Company Commanders

C077/K051  February 21 – April 25, 1990

OK, the potentially crazy post. Company Commanders are possibly the most significant love-hate relationship we had in our lives. I know several of you are like me and have that ex that would top them, but let's just sit back ignore that one.

I would have written this regardless of my contacting with one of mine here.

So, our first contact with our CCs was that early morning after we had maybe 2-3 hours of sleep. The garbage can being beaten or thrown into the bay at RIF. We rushed the line and stood there at horribly ragged attention.

My Companies lead CC was MM(SS) Engley(later MMCS), he was doing the yelling that particular morning. He introduced himself and our second CC, FC1(SW) Adams. I was slightly confused. Luckily for me, my brain was working and told me to just stand there and not to move. They walked around, giving us the once over. I have to say my first impression was, "Oh hell, these guys aren't as bad at Gunny Hartman."

So, we began the relationship that would take us through the next 8 weeks. Some had the relationship broken, and they took longer to finish. As we know, some people just needed a little extra attention. "Two Weeks to the Rear March!"

From my conversations with my old CC Mark Engley, our Company was Petty Officer Adams' first company. Adams did a good deal of our more "boring" training. Folding clothes and making sure our stencils were correct. Teaching us to make our racks correctly. I noticed he was reading from a book while doing this. My untrained civilian self thought this was odd. But, as we learned, you still read every step of how to operate equipment while in the fleet, EOSS (Engineering Operational Sequencing System). (I had to look that up.)

Of course, along the way, we made mistakes on those first few initial tasks. Who would have ever thought putting your name on your underwear was SO hard. I will talk about their educational impact on us. Then, I'll get into the yelling part, or should I say motivational part?

We all have feelings about our CC's. I imagine some hated them. Others loved them. I am in the, they influenced me a great deal category. As many of us remember the P-days were a blur of what the hell am I doing here. We got our clothes. We were learning to march. We were exhausted. I know there was a good deal more jammed into those days. Then, it officially started.

Now, they took 84 people, civilians, and turned us into sailors. We thought high school was rough on us? Think about how what they taught us still impacts us today. There have been posts about folding clothes and lacing our shoes. Why do some of us still do that? At work, they buy Engineering safety shoes. Right after I got mine, I relaced them. IT drove me nuts to have it wrong.

Our transformation was done in two ways. Education and motivation.

The motivation was the area where some CC's were harsher than others. We certainly did get our fair share of motivation. Taking a tour of the compartment for having your locker key on the outside of your shirt, sure did motivate people. I only did that once. Then, of course, we heard the infamous "DROP!" numerous times. Sometimes we did something big to get cycled. Other times we probably did something small.

One of the worst things we could get was a Sefl Destruct. That one was reserved for individuals who really needed motivation. When it happened, we would be called to the line. The offense was spoken of in a straight forward way. Our Chief had a way of speaking loudly without yelling. He could yell if needed. He would walk around the compartment, telling us what a recruit had done. Then he would call them out. Although they were asked why they did something so dumb, the answer was not going to save them, "Self Destruct BEGIN!"

Over time company punishment gave way to individual punishment. If you did a rifle movement wrong, and it was seen, "Drop." This happened on the all too famous grinder. Some recruits would ask to recover after just a few push-ups. I waited until they told me to. If you asked, the reply was standard, "No. F No, Keep going."

One morning after returning from PT, several recruits had their lockers and racks torn apart. The remainder of us were ushered into the lounge while the others paid for their actions. We were lucky to never get a hurricane. It was probably close to one after workweek was over. Our sister company got one. As was passed along to me by my new friend during work week. The girls were all out in class. When they returned, the compartment was trashed. Most of their clothes were tossed in the lounge. Everything just tossed all over. She told me the CC's came in really calm and told them they had an hour to get it back straight. She said they failed and got killed.

Later in our training, ours would sit with us and answer Navy questions. They really were nice guys after all. One day we were discussing ratings. One of our CC's told us, always to be working on a correspondence book. I did that. I was always working on one. Even the most basic ones I did. While my counterparts in A-School did nothing during watch, I worked on mine. Probably part of the reason I made E-5 the first time and several couldn't take the test since their GSM3&2 wasn't done.

Yeah, they did impact us. It was a critical job they had. From many of the people here, I can say many CC's made positive impacts on them.

I probably forget some stuff about ours. But, I am sure they forgot about us as well.

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