Company Commanders, we had RDCs (Recruit Division Commander). It always made sense to me in a way, after all, Drill Instructors are for Marines and Company Commander just sounds Army to me. We weren’t in a company anyway, the Navy doesn’t have companies, we have divisions and departments. So, Recruit Division Commander, I could justify that change.
Our RDCs didn’t hit us, either. They threatened to hit us constantly, but it was just part of their mind games that they liked to play. Boot Camp, all in all, was one big mind game mixed with marching and a lack of sleep. Taps was at 2200 (if we were lucky) and reveille was 0400. We had watch every other night, resulting in even less sleep and all of this, played into the psychological games that the RDCs would play.
The biggest mind game of all, letting out secrets about something called Battle Stations. We were told over and over again that if we failed battle stations, we would fail boot camp and have to start all over again. When was this battle stations to happen? Without a moments notice, they would say. All lies, of course.
Battle Stations amounted to nothing more than a single night of: running over 5 miles (carrying a seabag full of wet clothes), fighting “simulated” fires, swimming with a bunch of Navy Seals, and performing events like escaping a sinking ship and getting a ship underway for an emergency. You know, common, every day Navy occurences.
I’m not knocking the value of Battle Stations, it pulled our division together and we worked as a team. Where are those guys today, I have no idea.
I was surprised that the “New Navy” had gotten even newer. By newer, I mean weaker, of course. Here’s a blurb from navy.mil about the newer battle stations:
Recruits stand at attention during their capping ceremony after successfully completing Battle Stations 21 aboard USS Trayer (BST 21). Battle Stations 21 is the culmination of all training received at the Navy’s only boot camp. It is a grueling 12-hour test of a recruit’s skills in several shipboard evolutions, including fighting fires and stopping floods. The event is held entirely aboard Trayer and marks the recruit’s final rite of passage into the Navy.
“The event is held entirely aboard Trayer”. Well, so much for the hardest part of battle stations.
I also heard that recruits sleep in until 0600.
Anyone know if this is true?
August 8th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
I got to run both the old battlestations and the newest one.
I have to say that I liked the newest one. Except I am annoyed that the newest recruits don’t have to run all over base to the next station.
The newest one was much more real and much more difficult. I’ll admit that if we had run it for real and not just as testers, I’m almost positive we would have failed. We didn’t have ‘man overboard’ and I thought that was the most fun from battlestations.
Still, navy bootcamp was weak. No we didn’t get to sleep until 0600. Went to sleep at 2200 woke up at 0430-0500. It was just alot of waiting around, we could have spent so much more time training.
August 10th, 2007 at 11:51 am
I just found your site. My son finished bootcamp in May and now is in San Diego. He called Bootcamp, Dress camp. I will continue to stop by.
Thanks,
Shelly
August 29th, 2007 at 9:46 am
I am headed up to Great Lakes the middle of October this year to actually be an RDC. So I will let you all know what really goes on.
January 17th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
I recently graduated, doing HM A School now. We got to sleep in until 0600 and tap out at 2200. I don’t know if I would call it “sleeping in,” but BootCamp all in all was pretty weak compared to what I had imagined. There wasn’t as much Physical Training as I figured there would be. Happy to be out and working on getting into the real Navy.
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:07 am
I was in one of the last divisions (346, graduated 13 Oct 06, correct me if I wasn’t one of the last!) that i know of that ran the old battle stations. They were just finishing up the new one as I left, and I never ran it, although I had heard it was pretty cool. It’s stupid, though, how much easier the new one sounds, and how much we sat around doing menial things when we could have been training. Guess with all the IA’s and what not being voluntold to go over to the sandbox, you’d think the Navy would adopt something similar to the Marine Corps’ “every Marine a rifleman” mentality. Oh well…
January 31st, 2008 at 10:18 pm
I graduated boot camp in June of 2000, so I indeed ran the old battlesttions. The new one sounds like it makes sense in a few ways (i.e. performing the entire trial on aa ship where you are most likely to encounter these situations). however, I did hear various stories and examples of how boot camp had gotten much easier. I like the idea of the new battlestations, but isn’t there a way they could toughen up boot camp otherwise? And did they actually start using live ammuntion? Or are they still using those stupid lasers? And one last question. What was the song they played for the completion of battlestations? I cannot think of it for the life of me. If anybody knows, and would be good enough to let me know, I would appreciate it (Twinkierr@hotmail.com).
Regards
February 19th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Graduated April 6th, 2007 and we were still doing Battlestations Legacy (the old one). A few divisions before us “broke” Battlestations 21 (the new one) so they were still working out kinks and pushing test divisions through it. I never saw it but a few divisions in my grad group did. I think within a month they had fully switched over. Everyone I know said it was really real but it was actually disappointing.
March 7th, 2008 at 1:20 am
I ship for boot camp on May 28th and read this article http://usmilitary.about.com/od/navyjoin/l/aanavybasic1.htm
It might make you very sad though.
April 8th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
I was in devision 387 in 2006 we still ran the old battle stations and for me it was so fun. It was like the next division group that ran the new one. so i guess it was my division group that was the last.
