I hope the food in Great Lakes was better back then than it is now. Last time I was there (back in '01 for 'A' School) it wasn't all that. I tend to judge locales by the quality of the chow.
There are some things I don't enjoy about military service. One of the things I do enjoy - and enjoy very much - is the sense of connection I experience at some postings. I did not like Great Lakes as it was, but when I thought back to what it used to be, I liked it much more. Walking down the strip through the main gate, past the older stone buildings with their archaic construction (many of them underutilized or not even used at all), I couldn't help but wonder what they'd originally been used for, who had passed through there, what they'd been thinking. I would sometimes stand near the parade grounds on the NTC side and just look at them, imagining all the sailors who'd passed in review there. At other times, I'd sit down on the shore and stare across the water and contemplate the crumbling breakwaters and decaying ruins there.
Today, at the Camp, I always feel a small sense of wonder inside the various buildings and speculate about what some of them may have been used for, who had passed through, what they'd accomplished while they were there, what their lives had been like. I remember unearthing rusted Garand clips on the long-abandoned and overgrown 850-yard firing line, staring at them, and thinking to myself: "How well had this man shot this day? What was on his mind? Where had he been to before he'd been to the Camp, and where did he go afterwards? I'd love to ask him, but chances are that he's already gone. I feel as if I've lost something." The Camp has many secrets and most of them will never be unearthed. We're due to decomm soon and it hurts me that so many stories will be gone forever.
Not all of my colleagues see it this way. I'm pretty sure most of them don't even know what I'm talking about. I feel it just the same.
I enlisted back in '96 with no expectations of trouble - I didn't sign up seeking conflict. I re-enlisted in '02 because I wasn't quite ready to leave, but I'd say that I was needed if I were asked. In neither case were my motivations particularly patriotic. My viewpoint has changed a bit since then but human nature will be what it will be. It wasn't until fairly recently that I got a sense of being a part of something that had been around far before I was, and would be around long after I'm gone.
To sign up with the expectation of trouble - with other prospects available - simply because it is the morally correct choice, is a choice that I'm not sure that I could make correctly. You have my utmost respect, Uncle Bill, and you also have my gratitude. Fair winds and following seas.
