July 6, 1984
My first day in the Navy.
I was 17 years old, and had to actually get a special note from my parents to be able to show up for Induction Day, (this is an even larger story in itself, which I’ll probably post about later).
The grounds of the Naval Academy were like nowhere else, in my experience. I grew up in Arizona and Colorado, so the East Coast was a mystery to me. Some of the buildings were very old, (including parts of Bancroft Hall, the dorm building that houses all ~4,500 midshipmen at once), and all the red brick paths were covered in a greenish mold/moss. I’d never been to a place so humid in my life.
It was strange, exciting, and terrifying all at once.
It also marked my entry into the beautiful world of “Sentence Enhancers,” what some would call “Cussin’.“