Photo By Chief Petty Officer Stephane Belcher | Naval Aircrewman (Mechanical) 2nd Class John Cotter, the Junior Instructor of the...... read more read more
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Meet Naval Aircrewman (Mechanical) 2nd Class John Cotter! He’s the Junior Instructor of the Quarter and a Future Sailor Program facilitator at Recruit Training Command (RTC), the Navy’s only boot camp.
Cotter is from Helena, Montana, and a hockey fan. He enjoys going to local sporting events and participates in CrossFit competitions.
“I love hockey. I’m actually on a men’s league team,” Cotter said. “I’ve been playing hockey since I could walk.”
Cotter went to about a dozen Chicago Cubs games and a couple of Chicago Blackhawks games last season.
One of the Blackhawks’ games was during the military appreciation night. He had the opportunity to ride the Zamboni, the ice-resurfacing machine, before the game.
“I was very excited because I was going to a hockey game in the uniform,” he said. “The coordinator heard I was a fan and asked if I wanted to ride the Zamboni. I was like, ‘That sounds amazing!’”
Cotter owned a CrossFit gym in Missoula, Montana, and taught group classes for years before joining the Navy.
“Falling into this was pretty natural for me,” he said about teaching fitness to the recruits.
He's a big believer in leaving things better than he found them. As a junior aircrewman, Cotter didn’t feel like he was able to make a difference in the Navy, that’s why he wanted to return to RTC.
“I remember thinking, even in boot camp, it would be kind of cool if I made enough rank to come back and make a difference in how stuff works in boot camp,” he said. “I think I kind of spoke it into existence when I got here because I have the CrossFit gym and I’ve done sports, training, and nutrition stuff.”
Cotter and his Future Sailor Program team teach all the Physical Training (PT) to the recruits during the three-week pilot program for the Future Sailor Prep Course.
“We’re actually teaching them in-depth about nutrition, hydration, sleep, a lot of courses like that,” he said. “I’ve been running a lot of the PT, especially for the morning crew.”
The Future Sailor Prep Course helps recruits reach their weight goals and meet the Navy’s standards. The recruits in the pilot program were up to 6% above the max Body Composition Assessment (BCA) when they arrived at boot camp.
“These are probably the most motivated recruits I’ve ever had,” Cotter said. “I really like the fact that we, we being the Navy, are finally able to retain some of these Sailors. We’re retaining a bunch of knowledge, and eventually expertise that the Navy wants—that we would have missed out on just because they were 3% over BCA. It’s good to watch, because they know what they’ve got on the line.”
Boot camp is approximately 10 weeks and all enlistees in the U.S. Navy begin their careers at the command. Training includes five warfighting competencies of firefighting, damage control, seamanship, watch standing, and small arms handling and marksmanship along with physical fitness and lessons in Navy heritage and core values, Warrior Toughness, Life Skills, teamwork, and discipline. More than 40,000 recruits train annually at the Navy’s only boot camp.
| Date Taken: | 05.04.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 05.04.2023 08:23 |
| Story ID: | 444002 |
| Location: | GREAT LAKES, ILLINOIS, US |
| Web Views: | 386 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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