Millington, TN

I was depressed when I showed up for my tennis lessons yesterday. All I got to look at was two older women as fellow classmates. On top of that with only 3 of us we can't even get a doubles game going.

A School:

After bootcamp I went back to Traverse City for a few days of leave. The only memory of this was that I wanted to go to the mall to see if I could see any other high school friends there. But since it was March I only managed to see one girl that I recognized. My mom says she was worried because I went there in combat boots and civilian clothes and my shaved head. She thought I looked like a skin head.

I arrived in Millington, TN for my A-School training. There was two parts to this training. Basic electronics was the first course and this was followed by classes on the ancient A-4. Millington was a Navy base and us Marines were a minority there. We had to get into formation and march to school every day with our briefcases, which held our books for class. My first roommates there were a little strange, at least one of them. I think he was from Texas and didn't believe in wearing underwear under his jeans :P I think this was a temporary room because I don't remember rooming with him more than a week. There were 3 people to a room there and we had a weekly inspection of the barracks. This inspection was taken to the extreme. We used a wax on the floor which would be melted and spread using a buffer. This was a delicate polish so no one could step on it once it was polished. So we got a sparkly floor for the day of inspection but had to disappear until inspection was over. We also got a common building which housed a TV and some sofas. They also had a mascot, bulldog, that lived there.

The basic electronics course was taught by a jovial civilian. He loved teaching and made learning fun there. I definitaly tried more than I did in high school. I ended up getting an 89% final grade for this portion. Not much memories of this school other than our teacher.

The second part of the school took the knowledge we gained in the basic course and fine tuned it so we could apply it on an aircraft. In this case the venerable A-4. We kept the same classmates for this entire 2nd part. I found the "squids" a little annoying and only really saw them in class. But us Marines became friends for the time we were there. I only saw one of these guys after Millington. I found this portion of the school to be interesting, despite the boring Navy instructors putting us to sleep. They had interesting labs that had real instruments incorporated.

I also managed to buy me a brand new Amiga computer while here. I paid in cash, nearly $1000. I had no bills at this point in my life. I didn't even own a car there. This lead to me never leaving the base until the week of graduation. They had some cool stuff on base to keep us entertained. We even had horses for trail rides there.... they weren't well behaved horses though and I think I only attempted this twice. I also got together with other Marines around the barracks to play some board games during our off time. I do remember one of my roomates was a heartbreak story. He was an older guy, mid 30's. He was from Washington state and had a wife and 3 kids there. He used to be in the Army and only joined the Marine Corps in hopes that he would get a west coast job. But by the time I met him he already knew his orders were for Hawaii. He was very depressed because there was no way his family could move there. To top it off he also got a hernia there.

Millington Marines tried to force us to do PT every day. We were supposed to muster and do our exercises every morning. I became very adept at disappearing during the daily banging on the doors to get everyone out to PT. I can say that I didn't even participate once the whole time I was there. The only time I did was in preparation for our PFT (Physical Fitness Test) where I did this on my own. I'm not a big fan of running in formation :) There all either to fast or slow.

For graduation our class wanted to get together, minus the females, and go to a strip club. At this point in my life I didn't drink and certainly never have been to a strip club. In preperation of going to this get together I was trained in driving a manual shifter car, a VW bug. This was just in case that the guy driving us was to drunk to give us a return trip. So I left the comfy confines of the base for the first time and headed to Memphis. We arrived at the strip club were they had a bring your own liquor policy and they provided the mixes. Well as the deligated "Innocent" that needed converting the guys bought me a table dance from a girl there. There she proceeded to put her bush inches from my face while dancing and a minute into the dance said "you look like my little brother". I thought this was rather strange coming from someone in her position. I wasn't through yet. The guys thought it would be funny if they said it was my birthday. So they got me on center stage and had all the girls take turns dancing on me. When the announcer asked how old I was turning I couldn't lie. I said I was 18, which I was. He just saide "Shhhhh" and the dancing continued. After they closed the guy didn't need me to drive us back... I would have been lost anyway. The night was finalized when one of the guys puked down the passenger door of his bug.

I managed to get my orders too during this final week. I was going off to the Fresno, California area for my next school.... to be continued.