Naval Training Center, San Diego

Well, I never saw this coming.

I went to boot camp at NTC. I attended advanced firefighting school there, and worked for the First Lieutenant while awaiting orders to my ship on the east coast. It was home for just under a year, and I wasn’t yet nineteen years young.

Not once during those excellent days of psychological flogging did I look around and think…”Man, these would be some SWEET condos, that is, if the Feds ever close down this dump and sell it to the city of San Diego.”

I wonder if they’ll shave the heads of all new residents.

Here’s the U.S.S. Recruit…a fake training ship that sat high and dry on the base. Hundreds of thousands of sailors trained on her, and I’d bet a few even got seasick, just to keep it real.