Ben Stewart

My first time on a commercial flight was July 25^th, 2005. The date is easy to remember because it was the first day of my enlistment in the US Navy. From civilian to service member in less than an hour, Louisville to Chicago. At O’Hare, I followed the signs leading to the USO office where I joined a growing number of men and women awaiting their ride to Recruit Training Command. The room where we waited was good sized, like a large living room with a few chairs and a couch, books and boardgames neglected on a low shelf. The room filled up quick as flights arrived from all over and new recruits trickled in. 

Whoever was in charge of this gaggle of humanity said to sit tight and wait for the shuttle, pointed us in the direction of the restrooms, and advised us not to wander. The few chairs and couch having been occupied by butts other than mine, I found a place on the floor and sat looking through grainy photos on my flip phone, draining the battery reminiscing on lazy days spent goofing off with my friends. I didn’t know at the time, but I wouldn’t get another chance at sleep for another 24 hours, so instead of strolling memory lane, I should have taken a nap. 

A few hours of waiting in that crowded office and I’d had my fill of the USO. With my phone dead and small talk exhausted with those in range, I took to counting the stiches in the seam of my jeans when the shuttle finally arrived. Thank God, I thought. 

We filed out of the airport and settled into our seats for the thirty minute ride north. The driver has a few words for us, but I missed them for one reason or another, then we get underway. We get on the highway and I realize how quiet it is, the bus’s dark interior silent as the grave. Owing to a compulsion to fill any silence with the sound of my own voice, I turn to the guy next to me.  

“Come here often?” I say to the guy, fishing for a laugh.

“Shut the fuck up.” He hissed. “You’re going to get us in trouble.”

Oh, so that’s what the driver had said earlier, he didn’t want to hear a peep out of anyone or there’d be hell to pay. 

The bus pulled up to the curb in front of a large brick building with a wide bank of glass and metal doors. Think main entrance to a large school and you’re pretty close. Departing the bus, we’re gently instructed by a yelling man in a crisp white uniform to enter the building and stand on the blue tiles lining the atrium. The main hallway is expansive and brightly lit, state flags overhead hanging from poles fixed to the gray cinderblock walls. The instant I crossed the threshold into that building, the English language I knew and loved was forever changed. Walls were now bulkheads, restrooms were the head, and the drinking fountain was scuttlebutt. Call a wall anything but bulkhead and you’ll get an earful.

Motivational anecdotes were painted about the large entryway, “Tough times don’t last, tough people do” is one that sticks out as being especially profound. That was a new one to me, so. It had an impact on young Benjamin, my takeaway being . “This shitshow won’t last, just keep your head down and you’ll get through.”  

Standing on my little square of blue tile, I waited for my turn at the pay phone to call my parents. We were under very explicit instructions to only say our name and that we’d arrived safely, we’d would call again in three weeks, and then hang up. My mother answered and I spit out, “Hi, it’s me. I made it and I’ll call you in three weeks.”

And that was it, I was on my own. 

After the phone call, it was back to the blue tiles and waiting my turn to get a uniform. Not the uniform you might be imagining, the handsome Crackerjack dress blue uniform, those have to be measured for, fitted, and ordered. The uniform you get when you first arrive at Great Lakes is called the Smurfs. The Smurfs are a matching blue sweatsuit with NAVY written down the pantleg and a reflective NAVY emblem on the front of the sweatshirt. While awaiting my turn, the enthusiastic drill instructors (called RDC’s), divided us by gender, males lined up on one wall, erm, bulkhead, and females on the opposite.

We’re then filed into separate rooms and gathered our first articles of Navy issued clothing, Smurfs, white tube socks, white and gray New Balance’s, white t-shirts, and several pair of tighty-whiteys. Fashionable new clothes in hand, we found places behind square tables, empty but for a cardboard box and Sharpie for each man. 

“I am Chief Soandso. Nothing I tell you to do is an option.” A wide man with a shaved head and a stump of neck stalked up and down the rows of desks, thick hands clasped behind his back like he was barely restraining himself from throttling one of us. Maybe he was. “You will do what I say, when I say it, or you will be dealt with. Is that clear?” Muttered agreement from us new recruits. Not the response he was looking for. 

“The answer to my question will either be YES, CHIEF!” He yelled. “Or NO, CHIEF! Is that clear?”

“YES, CHIEF!” I screamed, eyes forward and fixed on the middle distance. 

Step by step, we were instructed to strip down and swap our civilian clothes for their Navy-issued replacements, old clothes put in the box to be mailed home to mommy. It’s worth noting that we’re forbidden to speak unless spoken to, our only focus is following instructions to drop trough and put on the Navy issued skivvies. What a sight we must have been, this room full of naked men donning tight and unfamiliar underwear, feet getting tangled in the elastic band and having to hop around, bare feet slapping linoleum, dangly bits flopping about, Chief Soandso yelling to hurry the fuck up.

“We’re going to find out if you had a little too much fun before you got here.” Chief said after we’d gotten dressed. “It’s time to pee in a cup. Those of you who need to pee right now, line up on the starboard bulkhead. If you don’t need to pee, port bulkhead.” 

