 Recruit training command in Great Lakes, Illinois, is where the transformation from civilian to sailor takes place. To help them through this process, the crew of USS Nimitz have been flown to the Midwest to sponsor Division 231. Yeah, Command-Mash Chief had known that I was an RDC before I came to Nimitz, and he'd wanted to sponsor Division. And I told him I'd be interested in helping out with that, and so that's what we did. Here we go, Division 221. My name is C. H. Nail. How are you guys doing? Good. Hey listen, 18 months ago I was right here with your Air Chief and your Bay Officer. I was up here at RTC. Our sponsors are great mentors, and we get to wear the t-shirts I gave us around and show everybody else that, you know, we're not just commissioned. We're sponsored by an actual aircraft carrier. The sponsorship program was put into place to motivate recruits as they go through the trials of boot camp. With the Nimitz at RTC, these young men and women will also get first-hand knowledge of the fleet. There aren't too many sponsored divisions on board RTC, so these recruits, knowing they're a sponsored division, especially from the USS Nimitz, you know, the first Nimitz class carrier the Navy has, they feel like they have a more sense of purpose than most other recruits in RTC. One recruit is tasked with leading her peers. I've given a few leadership positions before, but this has probably been the far most challenging position I've ever had to be in. This is just because everything relies on a step or a caller, a look that you make, and they could make a drastic change to everyone to the division. So it's definitely the most vigorous leadership role I've ever had. The commissioning ceremony makes the sponsorship official. After the ceremony, the first test of physical strength and endurance. Right now we're on one three-day of training. So today we have, for the schedule, they have their BFA baseline. That's where we get to see where they are currently, their physical fitness. And pretty much after we see this, we can kind of give them more advice on diets, their diet plan, and what they need to do to pass, pretty much. Most of them, for the most part, have not been pushed the way that the PT program there is going to push them. And me running beside them and motivating them and telling them that they can do it. Some people need that. Some people are self-motivators, others need people to be motivated. So I am there to motivate them. I hope I did a pretty good job at it. I don't know. I think I did. They were definitely good to have. They're very good motivators. For some of us we just, this is our first time actually being physically in there and having to work as hard as we did. They were definitely good motivators out there. We need people like that. Just that extra push sometimes. It gets you where you need to go. Having Nimitz as our sponsor has totally shot our motivation through the roof. We're excited and proud and I think we all walk a little bit taller. Everybody needs motivation and support. I think with the motivation and support of the U.S.S. Nimitz, I think our division will do great things. The adjustment to boot camp life is rough on some, making it harder to motivate the division in the beginning training phases. So good on you for not helping your shipmates out and good on you because you're not going to get advanced. So even if you blew out the test, remember the test that you took at P-Days? You know the one thing that I learned when I was on RDC there, everybody thinks that on RDC is this big screamer and yeller and as always in people's faces. There's time for that, but that's not everything. That doesn't work effectively on everybody. I could see from a distance that he needed to know that this is all new to him. You weren't on RDC. You didn't have RDCs telling you what to do every single day. You weren't told when to drink. You weren't told when to eat. So are there going to be mistakes? Yeah. Are you going to learn from them? You should. Just don't make the same mistakes. And that's what I was just trying to get him to understand, that one, he's in a new surrounding. There are going to be miscues. And two, that he's okay. He can recover from them. And it's not the end of the world. And I think that's what he was thinking. No, I'm not smart. Why would you think that? Because I screwed up today. Does that make you not a smart person? Ultimately, the recruit has to make his own determination where he wants to be. He's got to look himself in the mirror. And he's got to say, I want to be here. I'm going to fix this. And I'm going to do my best. There's a drill. This is a drill. Man over board. Man over board. Fourth side. Man in the ready-life boat. All hands to muster. The routes to muster. On the ship, the crew is back to a training environment to prepare to go back to sea. General Quarters Drills are the biggest form of shipboard integrated teamwork. Everyone must work together to keep the ship afloat. And casualties big and small around the ship. And steering the ship as he is doing here. We could take a torpedo hit of some sort or a missile hit and take out our steering control. And in that case, he would then do steering casualty, sound his alarm, do his proper procedures to send control of the ship. The steering control of the ship. Weeks later at Great Lakes, the teamwork that's been drilled into Division 231 will be crucial as they learn firefighting skills. I think with anyone when you get a bunch of people together and they are of all different races, cultures, you get the mentality of I know what's right and you know what's right. When they all come to boot camp, they have