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Does anyone know if they still have “1-5 day”? If no one knows what it is well obviously it was the fifth day of the first week but there was a special indoctrination that went along with it. I went through boot back in the mid 80’s in Orlando and it was the first day you got “cycled” as a company , in Great Lakes they called it getting “mashed” but it was an intense physical training session which the purpose seemed was to get someone to quit. After what seemed like an eternity of getting cycled we indeed had someone “quit” and he was sent out to the division officers sidewalk to tell the div o that he wanted go home. Once he left the barracks we stopped getting cycled and were told to go look out the window and watch our shipmate on the sidewalk. After about 10 minutes the division officer came out and through a series of pushups, situps, running in place, “swimming”, and screaming, he convinced our shipmate that he really didn’t want to leave after all. Our shipmate came back in looking like he wanted to die but he didn’t. He actually got set back like three times during boot because he couldn’t pass the physical tests but eventually did get out. So does1-5 day still happen?
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:18 pm
We had a day, very similar to that, it happened just after we completed all of our medical workups. I’m not sure if it was 1-5 day, but it was very close to that day, for sure. In Great Lakes, they called it “getting beat” and would always make referrences about how they were going to “beat us”. We didn’t have anybody try and quit although, from what you said, everyone was better off sitting put and taking our beating.
I work with a couple of boots now, I’ll have to ask them if they still do that.
May 3rd, 2008 at 11:29 pm
I went in Feb. of 07 and we ran the old Battle Station (and were told like evreyone else that we were the last to run it) but I did get to see the new battle stations. We didnt run it but we did run back and forth from the “pier” to a space on the ship to see how fast they could muster a group. It looked cool and was about 2/3 size destroyer or something. About the 1-5 day, yes we had a similar experience. We had 3 guys go to medical that day. All 3 passed out and 1 cracked his head when he went down but chief did not give a fuck. After that we only got IT’d a handfull of times but that was a particularyly bad beatdown. Not sure if it was 1-5 for sure but it had to be close to that. Overall I’d say that boot camp was mentally fucking hard but physically it was a breeze. I PT alot harder at the command I’m at now, but we are in some wierd twilight zone Hoo-yah Navy that you don’t really see out there. Our skipper LOVES PT but he is out there with us all the time and is in way better shape than me….How did I start rambling?? Oh well.
June 10th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
I just graduated from RTC about a month and a half ago. I was in division 172 and we ran the new battlestations and I would say that it would be one of the most exciting things I have ever done. All our evolutions were very realistic and was also fun at the same time. I recently heard in A-School that RTC stopped giving recruits 8-count body builders and mountain climbers because some recruits were hurting and spraining themselves. As for the pt side of RTC I wouldn’t say it was very strenuous but it was very tiring. However I would say the “beatdowns” we got in Division 172 was grueling, it was so bad they made some grown men cry. I would say the worst part of bootcamp was the “peanut butter shot” and the 1st two weeks.
HOOOYAH SNIPES!aa
June 20th, 2008 at 5:01 am
I just stopped into the simulator in Great Lakes last month, I can’t begin to tell you how realistic it is. They are doing great things up there.
June 27th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
So I just graduated boot (div 143) and ran battlestations 21. Nowadays they just use the old battlestations ship as the seamanship class. Anyways, battlestations was quite a hell of a waste. It was disappointingly easy; the only thing that really made it difficult was the lack of sleep, cause they’d kick you out and you’d fail for passing out. Also, I’d heard the same bullshit about the abolishment of eight-counts. What the hell? I thought it was called boot camp, not wuss-ass-hand-me-a-ball-cap-camp. All in all boot camp was just 8 weeks of really stupid half-assed instruction.
July 2nd, 2008 at 12:42 pm
as one of the people who had a very very small part in the creation of this project i am amazed at some of the remarks about the Trayer simulator —- i personally was astounded at the work and the quality and the amount of money spent to create something as realistic as this is —- short of an actual ship i don’t know how this couldn’t be a major improvement over previous training methods — my hats off to the people who came up with this project —-but i guess i can agree to some degree that boot camp was probably still too easy since my son complained that his boot camp in San Diego with the marines was not that bad —-
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:15 pm
YUP!! NAVY IS HOW YOU MAKE IT, IT CAN MAKE YOU OR IT CAN BREAK YOU,, I ONLY HAVE 3 YEARS UNDER MY BELT, BOOTCAMP IS ALL THE SAME NO MATTER HOW WE DID IT OR HOW WE GRADUATED WERE ALL IN THE SAME NAVY SERVING THE SAME COUNTRY I KNOW THE BOOTCAMP NOW A DAYS IS A LOT MORE EASIER
July 4th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
graduated bootcamp in 98.that was a different navy.than the crap they call bootcamp now
July 24th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Yeah, yeah,yeah.
I finished boot camp 04/69. It’s tough no matter when you go. And, bear in mind I was in when ships were wood and men were steel, plus wimin weren’t there.
August 4th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
I recently retired after 24 years and whish I had something similar to Battlestations 21. Is it all it could be? Probably not. Are there places for improvement? Probably are.
Kept this in mind when grousing about how boot camp isn’t has hard as it was/should be..the first Marine to graduate Marine Corps boot camp thought the second Marine to graduate had it too easy.