Recruits Get Lifesaver in Sink-or-Swim Boot Camp

It sounds corny, but young men and women still join the Navy to see the world.

Nevertheless, some never see anything more than boot camp and are back on a homeward-bound bus after a few frustrating weeks. It costs the Navy time and money, and leaves the failed recruit with a lifetime of explanations.

Last year, 21% of the 25,292 recruits at the Navy boot camp in San Diego washed out. Similar rates also plagued the Navy’s other two boot camps, in Great Lakes, Ill., and Orlando, Fla.

A Navy spokesman says the attrition rate is “unacceptably high in today’s tough recruiting market and shrinking manpower pool.” It’s a stubborn problem that has defied numerous remedies.

The latest attempt is a three-month experiment under way at all three camps, in which there will be no “drops” during the first

three weeks of the 8 1/2-week training course. Studies show that 85% of the washouts fail in the first three weeks.

No more. Foundering recruits are to be targeted for counseling and additional attention to provide “added motivation.”

Two skills are particularly troublesome: swimming and reading. Remedial instruction has been strengthened in both.

Sailors who still cannot swim after boot camp will be assigned to shore duty while undergoing further swimming instruction.

“We get a lot of fine young sailors from Kansas and Iowa who’ve never seen water until they hit San Diego,” said a Navy spokesman. “We want to give them every chance to make it.”

Along with the new buckle-down policy, the Navy is also trying a sweetener to encourage recruits to tough it out. A fringe benefit phased out in 1979 to save money has been reinstituted: a 15-day leave for all recruits who complete boot camp.

Hot Fans, Cool Cod

Short shots:

It’s a good thing that the Padres’ Jack Clark has shown signs of emerging from his batting slump. The fans were getting hostile.

Last week a group down the third base line held up eye charts every time Clark came to bat.

And when a fan spotted an ambulance outside the stadium, he yelled, “Hey, are Clark’s bats in there? They need some emergency treatment.” He wasn’t joking.

Sorry, Greenpeace. The San Diego school system is buying 30,000 pounds of Icelandic cod fillet for $56,700. The environmental group had asked that no Icelandic cod be bought for school cafeterias to protest Iceland’s allowance of whale hunting.

School Supt. Tom Payzant decided to go ahead with the purchase.

His reasons: Iceland has promised to rethink its whaling practices, Icelandic cod is cheaper than Canadian cod, and Icelandic cod doesn’t have “as fishy a taste.”

Go Ahead and Sue

Update: First the judges called the Leonard-Hearns fight a draw. Now the city attorney has rendered a verdict in Wolfsheimer-Dickey: Wolfsheimer on a split decision.

Alan F. Dickey, chairman of the Rancho de Los Penasquitos Planning Board, had protested that Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer violated the Brown Act by strong-arming him into turning off his tape recorder at a meeting of a citizens committee.

Chief Deputy City Atty. Ted Bromfield says no violation took place because the committee was not formed by the City Council and thus is not subject to the Brown Act.

On the other hand, the committee does not fit what the council had in mind when it decided that a citizens committee should provide recommendations on spending $2.2 million in developer fees in Rancho Penasquitos. Wolfsheimer merely formed a committee and installed herself as chairwoman.

Bromfield’s decision throws the committee matter back to the council. Other council members may have their own ideas on who should be on the committee and how it should be run.

Bromfield writes that, should Dickey disagree with his decision, “he is free to challenge further action by mandamus,” which to you and me is a lawsuit. Dickey says he’s busy making a living and can’t afford a mandamus.