Testing the Waters

Chief Warrant Officer Bill Johnson hollered down the Navy training beach, and 20-year-old Daniel Armendariz came running.

With his hair shorn close to his scalp, his heavy black boots and his Navy-issue life jacket, Armendariz looked just like the other men climbing up the huge, treaded tire onto the LARC-V amphibious landing craft at Port Hueneme Navy base.

But Armendariz is not like the other men, who have trained for years to qualify for the elite Underwater Construction School at the Naval Construction Training Center in Port Hueneme.

Armendariz is serving time at the California Youth Authority in Camarillo for armed robbery and a subsequent parole violation for drug possession.

He is the first in a pilot program, dreamed up by Johnson, designed to give youths who have gotten off on the wrong foot a chance to learn a trade and mix with Navy men who could change their outlook on life.

“We decided we’d carefully select a kid out of the youth authority--and treat him just like any other student,” Johnson explained. “The only difference is he won’t be a trained diver.”

Armendariz is the test case.

If all goes well with him, Johnson said, the program will be expanded.

2nd Youth to Join Program

Already officials are planning to kick off the program formally Oct. 19, taking in a second young man from the authority. Ultimately, Johnson said, the mentoring program could take one youth in each class at the training school. It has 37 classes annually, ranging from basic mechanics to the coveted underwater-construction program.

Johnson, who has spent his career working on youth programs for the Navy, said he came up with the idea about two years ago.

After President Clinton’s volunteer summit, Secretary of the Navy John Dalton pledged that the Navy and Marine Corps would reach out and become a positive influence on 700,000 young people’s lives by 2000.

Johnson said he also had a more personal motivation: His nephew is at the California Youth Authority and will not be released until he is 25. He wanted someone to give these young people a chance, so he hatched the mentoring plan.

He contacted the Navy’s training chief in Florida and got the go-ahead.

He then placed a call to Mary Herrera, head of the California Youth Authority’s Camarillo facility. On July 13, Armendariz--a Bakersfield native who had never put a toe in the ocean--was handpicked to be the first participant. Armendariz had led the fire crew program at the CYA facility.

Four weeks into the Seabee program, he is excelling physically and academically. He runs, swims and sweats with the other five men and a woman in his class. He jogs in formation and yells cadence. He shines his boots and irons his clothes.

He also studies with them--lugging his books back to the youth authority each night and cramming for the next day. Johnson said that academically, Armendariz is in the top two in his class--and will probably end up No. 1.

“This is total immersion with well-motivated, inspired kids that we hoped would rub off,” Johnson said. “And already in three to four weeks it has.”

Before the program started, Armendariz went through a weeklong orientation to learn what would be expected of him. He was briefed on Navy etiquette, taught to shine his shoes and tutored on some of the Navy acronyms that sound like a foreign language to a civilian.

Then he was thrown in.

“Looking at them gives me more of a direction,” Armendariz said of his classmates. “It gives me more motivation to do good work.”

The program is extremely competitive; fewer than 150 people in the U.S. Navy are doing underwater construction.

High-Risk Training

Before arriving at the underwater-construction school, the Seabees have already completed eight weeks of basic training, at least two years of Navy service and a 20-week diving program.

During the intense nine-week program they learn to build piers and lay pipeline and cable underwater. They learn to install, fix, repair and remove at underwater sites from the polar icecap to the shores of Somalia.

As they undergo their high-risk training--surveying marine environments and working on the decks of marine construction platforms--Armendariz is learning at their sides.

Soft-spoken and modest with a brilliant smile, Armendariz leans forward on the back of the LARC-V during a day of training and talks about his experience.

He speaks with enthusiasm about paddling the inflatable Zodiac boats through the surf for drills. He talks about having the chance to drive the LARC-V, then shows how to do it--steering the lumbering vehicle up onto the beach.

He says the time with the Seabees has opened his mind to job possibilities. He says they have also taught him how much work it takes to get where you want to go.

“That’s one thing I didn’t know,” he said. “I wanted money quick. I guess I was impatient. But I see these guys--and there aren’t none of them who just jumped in when they wanted. It took them years of staying focused.”

Good Attitude, Quick Study

His instructors praise Armendariz’s attitude and call him a quick study.

“The first day he showed up and his boots weren’t shined, and I said, ‘What’s that hair growing on your lip?’ ” recalled Chief Petty Officer Kirk Becker. “I said, ‘If you can’t grow it, don’t sprout it.’ The next day he had a clean lip.”

A lot rides on Armendariz’s success, and he knows it. Personally, a good performance here could mean earlier release from the youth authority. But there is also pressure to succeed so others can follow.

Armendariz said that when he returns to CYA at night, the other wards crowd around to ask questions. But he says he doesn’t always want to talk. He has to focus on shining his shoes, ironing his clothes and getting up at 5 a.m. the next day so that he can be at the base by 6:30.

“The other wards are really excited,” CYA chief Herrera said. “If I had to get 15 wards to volunteer, I don’t think it would be a problem.”

She said all the youths are interested in learning skills they can use when they get back out on the street. But she said working in a challenging, supportive environment is equally important.

“If you are surrounded by people who believe in you, encourage you and are showing they have confidence in you, there aren’t many young people who don’t respond to that,” she said.

Listing Life Goals

Armendariz said he is working with Johnson to set up a list of life goals. So far he knows he wants to work outside and marry his girlfriend, and he would like to go somewhere besides Bakersfield to avoid falling back into his old life.

“What they are starting now,” he said of the mentoring program, “it is the only bright light I see in the [CYA] program.”