When a large, white United States Navy bus pulled up, we said to each other, "This is it." .
After driving for about thirty minutes, we saw the boot camp facility ahead of us. Company commanders were lined up like they were going to pounce on us as soon as we stepped off the bus. The bus stopped, and a really nice guy got on and said, "Welcome to the Naval Training Center (NTC) in Orlando, Florida. I"d like everyone to get off the bus and line up." For the next eight weeks, we would not hear anything polite come out of anybody's mouth. Doris grabbed my hand, squeezed it, and we gave each other a hug before standing up. This was our way of assuring each other that everything was going to be okay.
When we assembled in line, several men came out of nowhere, ran to the bus, took all of our belongings, and threw them into a pile on the ground! One of the company commanders stepped forward and said, "When I call your name, you have thirty seconds to find your bag and get in line over here." I said to myself, "I"m glad I took my cousin's red bag because it's easy to find." And it was. I ran to the pile, grabbed my red bag, saw Doris's bag and placed it on the top so she could find it easier. Like so many others, her bag was black and I assumed she was following right behind me. .
After we got our bags, we all marched to a building that looked like a bus terminal. Once inside, I saw a big room with metal bunk beds all in a row and two sets of bathrooms containing stalls without doors. At that point, we were led down a hallway. We were all required to take a breathalyzer test to ensure no one had been drinking before coming to boot camp. No one in our group failed. (Had there been a test to find out who had smoked, everyone would have failed). Next, we were required to urinate in cups so that a drug test could be performed. This explained the door-less stalls. A "watcher" sat directly in front of each stall, making sure each person provided his or her own urine sample.