Waukegan, Illinois is a pornography of suburban sprawl. No sidewalks, no walk signs. If these things exist in Waukegan, they are carefully hidden from the casual observer or tourist. I found the racial mix in the service industry - Super 8, Walgreens, IHOP - of interest, if only in comparison to Pittsburgh. The employee mix in the burgh is roughly 50/50 white/black - in Waukegan it was about 50/50 white/hispanic. Waukegan's pedestrian-hostile layout prevented the usual snap-happy runaround. The town is nothing but sprawl, with no discerning features to photograph. I took no pictures of Naval Station Great Lakes, and not for lack of interest - I didn't feel like cheesing off the sailors. They've got enough to deal with!
We took a shuttle from the Super 8 to the base. This turned out to be a real convenience - the security check (such as it was) was a quick walk through a metal detector. I beeped, said "oh, that's probably my camera," tossed my jacket (with camera) to the side and passed through. The sailors on detail didn't bother to investigate the jacket - I could have easily walked onto the base with a grenade, a handgun, or some other form of nastiness. My dad did, by accident - his pocket knife (which he'd left in his pocket) is now in a basket somewhere at NSGL. They were cool about needing to confiscate that, and he was fortunately really cool about giving it up - point of fact, while the sailor who took it told him he could get it back at Drill Hall afterwards (and while I saw her heading into DH as we were leaving), he neglected to pursue the matter. While we got in with great ease, everyone who drove themselves didn't fare as easily - walking to DH, we overheard a sailor or MP on a bullhorn in the parking lot, bellowing along the lines of "PLACE YOUR IDS ON THE DASHBOARD. DO NOT STEP OUT OF THE VEHICLE NOW. YOU WILL BE SEARCHED." Or similar.
Very nearly none of the pictures I took in Drill Hall turned out, which is unfortunate. The ceremony - which we waited about two hours for - was awesome and it would have kicked ass if those images were more than unusable smears. The state flags obviously turned out, and the flag bearers were a big part of the ceremony. Fun fact - when recruits were mentioned by name, their home city and state were also mentioned. Think "San Diego, California;" "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;" and "The Bronx, New York." That last one threw me a bit.
NSGL pushes through roughly 600 recruits a week. Every week. If the divisions I saw were any indication of the gender and racial mix of the fleet, I'd guesstimate that the Navy is something like 60/40 boys/girls and maybe 50/50 white/every other race - black, hispanic, hawaiian, etceteras. I'd venture a guess that demographically, the people of this country are very well represented by the Navy : it's hardly the sausagefest you'd expect of, say... the Marine Corps, and the women of the Navy look very sharp in uniform. I spotted a Marine in dress blues (you want to talk sharp, a United States Marine in dress uniform is the sharpest looking man on the face of the earth), and an Air Force Master Sergeant (what my dad called "zebra stripes"), also in dress blues. While there may have been other servicemen present, they were the only non-Navy military personnel I spotted while on the base.
I was the only one of our expeditionary force to peg Jen as her division marched in - mom and dad were looking for the distinctive BGCs she'd been prescribed (which she wasn't wearing) - I placed her by IDing the distinctive family nose. That's the down side of military uniforms - they make everyone look so.... uniform. After the ceremony, I was the first person to get to her - I snapped a few pics and we eventually worked our way out of DH, off the base, back to the Super 8 and then to Emily's Pancake House (we drove, but it turned out to be a whopping two minute walk from the hotel). I had my first waffle in a good long time. It compared favorably to the last noteworthy meal I ate outside of Pittsburgh.
Much of the usual family stuff happened - I made quite a few military jokes (of the awful "huh huh. seaman." variety), all of which were taken in the proper context (being "I love my sister. I'm pro military. You can't take life seriously."). I eventually developed a nasty headache I can only describe as feeling like the way butane smells, lay down, and passed out until around eight or nine Friday night. John wandered off to the Sports Bar next to Emily's and watched the Penguins take out the Rangers, 5-4. I finished up the second generation of Robotech on my ancient laptop and posted a couple of pictures to DCR.
Saturday morning, temperature 66° and dropping. John and I decided that we were going to IHOP after we picked up Jen at the base. John manages a Denny's in Selinsgrove - we joked about this being professional research on his part. For me, I just wanted to go to an IHOP - mdxi and bda have talked about them enough to wet my interest. The server took the order without a pad and got the whole thing correct, which scored some serious cool points with John and Mom. The food was good but was also unfortunately cold, which didn't score any points with me. Jen (obviously) loved the coffee - after an entire RTC period of shitty instant coffee (black only), the idea of Real Coffee with cream and sugar and everything apparently had some real appeal.
By the time we were done with IHOP, the temperature had dropped even further and the wind had picked up. There's a REASON they call Chicago the Windy City - Midwest lake wind is some serious no-fucking-around wind. It's hard, strong, and unrelenting. Not the pissy weak omnidirectional wind that Pittsburgh has - this wind could easily drive enough turbines to power Waukegan and Chicago. This area of the country already accepts the gaping eyesore they call their power lines - I don't see them having an issue with wind turbines.
After IHOP, we took Jen back to NSGL and then bopped around whatever it is they call their PX (Jen mentioned it, it was on the door, I forget) for a bit. Mom and I got into a Battle Of Nice with a fresh group of recruits and their TIs - they insisted we cut ahead in line, we insisted that doing so would be unfair (hey, they got in line first). They eventually won the battle by outmaneuvering us - one of the TIs (a stern looking guy who looked like he ate telephone booths for breakfast) waved us to a freshly opened register and that was that. The sailors I encountered were all incredibly polite - I figured my camo shorts, filthy army jacket, untied combat boots and ponytail would have drawn a few dirty looks, but they didn't. Bonus points for the Navy.
Three things struck me about Naval uniforms while I was at NSGL - (a) The Dress Blues (they're actually black, but they're still called Dress Blues, much like the King Of Sweden is called the King of Sweden regardless of his or her gender) are total hair and lint magnets. We're talking "lint from the other side of the room makes a beeline straight for them" kind of dirt magnets. Most impressive. (b) All Navy clothing - the raincoats, the scarves, the dress blues, basically everything but the shoes - seems to be very poorly made. I think this is most obvious in the case of the scarf above. It may be that these unis are just "fresh" off of the assembly line and still need to be worn in, but it doesn't seem that way to me. It's a bit of a bummer - I'd like to think the sailors deserve better, but I haven't seen their work utilities, and I haven't been close enough to get a serious look at any deployed sailor's uniform. (c) While I thought they looked silly on the internet and in A Few Good Men, I realized that actually like the lids that the women are issued. Maybe they just don't translate well to the screen.
With the Serious Wind threatening to do the job for us, the expeditionary force departed Naval Station Great Lakes at around 1130 hours. I honestly don't remember if it was EST or CST, but it was "around noon" any way you cut it.
Jen's off to Mississippi to finish her training, after which she gets an actual leave as opposed to the highly restricted Graduation Liberty she was on for parts of Friday and Saturday. She says she intends to spend a chunk of that leave in Pittsburgh, so I should see her again in about three months, give or take.
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