Recruit Training Command Great Lakes Illinois Sailor Patch

Recruit Training Command Great Lakes is the one place the Navy makes enlisted sailors, and it has been doing it on the shore of Lake Michigan since 1911. It has been called the Quarterdeck of the Navy since it opened. The first trainee, Seaman Recruit Joseph W. Gregg, came through in 1911, and President William H. Taft dedicated the station on 28 October that year. The 1993 base closure round shut the recruit commands at San Diego and Orlando, and since then the Navy has had one boot camp. For a long line of sailors across more than a century, this is where the Navy started.

In February 1944 the Navy commissioned its first African-American officers, the Golden Thirteen, at Great Lakes, and Building 1405, the recruit in-processing center, has carried their name since July 1987. Recruits live in barracks they call ships, named for fleet ships such as USS Triton, USS John F. Kennedy and USS Enterprise. Ground was broken for Camp John Paul Jones in October 2002 as the training side was rebuilt. The last test is Battle Stations 21, a 12-hour capstone aboard USS Trayer (BST-21), a 210-foot simulator built as an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer and completed in 2007. Ross Field and Ross Auditorium carry the name of Rear Admiral Albert A. Ross, the first commander of the station.

The patch is an oval with a gold merrowed border around a white field. A gray anchor stands behind a ring of gold rope, and inside the ring a light blue disc frames a sailor in dress whites holding a rifle straight over his head with both hands. Two red lightning bolts cut across the circle at his waist. RECRUIT TRAINING COMMAND arches over the top of the ring and GREAT LAKES ILLINOIS curves along the bottom in black letters on white. It measures 4.25 inches wide by 5 inches tall with an iron-on backing.

Boot camp is where a civilian learns to stand a watch, fight a fire, fold his clothes the Navy way and answer to a division of strangers who turn into shipmates in a matter of weeks. Most sailors remember the cold coming off the lake, the drill hall, the first time a recruit division commander said their name, and the morning they finally passed in review. Graduation day is the first time most families see their recruit as a sailor. Every rating in the fleet traces back to a recruit division here. Whatever ship came next, it started at Great Lakes.

It sits well in a shadow box with a boot camp graduation photo and a first set of ribbons, and it fits the vest or jacket a sailor wears to a reunion. It also makes a good gift for a new sailor just out of boot camp, or for the parents who drove up to watch the graduation. The iron-on backing goes down with a household iron, and a few stitches at the edge will keep it there for good. Plenty of sailors keep one from the place where it all began.