to realize that they're all starting out the same. They're new to the military. Everything in the military is completely different than anything they've done in their civilian lives. So getting them to work together as a team, it was the biggest hurdle that we thought we were going to face in the beginning. But now that we're in this phase of training, it's like they're brothers and sisters. They just, they know how to work well together. Having the sponsors there at the end is even better. Getting, letting them see what we do and what we go through. Firefighting, training overall, getting action used to gear, being put in those pressure situations. We don't get the activity done and we don't do it to the level of expectations that they expect. They're going to have to report a negative review to the units and I know as a division we didn't want any negative reviews coming to our sponsors. So having that as a motivator was big for us. The recruits have marched everywhere together for just over a month. Today, a drill inspection will put them in the spotlight. My division, I am the recruit leading petty officer. I pretty much assist that our part can get into the division straight. The precision required for the marching had to be a hundred percent. That could be number six. We're synchronized. Even our inspector from the drill, she says she's never seen anything like that before. So it just shows us that we're really motivated and ready to join the fleet. And a pop chart. That was the deal. Five-oh for a pop chart, petty officer. Dave, was that midway? While the recruits are out, the Nimitz sailors walk the living area, remembering the days they stayed in these halls. They're about half the size of this compartment, with a lot more racks, should I say, a little less room. We also had stand-up lockers. We didn't have these coffin racks as these shipmates have now. I mean, it's a great improvement. We want to be realistic as we can and show shipmates what the Navy is going to be like and what they can expect. It's funny, because I came in and I got in there and I was getting my uniforms. And the first thing I said, it said, state penitentiary. And I looked at it and I said, it was that's right. They're going to the penitentiary. The only thing different, you guys got names, they got numbers. They said, get your stuff together. You just throw it, get out of the line. I opened it. That was in 1986. It's June 17, 1986. And yeah, so I haven't been back here since 25 years. Today is the division's last day to pass the fitness exam. Senior Chief Peebles has recovered from his injury from Mount St. Helens and is ready to run with and motivate the division. My body's restored again, feel a little bit better. I see hot down the first couple of days and I couldn't really walk, to be honest with you. It was like if I was going squatting for a month, that's what it felt like. So that's done and over with, I feel great. It was the worst thing that I've ever done, but the greatest thing I've ever done. So it was the greatest joy of my life, the greatest experience. It was the worst for my body because I'm not spring chicken anymore. So for me, I'm still motivated. I'll do it again. The recruits are pumped and ready to show their sponsors how much they've improved. This is their final PFA today, so today we're just here to motivate them to get them fired up. One represent the Nimitz and they're representing the Nimitz because they're carrying the Nimitz name on them, which is the most incredible thing I've ever seen. I see a lot of ships' flags and everything, but they have the Nimitz flag and they had the homemade Nimitz flag they made. And with that, to me, this is my only carrier and it means a lot to me to run alongside of them and they got a chant, they're making it for the Nimitz. I mean, this is incredible. So I'm super motivated, so I want to motivate them and let them know that the chief's care, the Nimitz cares, we're all crew members and they're part of our crew too, so I really want to be able to give that back to them and motivate them and help them pass because there's a small percentage, about 32, that are having some difficulty. One such recruit is Seaman Recruit Padgett, who is recovering from a leg injury. I had a stress fracture and I kept having to miss things here and there because of all the doctor's appointments and I nearly got set back twice, but luckily my progression of healing has been just in time. I literally got fit for full the day before our final PFA, which if I had missed final PFA, I'd been set back. I was able to run and I hadn't run at all in nearly a month, but Senior Chief, actually he ran with me for my last lap. Had I not run with him, I would have barely missed my PFA time, so I had made it just in time thanks to him. After the final PFA, the division must overcome one last obstacle before graduation, battle stations. It was like a day or two before we went to war on this bike that I got on crutches, so I was so sad. So this is like almost as exciting as graduation. The hands-on, the real ship environment and whatnot, so very exciting. As the recruits come closer to the end of boot camp, MM1 Hinton comes closer to his retirement. He has chosen to retire on a museum ship from World War II. I am Senior Chief Rex. Welcome to the official retirement ceremony, honoring first-class machines mate Jonathan J. Hinton. As departmental career counselor, he mentored over 370 sailors, resulting in over $2.8 million. One of his guests and friends, petty officer Jackson, has flown all the way back from Japan to see him off. Well, the reason why is because about six months ago, I promised my old