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Boot camp gets new Battle Stations trainer

Boot camp just got tougher. That’s because recruits now must go to sea and qualify to graduate — all without leaving the base.

It happens inside the new $82.5 million Battle Stations 21 trainer onboard the Trayer, a new “ship” recently put into service at the Navy’s boot camp in Great Lakes, Ill.

It’s the high-tech follow-on to the old “legacy” Battle Stations — team-building and problem-solving events utilizing cast-off fleet gear in old, worn-down buildings spread out over the entire base.

Now, the culminating boot camp event is all under one new roof, on a ship powered by high-cost, Hollywood-style special effects.

So cutting-edge is the technology that this one-of-a-kind military trainer is being eyed by the Saudi Arabian and British navies for use in their own training.

Army and Marine Corps trainers are also keen to leverage the technology.

What recruits now get is a complete shipboard battle scenario as well as an extensive gray hull orientation.

Along the way, they’re tested on topics taught in the boot camp curriculum and schooled in the ways of the Navy.

All that happens during a 12-hour make-or-break experience that serves as the culmination of boot camp.

Since May 21, when the trainer went live, nine sailors have failed Battle Stations on the first try. All passed on a second attempt. No doubt, it’s a tough new task for sailors to navigate.

“The legacy Battle Stations was a pure confidence course,” said Chief Fire Controlman (SW) Michael North, one of the instructors assigned to the Battle Stations complex. “It’s still a confidence course, but it’s also a full-blown ship simulator. [It gives] these recruits their first feel, taste and smell of what it’s like to live and work on a real ship.”

So realistic is the Trayer that North adds: “Sometimes, late at night, I have to remind myself I’m at Great Lakes and not at sea.”

Old salts may not notice some of the nuances that help bring this ship to life. They are not lost on the newbies.

“It’s little things, like sounds and routine 1MC calls and simple shipboard noises that we’ve all heard a thousand times, but for [recruits], it’s brand new,” said Hull Maintenance Technician 1st Class (SW/AW) George Johnson, one of the ship’s instructors.

“It’s the closest you can get to being on an actual ship. If I’d had something like this in boot camp, I’d be light-years ahead when I got to my first ship, because I’d have done all these things once before.”

The ship

About 8 p.m., recruits are marched into the BS21 complex. Before they see their ship, their recruit division commanders are sent away, and BS21 staff take the helm.

The staff members greet the recruits and quickly get down to business. They watch mock television newscasts warning of imminent terrorist attack in Norfolk, Va. They get a briefing by Trayer’s captain — played convincingly by Kitty Hawk skipper Capt. Todd Zecchin — who later pops up on screens strategically placed around the ship to coach, warn and advise his sailors throughout the night.

In all, 17 different videos will be shown, one for each scenario the recruits will tackle. Some convey history lessons, while others update the “battle situation” in which the recruits are engaged. Soon, the recruits march from the dark warehouse setting onto the pier.

Looming above them is the Trayer, a 210-foot-long replica of a guided-missile destroyer. It’s lit up like any other ship in port.

Trayer sits in water — 90,000 gallons of it, to be exact — and the wooden pilings next to the pier are even painted with authentic-looking seagull droppings.

Recruits are greeted by a slight breeze and various waterfront sounds, from seagull cries to helicopter rotors.

So real is the “surround sound” that some recruits have been seen to flinch when the helicopter sound roars overhead.

Such sounds continue throughout the night. There are the constant 1MC announcements, and the whine of ship’s turbines is deafening when the ship goes to flank speed after being “attacked” by terrorists.

“It was surreal at first, walking onto that pier. The detail was so good that it really felt and sounded like I was on a pier in Norfolk,” said Fireman Recruit Justin Bruce, who navigated Battle Stations on Aug. 19.

One by one, wide-eyed sailors cross the Trayer’s brow and head inside the skin of the ship. They each clutch a seabag containing a set of coveralls they’ll later wear and a change of socks.

They stare at gray walls and blue terrazzo decks adorned with all the deck, bulkhead and overhead fittings familiar to fleet sailors.

On this ship, however, the passageways are noticeably wider than most you’d find in the fleet — 3 feet in some places. That’s by design, to ensure the maximum number of recruits can safely navigate around the ship at the same time.

Recruits start their Battle Stations around 8 p.m. and finish 12 hours later.

There’s no food, no sleep, just water to sip from welcome canteens. And when it’s all over, most of the recruits will have been up for more than 24 hours straight.

