The Injury

C077 February-April 1990

Moving along a little more into boot camp. We had spent the day receiving out clothes and putting our stencils on everything. It was a hot, humid, stinky, boring as hell day. Not sure if it was mothballs or some other agent in the clothes, but they stunk. We get our clothes jammed into our seabags and head back out to form up for marching to our new compartment.

I forget the Division number, but it was the last division on the North Grinder. We were on the first floor of the north wing. Strange, I remember that, but not the number. So, back to the story.

We all file in and get our racks. I am sure we had some direction as to what to do next, but that is one of the details gone with the ages.

We put our new clothing in the locker. Then back outside to march to chow. Byt this time, I quit getting kicked by the guy behind me. Some of us figured it out, others took a while. We all get back and are all exhausted. There was some more colorful instruction by our CC’s MMC(SS) Engley and FC1(SW) Adams. They were good at that.

Fast forward to the next morning. I wake up with my right eye hurting, felt like there was something in it. We found out later it was a bad scratch. The pillows had zippers on them. Mine was at the open end of the pillowcase. So, I scratched my eye.

We made out or list for our first exchange visit, and I asked if I could get some Visine. Back to the compartment for more instruction and getting yelled at.

I finally go to sick call after 3 or 4 days. The eye was infected, so I got to spend all day in medical getting it looked at. That included a trip to the Naval hospital. While there, I met a girl in our sister company who had an eye issue. 

While waiting, the nurse told me to go use the phone to call home. Well, I was all over that. We had our quick call home but had not “earned” another.

I had to take medication to heal my eye. The horrible side effect was it dilated my right eye, and it watered like crazy. Outside in the Orlando sun was not a place for that. So, I marched with my right eye closed. I was the tallest, so I was in the right front behind my section leader. I did our first marching inspection with one eye. Not sure if our CC’s knew that or not.

Each time I went to the hospital, I called home. BIG NO-NO!!!!! I even wrote letters home and would find an old vet to mail them for me.

I saw the eye doctor for maybe 4 weeks.

One day we were all in the compartment, and we heard that sound we hated. The door got kicked open. “ON THE F-ing LINE NOW!” was what we heard.

The exact words are forgotten, but it was something like this, “Somebody in the Company is breaking the rules and calling home. We know who it is, and they are in serious trouble. You earn those calls and are not allowed to do it without us telling you to do it.”

I seriously thought I was dead. 

“We know who it is too.”

Our CC walked down the line over to the offending Seman Recruit. It was a different guy. He was using the phone in an empty compartment while on working parties. He ended up getting in continuous trouble and being set back, more than once too. 

I never told any of the guys in the company I was calling from the hospital, nor that I was writing letters. 

My eye did get healed, and I could march with them both open.  I saw that girl a couple of times after that. She was in TPU until we got our work week, 5-6 weeks later. She talked to me and said she was finally going home.