I joined the Navy’s delayed entry program while still in high school. It was my fail-safe ticket out. I was supposed to boot camp in Florida in July. “Are you Fucking kidding me?” I asked the recruiter, “I’m from Alaska. Florida in July my ass!” Instead of being part of the last female companies in Florida, I was sent to Illinois in October to be part of the first female companies there. Our company number was 007 and we played up the whole “Jane Bond” bit including the silhouette of a female detective on our company flag.

Boot camp for the Navy is approximately eight weeks and on the fifth week each company does “work week” where each person is assigned a job that helps process other new recruits. My job as with most others was in the galley. I don’t care how long anyone works in the fast food industry during high school; nothing is worse that working in a boot camp galley. Our only benefit was that our customers were never right and couldn’t complain about the food.

For that week, our reveille time was three in the morning. We had to be at work at three thirty in the morning in order to start serving breakfast at four. Our work time as in actual hours worked in a day would be sixteen long hours of standing. My specific job was as one of the many people standing in line serving slop that passes as food in the military.

In boot camp, each company consists of approximately eighty people. That number varies based on the number of people coming in at one time and people that are set back for failing various parts of boot camp, but for the most part, it’s about 80. Companies that are set to graduate at the same time all compete for badges of group achievements which are displayed at graduation. One of those achievements is to be consistently faster through the chow line than the other companies. This means no one has time to analyze the substances served as food. They must however, shout out to the servers what they want and simultaneously shove their tray under the plexiglass to be served the mystery goop. As food servers it was our job not only to serve the slop but to announce what form of slop was being served in order to help move the line along quickly. Many companies were moved though the line in under two minutes. Eighty people, two frickin’ minutes. Wow.

The Navy of course didn’t use fresh real eggs from actual chickens but whipped up eggbeaters for breakfast. The so-called scrambled eggs were always made the night before and mixed with chopped bits of ham. Real hardboiled eggs that aren’t quickly cooled will get a green film around the yoke. Well, the same thing happens to eggbeaters only it’s all yoke.

I don’t remember if I was assigned a spot in the line or if I always just happened to be the first server in the lineup, which in the morning served the scrambled eggs. They never told us what to say when serving the food, so being a Dr. Seuss fan and of course, a perpetual smart ass I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to shout out exactly what I was serving. “Green eggs and ham! Get your green eggs and ham!” There were many chuckles on the other side of the plexiglass, “Sure, I’ll try some green eggs”. And every morning without fail the Chief would come up to me, “Serving the eggs with attitude?”

Me: *eye flutter* “What do you mean?”
Chiefy: “Green eggs and ham?”
Me: “But they are green.”
Chiefy: “You can’t do that.”
Me: “But it is green eggs and ham. Look, it’s green.”

Amazingly, I passed boot camp without ever being set back. On my way through, I had asked for overseas duty. I never got it. I served in the same state I signed up from and the only sea time I saw was one two-week deployment on the Lincoln (aircraft carrier) going on a training mission from Everett WA to San Diego CA.

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