Coast Guard Recruit Company Golf 186 weekly journal posted Feb 15, 2012

FRI 03 FEB 12

 It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for, indoctrination weekend.  Today is the day we meet our company commanders.  Around the room are 80+ extremely nervous recruits awaiting their fate.  We all have sweaty palms, cotton mouth, and our stomachs are in knots. Our Company Commanders marched in and took the Company Commander Oath. They introduced there selves and told us to get outside.

 SAT 04 FEB 12

 Yesterday our company commanders gave us a nice loud welcome home party.  We are dizzy with commands and tripping over each other’s feet.  All of a sudden everyone develops a stutter.  Today we had class on rules and regulations and we are all on overload mode. But this is just the beginning.

 SUN 05 FEB 12

 A beautiful thing happened…we wore our operational dress uniforms for the first time! Everyone looked sharp in their new uniforms, and all of our chests swelled up with pride.  That definitely gave us the boost we needed.  We are Golf-186!

 MON 06 FEB 12

 It was a cold day in Cape May today. We all woke up to the sting of February air at 0530 to the sound of “Fire! Fire! Fire!” We were introduced to the gym today, groaning while the company commander stood over us, as if relishing in our pain.  On the bright side, we visited the Chaplain and even got a break to play instruments.  It was the first time in a week that any of the recruits felt human.

 TUES 07 FEB 12

 Today the company was on edge.  Close living quarters and lack of sleep have finally caught up to everyone.  We had our first core strength exercises in the morning, and by the end the company was a sweaty heap on the floor.  Our CC’s had us hold our Coast Guard Manuals at arm’s length and read the paragraph on Self Discipline because we were lacking it. By the end of the day we all hit the rack HARD.

 WED 08 FEB 12

 The bike workout today was exhausting! It was our first one and all you heard were several moans.  Our Chief was right there encouraging us and also doing the same workout.  He told us to fight through the pain.  We also received our pieces (M-1 Grand rifles) today, training is moving along very quickly. We all see improvement; we are striving towards greatness one day at a time.

 THU 09 FEB 12

 We are constantly being bombarded with more and more required knowledge.  Many of the recruits feel like their heads are about to explode with all the names and ranks of our chain of command.  We had our swim assessment today and although a few recruits were put into remedial swim, for the most part Golf feels like we’re a step closer to earning our sea legs.

 FRI 10 FEB 12

 A very rough, exhausting day today.  We missed all of our time objectives, which led to more incentive training.  Our company is still not quite a team, we have several individuals instead of team players and it’s starting to show.  I hope tomorrow is a better day. 

 SAT 11 FEB 12

 Today Golf Company shed a lot of calories between the morning bike workout and the full evening of incentive training.  The only break was for chow, and our trays were piled to the edges with food.  Morale is low, it is near the end of the week, and some recruits are getting frustrated with their slower shipmates.  The only bright side is the personal time we get for divine hours tomorrow.

 SUN 12 FEB 12

 Today was our divine hours, and everyone was scrambling to square away our racks and iron our dress uniforms.  It gave some people the opportunity to catch up on hygiene, and a couple recruits were even bold enough to write letters home.  All in all the 05 hours of personal time didn’t feel like enough, and before we knew it we were back to our manual of arms and incentive training discipline.