Comments

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  Stick October 31, 2009 at 7:42am

  Ron Ruiter...I think there were 2 trains...CHICAGO and NORTH WESTERN was the BIG YELLOW TRAIN...and if memory serves me right some of the cars were doubledeckers..The TROLLEY was electric and was called...(once more the memory thing) was called NORTH SHORE or something like that..
  The CHICAGO and NORTHWESTERN train was a regular diesel engine train...
  Also If we missed the last TROLLY out to the base we used to go to the GREYHOUND bus station and sleep in the chairs in the waiting area...but before we did we would grab a ticket envelope from the counter and if CHICAGO pd came up and aske us if we were waiting for a bus we'd show em the envelope..never had to open the envelope just show it..weren't any tickets in the envelope anyway.
  CHICAGO and NORTHWESTERN did make runs after mid night but at like 2-3 hour differences..So we usually just waited till the trolly made it's first run in the AM
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  airman , retired, johnson October 31, 2009 at 4:38am

  leave the rest till later if you all want to hear it
  as for the trolly guys,, great mistakes still has train tracks running through it, there is a fence around the tracks but as we were told, it is not to stop us from catching the train to get out, but to stop the animals from getting hit by the train.
  some parts of great mistakes are being kept, most are gone now, they did alot of changes even when i was there,,
  
  totally new dance there now days.
  honor, courage, commitment.
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  airman , retired, johnson October 31, 2009 at 4:35am

  hehe thought that was looking like a book so posted it before i lost it lol.
  so we finally get to our quarteres per say, soaking wet, cold, tired etc, then told to clean the place. ironically we could not finish cleaning the place untill all drops of water were off the floor, hard to do when everyone is soaking wet lol.
  we had a great Petty officer, lol he knew the ways to screw with recreuits lol
  so that was basically day 1 lol.. before i forget this, we still had yet to get sleep,, apparently that is not an option.
  when the sun came up, just breaking dawn as i recall,, we got the pleasure of knowing what the grinder is,,
  
  for those that are not totally fam with the grinder, it is the court yard you learn to march in, it sucks lol.
  so we all had to learn formation, marching etc in about 5 mins, lol it sucked and it was still raining,,
  i know it is like a sad puppy dog story, but i have to say at least it was not snowing, one saving grace.
  
  i think it was day 3 before we learned there was suck a thing as food, seemed we had to learn to march and formation before being rewarded with food,,, and yes we all did not eat for about 3 days. told you my Petty officer was good at his job lol.
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  airman , retired, johnson October 31, 2009 at 4:26am

  read again what i had posted and it seems my grammer is getting worse. i believe i left off at us getting on the bus to great mistakes.
  as our, or my recruiter told us, take a small bag ie back pack with what we needed, lol what a mistake that was.
  no room on the bus for personal items, ie back packs, so the floor was lined with them, and not knowing who is next to you, we all tried to keep them as close as possible. some of us got some sleep on the bus, but if we did it was limited. just like on a plane we all hate the person that falls asleep on us lol same way on the bus even thoe all of us were tired.
  we pulled into great mistakes around 10pm it was dark and cold, ordered off the bus and expected to make a formation lol.
  at that point in time all of us only knew what we had seen in movies, or what our parents had tried to teach us,,, needless to say it was ugly.
  i have to give the Navy credit, in the first 5 mins i did learn the Petty officers where white and Chiefs where brown, and you do not salute indoors, and you do not salute Petty officers or Chiefs, lol.
  
