Recruits Face Their Moment of Naval Truth

Eric Maisel, an 18-year-old Montana native, stood up to confess that he had been issued four traffic tickets--and not three as his Navy recruit forms indicated. Another youth, an 18-year-old Oregon native, his face riddled with acne, said he had stolen a tube of Clearasil four years ago.

One by one, 65 of 80 new recruits--just shorn--marched or stumbled forward in a recent exercise, ready to confess sins that ranged from occasional drug use to unpaid fines.

It was their final farewell to the civilian world. It was the Moment of Truth, a new exercise meant to screen Navy recruits who reach boot camp and to offer a chance to confess to past drug or excessive alcohol use, as well as crimes and medical ailments. Navy officials hope this exercise--being tried for the first time this year at training facilities across the nation--will reduce attrition in the 8-week boot camp and save money by sending home “inappropriate” youths instead of training them only to dismiss them later.

“Recruit, do not play with your future by keeping your mouth closed,” ordered Master Chief Petty Officer Michael J. Crance, as he addressed fledgling recruits, all straining to sit up straight and keep their eyes open at 6:30 a.m. “If you have withheld information, tell us now.”

Crance’s script and delivery are compelling. He speaks deliberately, staring evenly at his audience of bleary-eyed young men. Word has spread around the base that any recruit who speaks one-on-one with Crance, a fatherly figure with piercing blue eyes, should bring a box of tissues and be prepared to use it.

Modeled after a Marine exercise, the screening effort--part bluff and bluster--is a last ditch attempt to catch all recruits who might have fudged on their applications, fibbed to their recruiters or just plain erred on the numerous forms. It’s also an attempt to enhance recruiters’ accountability since officials can find out almost immediately if they’ve been saddled with an inappropriate recruit, someone with a criminal or mentally troubled past.

“Attrition (from boot camp) is occurring within the first couple of days rather than several weeks into it,” said Rear Adm. Henry C. McKinney, commander, Navy Recruiting Command in Washington. McKinney said he began the exercise in February as part of series of efforts to stem attrition, which has dropped from 15% to 9%.

The exercise also helps preserve a sense of a company and avoids disrupting the group, officials said.

“When you pull somebody out of the team, you’re leaving a hole,” said Capt. Bob Leonard of the Naval Recruiting Command. “It’s not good for them and it’s not good for him either.”

For each group, the exercise is identical. Officers read from scripts to ensure that across the county, boot camp enrollees are experiencing the same shock, the same query, the same fatigue. And for “cuff monsters”--a nickname given to new recruits whose Navy-issue pants have not yet been hemmed--the experience can be grueling.

At San Diego’s Recruit Training Command last week, a group had arrived the night before from all over the country. Most, like Maisel, had gotten no more than three hours sleep. Their civilian clothes had been replaced by a blue Navy sweat suit. They were ordered to call officers “sir” and told to line up.

Then they marched to the barber shop. Looking pale, bewildered and disheveled, they sat in the chairs as one of three barbers shaved their heads so close that the flesh beneath showed. Mounds of hair piled up on the floor and the youths were ordered back into formation to go upstairs to a small auditorium.

“This is the most dehumanizing thing that happens in boot camp,” said Lt. (j.g.) Steve Schueler. “It’s hell, they’re exhausted. They don’t know what’s going on. And they’re homesick.”

In the auditorium, the youngsters are warned to stay awake and to sit up. But for many those two assignments are clearly tough ones. Then on a screen and verbally, they are admonished: “Warning, failure to disclose any information about your enlistment may be punishable by a $10,000 fine and/or five years in prison.”

In an interview after the exercise, Capt. Leonard of the Washington-based Naval Recruiting Command, which polices and spot-checks the various boot camps, said that no fine had ever been levied against an individual.

But the bluff is effective. These young men have already been screened several times, by recruiters and others, before they get to boot camp. They have filled out multiple sets of forms meant to separate those who are ineligible for service in the Navy.

The group is asked to stand up and form lines if they have questions or confessions about several different issues, including police records, prior service, dependents, educational records, and medical ailments. Fifty youths immediately stand up.

“As long as you tell the truth, nothing is going to happen,” Crance reminds them.

Some, like Douglas Dunham, stepped forward not because they have anything to confess but because practically everyone in the room does and because the blustery talk is so menacing that they want to “make sure the documents are right.”

“I didn’t have anything to hide,” said Dunham, a 20-year-old Glendale native. Dunham, whose hair had dipped down to the middle of his back a year ago, is clearly stunned by the morning, which began at 5 a.m. He repeatedly rubbed the brownish fuzz atop his head.

“When I was growing up, I had this thing about teachers going up in my face, telling me what to do. I told myself I would never join the military--I was kind of a rebel,” Dunham said. “But I saw that if I didn’t do something I’d be living out in the streets, like these people at my old job, taking food out of dumpsters. So I joined.”

Not everyone flies through the Moment of Truth exercise. In a group of 100, Navy officials usually snare two individuals whom they deem unacceptable, said Capt. Leonard, who was spot-checking the San Diego facility recently. An individual is automatically ejected if he has been convicted for more than one felony offense or for certain crimes, such as grand larceny, aggravated assault or kidnapping.

A high-ranking officer would have to sign a waiver allowing any individual to stay in boot camp who had committed robbery, passed bad checks, or trespassed.

Recently, officials in San Diego snared a young man who had used 15 different aliases and a youngster who had spent two years in prison in Washington.

They also booted out Francisco Cardenas of San Bernardino. During a Moment of Truth exercise, Cardenas, 20, stepped forward to tell officials that he had a criminal record that was sealed in juvenile court and had been involved with drugs. He had informed his recruiter about his past, he said.

Weeks later, Cardenas said, he was released from the Navy.

“I went there with the hopes that things would change for me,” said Cardenas, who lives with his mother.

The Moment of Truth exercise punishes those with a questionable past who step forward, he said. For people like him, who have committed crimes but are trying to turn their lives around, the Navy can make it more difficult, he says. Out of the Navy, he now finds that he must explain to prospective employers why he survived no more than 11 weeks in the Navy.

“I had worked so hard to get out of a mess. I joined the Navy so I could get a good job some place. But it’s really screwed me up. Now I have no money and it’s put me in a bad position.”

Among about 80,000 recruits each year, officials receive about 2,500 allegations that recruiters had bollixed applications or overstated an individual’s qualifications. Of those, only about 100 are substantiated, Leonard said.

“We’re dealing with kids. When the pressure is on, they say ‘I told my recruiter,’ ” Leonard said. “If they allege it, then we investigate it. But most are not substantiated.”

Still others, like Maisel, hope they will be disqualified during the Moment of Truth. Maisel, clearly exhausted, thought he might have made a mistake by joining the Navy.

“I just don’t want to be here. I just don’t want to go through boot camp,” said Maisel, the youngest in a family of eight. “They’re telling you to ‘do this, do that.’ In a way, I want to go to boot camp and in a way, I don’t. I don’t care what they do.”

Minutes after he spoke, Maisel walked over to have a one-on-one session with an officer. There, he announced that he actually had four speeding tickets. “The fourth, um, just slipped my mind--it was a different county,” said Maisel, jiggling his leg and folding his arms.

Maisel, who had three hours sleep, rubbed his newly shorn head.

The fourth ticket, however, was not grievous enough to disqualify Maisel. Sighing, he starts to dash off to regroup with the other recruits. But he is stopped by an officer.

“Fine day, isn’t it?” a master chief petty officer asked him.

“Yup,” Maisel said, but quickly corrected himself. “Oh, yes, sir.”