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GREAT LAKES (NNS) -- More than 28 chief petty officer selects from various commands throughout the world graduated from the Back to Boot Camp Heritage Legacy Training event held from Aug. 26-31, at Recruit Training Command (RTC).
The Back to Boot Camp program is a five-day re-indoctrination to basic naval training that all recruits receive during their first eight weeks of training and provides additional focus on scenario-based leadership training and mentorship for the selects.
“Back to Boot Camp allows selectees and mentors to see how the ‘Sailorization’ process has changed since they left boot camp,” said Senior Chief Fire Controlman Aegis Hector Perezgarcia, program manager for Back to Boot Camp and a recruit division commander (RDC). “We hope they take away heritage and leadership training from a place where most of our careers started.”
During the training, the chief selects participated in some of the events they had to complete during their initial boot camp experience including firefighting, military drill and seamanship training aboard USS Marlinespike.
In addition to participating in RTC’s hands-on learning curriculum, the chief selects received training and mentorship from RTC’s Chiefs Mess, one of the Navy’s largest chief’s messes. They also participated in a four-mile run with some heritage training included at significant buildings on RTC.
Their training wasn’t only limited to RTC grounds. They joined the CPOs and CPO selects from the Great Lakes region for Chicago CPO Pride Day where they marched through the streets of Chicago. They stopped at various tourist sites along the way for heritage training. The event also allowed the CPOs to celebrate the legacy and camaraderie that comes with being a member of the chief’s mess.
RTC’s Command Master Chief David Twiford said Back to Boot Camp allows these future chief petty officers to not only re-experience boot camp themselves, but also to remind then where they came from. This will help them have a better understanding of the Sailors who will be working for them once they are wear their anchors on their collars instead of the 1st-class petty officer crow.
“We tie it [Back to Boot Camp] into initiation and CPO heritage because we believe the building of a chief starts at Great Lakes,” said Twiford. “So having them come back and in a sense re-experience a little bit of what they saw when they went through boot camp, maybe that will re-center them on how they’re going to go forward to start their new chapter as chief petty officers.”
The chief selects capped off their training by completing Battle Stations-21, the crucible event for Navy boot camp. They boarded USS Trayer for a 12-hour overnight period, and completed many scenarios including firefighting and damage control, casualty evacuations, loading and unloading supplies and line handling. Each scenario focused on teamwork to complete it – something that CPOs rely on daily to “be the chief”.
One Back to Boot Camp participant, Naval Aircrewman Operator 1st Class Petty Officer Grant McClellan from Patrol Squadron Thirty (VP-30) in Jacksonville, Fla., who will be promoted to chief petty officer Sept. 14, said that his time at RTC helped him to realize the true importance of teamwork and relying on the chief’s mess, and why it’s stressed so much during the initiation season.
“We have a wealth of resources in each other that there’s no situation or experience that hasn’t happened yet. It may be packaged differently, but it’s happened. Somebody’s experienced it, or somebody knows somebody who’s done it or seen it, so the answer is out there,” said McClellan. “The guidance is out there, so you take that home and it reinforces that same underlying lesson of no one’s alone. Utilize what you have — utilize the mess.”
Twiford and Perezgarcia both agree that they hope this experience helps this group of selects realize the importance of how getting back to the basics can help when they put on their anchors. Now, thanks to Back to Boot Camp they have new tools to help train their Sailors in what they learned at RTC once they get back to their commands.
“We want them to share their experience when they go back out to the fleet as to how we are incorporating ‘core attributes’ here at RTC to deliver a tougher, mentally prepared, basically trained Sailor, said Perezgarcia.
“Enforce the standard,” added Twiford. “We teach the standard here, we enforce the standard, and we hope that when they go back to the fleet that they enforce the standard every day even when that’s tough — even when maybe others have let it slip — that they keep enforcing the standard.”
RTC Great Lakes is the Navy's only basic training location and is known as “The Quarterdeck of the Navy.” More than 30,000 recruits graduate annually from RTC and begin their Navy careers.
For more news from Recruit Training Command, visit www.navy.mil/local/rtc/.
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| Date Taken: | 09.07.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 09.20.2018 13:14 |
| Story ID: | 293736 |
| Location: | NORTH CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, US |
| Web Views: | 973 |
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