Starboard? Port? A few recruits were savvy to what this guy was saying and hustled this way or that, following instructions with a Yes Chief! I was not one of those people. Why, oh why, I thought to myself, didn’t I study Navy terminology before joining the Navy? 

Thankfully not alone in my ignorance, there was confused hesitation as most of us didn’t know what we were supposed to do, afraid of doing the wrong thing, instead doing nothing. 

“Starboard means RIGHT!” He wailed, chopping a heavily muscled arm in that direction, then the opposite. “PORT means LEFT! Do it now!”

The room  erupted into a scrambling mass of bodies as we found our places. I didn’t have to pee, or at least didn’t think I was ready to pee in a cup, which is a subtle but distinct difference. I went left and was herded into a large room with a water fountain (scuttlebutt, goddamnit). 

Our instructions were clear. “You will walk around this room and take a drink from the scuttlebutt with every pass. Once you’re ready to pee in a cup, raise your hand.” 

I don’t know how long I was in that room or how many circuits I completed, but I finally raised my hand and was pulled from the shambling procession of recruits and ushered through a doorway across the hall. The room where you pee in a cup isn’t private. Actually, privacy mostly doesn’t exist in bootcamp, modesty is stripped away with your civilian clothes the moment you drop your pants in a crowded room.

There were four urinals on a white cinderblock wall, like a public restroom, but absent barriers between. No privacy. A man paced behind you, barking orders and watching for anyone trying to cheat the urinalysis test. How you could manage that, is anyone’s guess, but the Navy taught me that procedures are in place for a reason and if there was someone watching your willy during the pee test, it’s because someone has taped an IV bag of clean urine to their leg in an effort to cheat the urinalysis. You’ve got to be equal parts brave and stupid to give that a shot and I’d think just not doing drugs before reporting to bootcamp would be less effort than what it took to cheat, but I digress. 

For the second time in the same night, I was instructed to pull my pants down, which, at the time, was a personal record. “Drop your pants and underwear to your ankles.” The man said, still pacing and barking orders. The buttons on his white shirt were barely holding on, his uniform seemingly tailored to a slimmer past self. His voice was loud and echoed off the concrete walls. “Now step forward to the urinal, open your cup, and pee into the cup.” 

My teeth were floating, but I suddenly couldn’t squeeze a single drop. Shit. Moments passed and those recruits at the urinal on either side of me finished and left, their full-bore streams filling the cup and thundering off porcelain. Mocking me. 

After the second round of recruits came and went, I closed my eyes and focused on relaxing. Forcing yourself to relax so you can pee is rather unrelaxing, but finally a little pee dribbled out, working up to a steady flow. Thank God, I thought, but my triumph was quickly interrupted by the man proctoring this mess. 

He yelled, “Number three!” 

I opened my eyes and a giant number 3 painted above my urinal stared back. Oh no, I thought. That’s me. 

“Show me what you got!” 

Exhausted and shaken by the preceding chaos, rattled by my newly discovered shy bladder, and being unknown to me how to turn off the tap now that it was going, a piece of advice my recruiter gave me floated up from the recesses of my consciousness; Do exactly what you’re told to do, when you’re told to do it. Then Chief Soandso’s voice from earlier that night; You will do what I say, when I say it, or you will be dealt with! This threatening ticker tape scrolled across my mind’s eye like an emergency broadcast, white letters in all caps on a red background, Do what you’re told. 

With no further thought and with my pants and tighty-whities bunched around my ankles, I shuffled around and showed him what I had. Which, of course, was my penis in one hand and a rapidly filling cup of piss in the other. 

The look on his face as I presented myself to the room is something I’ll never forget. His eyes went wide, his mouth froze in a surprised little O. He looked from me to little me then back, his brain catching up to what I’d put on display. He stammered then gathered himself, inhaling through his nose so hard I felt the air rushing past. That could have been the results of being bare-assed in a wide open room, but still. Once his lungs were full, the buttons on his shirt threatening to pop off and shoot me dead, he yelled, “I DON’T WANT TO SEE YOUR DICK!” Another breath, another burst of fury. “SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT IN THE CUP, YOU FUCKING CLOWN!” 

Embarrassed and muttering my apologies, I shuffled back around and held the now-full cup over my shoulder. He was giving me an earful back there, no longer shouting, but making himself heard, Goddamn moron this, Fucking dipshit that. Seeing my full cup of pee and already sick of me, he barked at me to pull my pants up and get the fuck out of his sight. 

“Yes, sir.” I said, fast-walking out of the room and avoiding eye contact. In my life, I’ve had a few people yell at me, but the guy I showed my wiener to in the middle of the night, July 25^th 2005 holds the record for being the loudest and it’s not even close. Overall, doing what you’re told, when you’re told to do it is going to take you far in the military and even though my extremely literal interpretation of show me what you got was not what this guy was looking for, that doesn’t mean I stopped doing what I was told and I did well in bootcamp as a result of following instructions. 

First published in G.I. Days: An Anthology of Military Life by Milltown Press November 2023