  i digress here pardon me,, when ordered off the bus we took what we had with us, well when making our sad formation we were told to leave what we had on the ground. we where marched into a building, i became very famular with this one in the months to come..
  they made us stand on a line, as i recall a blue one,, if you could not stand on it they would just kick you out and put you back on the bus.
  seems that is not totally uncommon as we had 3 people that were kicked from the get go.
  guess that is why we were told to leave our bags where they were, if you cannot follow a simple order of stand on a blue line, then when they kick you out, you can pick up or bag while getting back on the bus lol .
  so for about 45 mins we where yelled at, all while trying to keep an idea of fomation on the blue line. then we all where given 10 mins to make phone calls home. need i say it was by then past midnight, so ahh who are you going to call at 0200 to say hi i made it to boot camp, lol.
  and there was about 15 phones, for 60 recruiets, yes i say that with a bit of slang lol,,
  after our supposed time to make calls home,, ohh lol we had to pay for those, another thing the recruiter never said lol bring a calling card that works to boot lol.
  we got our bags and was then brought into basically a where house. told to put our stuff on the long bench like table. strip totally nakid, and box up all our stuff. ie we have nothing but what the military gives us lol.
  so standing there totally nakid we box up our stuff and put addys etc to make sure it gets home. then we are given our stuff lol. sea bags, undies or boxers as some call them where the first thing to ever go on lol. we got our blues, but not allowed to where them, we had to where smurfs, sweat shirt and pants that are blue,, called smurfs.
  so all of us in our fancy new smurfs get in line, we did not know what for till it was to late,, hair cuts lol.
  we had a few people on our bus that shaved there heads but they still had to go in and let the students from the local stylist school work with them lol,, talk about a flowbe botcher job lol,,, for all of us.
  by this time its roughly around 0400, we are all tired and really want to sleep,, cus of my father being a dick i was used to staying up for days on end and doing what i was told, others not so lucky lol.
  after hair cuts we are led back to the wherehouse to get our sea bags, basically a bunch of crap stuffed into a bag, no-one had told us how to pack them lol.
  so this is our first time with a 80lbs pack,, lol sea bags suck lol, we had green ones, due to the fact we got army extras lol Navy trying to save a few bucks lol.
  then we start the long walk to our barricks,, ie our ship, ironically we allso get to meet our Petty officer that will torture us until we get out of boot lol.
  we humped it for what seemed like 20 miles, but only about 1/2 mile, again none of us had slept for at least 2 days at this point, ok at least i had not lol.
  so we get to our building, yay get to rest,, nope not an option, we had to clean the place first. did i forget to mention stairs, we had to hump our packs up stairs, 3 flights of them. i thought i was in somewhat decent shape when i got to boot, wow i was wrong, and others faired well, some wanted to die, i think i was in the middle lol.
  before i forget i have to make this one point,,, since leaving the airport none of us had used the bathroom, so when getting to the ship lol, some needed to crap or pee,, but ahh when getting yelled at, ahh you seem to not worrie about it to much, and if it was brought up, everyone suffered lol
  i did forget to mention that in great mistakes it was raining so when we got to our ship, all of us where soaked in our smurfs.
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  T. Harris October 30, 2009 at 8:07pm

  I was in The great lakes from Dec. 1979 - June 1980.
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  James G Toler October 30, 2009 at 4:51pm

  I was in great lakes from june 1989 to november 1989.
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  Stick October 30, 2009 at 8:26am

  Airman Johnson...wow you guys really got the shaft...when I left St.Louis we were on a train...don't remember the exact time we got into Chicago..but we didn't stay at the train station very long ...IIRC we were met by SPs and directed to the afore mentioned TOOTERVILLE TROLLY...when we arrived at Gt Lakes...we were met by IIRC a SERVICE WEEK who marched(:) or tried to)...us to the the gate at CAMP BARRY...read the rest I posted about arriving at boot camp
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  Ron Ruiter October 30, 2009 at 6:51am

  I believe the "Tooterville Trolly" was called the Northwestern and ran from Chicago to Milwaukee. And I remember making the last train to get you back to Great Lakes by midnight. Oh yes, that train made good time heading up north on that last run. LOL, great memories. Thanks for bringing it up.
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  Stick October 30, 2009 at 6:04am

  Anyone remember the "TOOTERVILLE TROLLY"...ran between Chicago and....I never did find out where it actually started and ended...all I remember is that if you were on the last run out of Chicago that thing would haul a**...conductors were always trying to sell something ...Chicago Liberty ...I had 2 while in Basic..on guy gotta tat a rose bout the size of a half dollar....lost it when we were getting the last round of shots..Corpsman was using the "NEW"(at that time)air powered shots..
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  airman , retired, johnson October 29, 2009 at 3:58pm

  so what happened next i will leave up to others to ask for,,