Just like life at sea on any ship, there are endless hours of numbing routine that can change in an instant to catastrophe.

For the Trayer, that nightmare begins at 2 a.m., when the ship is rocked three times by missile attacks over a four-hour period.

The rooms literally shake from the force of the blows — forcing the recruits to brace themselves for shock against the bulkheads.

After the first strike, the ship loses power. The red lights of a ship underway switch off and on, punctuated every few seconds by the white light of battle lanterns as the power is repeatedly cut off. In the background, alarms blare over the ship’s loudspeaker.

As the stress factors rise, the groups of recruits must make their way to safety and help save and operate their ship. It’s orchestrated chaos that sees some recruits take charge and others dutifully follow orders. Teamwork is key.

“All through boot camp, we didn’t do things good as a team, but that one night, people stepped forward you didn’t expect to lead and the rest of the people just picked up the slack — it was an incredible thing to watch,” said Seaman Recruit Anthony Baca, a future quartermaster who went through Battle Stations the night of Aug. 19. “Some people who [everyone] thought were the weak links of our division turned out to be the real leaders.”

For Seaman Apprentice Keren Figueroa, pinpointing key moments in team building were easy.

“It was the mass casualty scenario,” Figueroa said, “the one that simulates an explosion on the mess decks and in a berthing compartment. We had to go in and find our injured shipmates in the mess.”

This drill is directly based on what happened on the guided-missile destroyer Cole on Oct. 12, 2000, when terrorists exploded a bomb next to the ship, ripping a gaping hole and crushing sailors eating on the mess decks.

“It was where it all clicked for us,” Figueroa said. “There was smoke everywhere and there were electrical wires sparking all over the place — it was a real mess, and we had to find our way through it as a team.”

One by one, her crew located the “injured shipmates” — life-sized dummies that can talk and moan.

“They weighed 130 pounds, and it took six of us to carry each of them,” she said. “And the noises they made ... it was sometimes too realistic. We never would have made it if we didn’t come together as a group — it was just too tough.”

Once at general quarters, the misery levels increase, too.

One of the chief culprits here is the traditional flooding scenario. Trayer’s version is based on a magazine catastrophe onboard the amphibious ship Tripoli after striking a mine Feb. 18, 1991, in the Persian Gulf.

Upon entering the space, the recruits see a burst pipe that’s rapidly spewing water.

In the chaos, some recruits must tackle the leak while the others must move ammunition rounds from the damaged space into a dry one next door.

For those who don’t fix the leak quickly, it can be a long night. The water can actually rise over the top of the rubber firefighting boots the recruits wear during the scenario.

“Just being wet most of the night was tough, and we stayed wet until we were done,” Figueroa said. “However, we did get to change our socks so our feet wouldn’t get blisters.”

It’s not all trial by fire. The recruits get the chance to stand routine engine room and lookout watches, providing glimpses of careers to come.

“I’m going to be a quartermaster when I get to the fleet,” Figueroa said. “Our facilitator was a chief quartermaster, and he showed us everything on the bridge and described what I’d be doing when on watch in the fleet.”

For Bruce, standing watch in Trayer’s auxiliary machinery room was a vision of his future.

“It really hit me, like this is where I’m going to be,” Bruce said. “It was really loud, even wearing the ear muff hearing protection. I had a hard time hearing anyone. But I got to see what my job will be like, and I’ll be better prepared once I get to the fleet, I think.”

Capping

Finally, about 7 a.m., the shipboard fires are under control, the flooding has been stopped, and the ship finally “returns” to its berth at Norfolk. If all goes well, the ordeal has been weathered.

Once the ship ties up, there’s new activity on the pier as the Battle Stations staff prepares for the final act — the historic capping ceremony where recruits officially become sailors. They doff their ballcaps with the word “RECRUIT” and trade them for ones that say “NAVY.”

While formal graduation is still to come, this moment signifies the end of boot camp.

“You have been tested and you have proved yourselves,” Capt. Annie Andrews, commanding officer of Recruit Training Command, announced to the ranks of sailors standing on the pier. “Not only have you come through this, but you did it as a team, and that’s what being a sailor is all about; congratulations, shipmates.”

“The capping ceremony was probably the only time in boot camp I cried,” Figueroa said. “I really felt a part of the Navy — you can’t believe how good it felt.”

For Baca, the reality set in when his recruit division commander shook his hand and congratulated him.

“It was the first time I’d ever looked him in the eye,” he said. “I felt I could now do that because we were both sailors.”