College Wake-up Call

When I showed up last Wednesday at Hayden Hall at the University of Memphis I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I was there for Naval ROTC orientation/indoctrination. It turned out to be a major wake-up call.

Ever since I was a little kid, I have been fascinated by every aspect of the military. When people watch military movies that show new recruits going through boot camp they see the big, inimidating, muscular drill sergeant yelling at the flustered and frightened new recruits non-stop and right in their face. Some people may see this and think "Wow! That's intense!" or "I could do that; no problem!" What they don't take into consideration is that the drill sergeant is not directing his explosive criticisms at the viewer but at the recruits in the movie. I used to be one of these people.

When the parents left the new midshipman at orientation all the niceties went with them. We spent three and a half days going through this indoctrination process. It was our little taste of boot camp. We did PT at 0530 every morning; we marched everywhere we went; when we had chow, we ate in silence while looking straight ahead. Wake-up came at 0500 everymorning, and liberty would come around 1800. During this entire doctrination process we were being yelled at, even for tiny mistakes. Afterall, the military prides itself on attention to detail!