LPO, J, that I would come back rather for his chief pinning. If he got pinned, if not, then I would be part of his retirement ceremony. And when I made that promise months before I went to Japan, I was like, I have to do it. I have to do it for him because he meant that much to me, so that's the reason why I'm back. I have the love of my family that has stood by my side through so many trying times. I have made friendships that last for the rest of my life. One such friend flew all the way from Japan just to be here to see me. I don't know what I've done to earn such respect. We worked together in training department on board USS Nimitz. He was the LPO when I first came in and I was bad. I was new in the Navy and I had a bad attitude and everything. He took care of me a lot. He fought for me when other people were trying to do me wrong. He meant so much to me. He took me home to meet his family and they fed me. I became like their dark step child in a way. And I fell in love with the whole family. Retired, departing. After MM1 retires, Jackson will return to Japan where the Navy has been helping them recover after the tsunami disaster. They're doing a lot better in Japan. They're still a little devastated, but they're picking themselves up. Life is still going on. Things are still happening. Changes are being made. And it's still peaceful there. Even though what had happened, they're still going on. One way Jackson has helped is through community relations projects, much like the ones she participated in during her time aboard Nimitz. I do a lot of volunteering as I did when I was on board the Nimitz. I still do volunteer help out the homeless. I help out the orphanage kids. That's one of my biggest things I love to do out there. And I try to attribute as much as I can of myself to Japan. As sailors leave the Navy and the command, new sailors come to take their place. Airman Padgett from Division 231 has just received orders to the Nimitz. After I graduated boot camp, I went to TSC Great Lakes right across the train tracks from boot camp. I went there for IC school. And I was there for a few months when I found out that I could go undesignated. From there I got to choose whether I wanted to go undesignated air or undesignated seaman. So I chose air and I got orders to the USS Nimitz. I was a little disappointed that I barely missed dry dock. I got here just after the ship went to wet dock and getting ready to get back out, get back out there. I've actually throughout my schools and since I've gotten out of boot camp I've been following the dry dock process on YouTube. It's been really exciting to get here and it actually almost feels like home before I got here because I'd already been so familiar with it. Now I'm working with the Wastecats. They run the catapults on the waste side of the ship. Right here. This is where you start off. Check it off from here. My work center involves the combination of maintenance inside the ship as on the catapults as well as on the flight deck. Launching the planes and making sure that the catapults work well. I actually requested the Wastecats because I saw ABAN Dunn up on the board. She was one of my good friends from boot camp. She was pretty cool. Two more of my division shipmates will get to come with us because they're in the squadron. One is Undez Air like me and the other is a CS3 Cookham attached to the squadron. So she'll be attached to the ship when we deploy. Looking forward to going on to sea. The long awaited day has finally arrived. The crew mans the rails for the first time in more than a year. This is the end of dry dock and the end of Captain Monger's time as commanding officer. I joined the ship just in time to go on deployment. I did the turnover for the first three weeks or so of deployment and it took over when we were in port in Yokosuka, Japan. It was an interesting way of doing it because it was sort of a no training wheels. You just got to just go and get out there and do it, which was perfectly fine. It actually worked out quite well because we were right into going over to the Gulf to actually operate and do what we were supposed to do. Our six month deployment turned into eight so I got plenty of time deployed and underway which was fantastic. But that was a really good part. Being at sea, operating, being deployed, being out doing what we were supposed to be doing. And that's what everybody really likes to do and that's what the crew now is anxious to get out and do again. It feels good to leave Bermerton. I've never known anything besides being in dry dock or on dry land and finally back away from the pier like that and feel the roll of the ship underneath my feet. It's pretty intense. I've never had that before. I think it's just going to help the crew have a lot more options to do different things, to experience Washington a lot better. Instead of being here in pretty much an industrial town in Bermerton, you can get over every side and be able to go out and do a lot more things out in town and up in Whitby Island, maybe down to Mount Rainier to experience a lot more Washington atmosphere. A little rain this morning, the weather cleared up and it could not be a more perfect day to actually get out and be getting back on the way. Perfect weather, a bunch of sailors up here looking sharp. I mean you cannot pick a better day to be getting on the way right now. The crew is ready. After a year their ship is finally seaworthy. It's been about 14 months now here in Bermerton at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and it has been a tremendous experience from, I think, the whole picture of how the ship has transformed and changed and what we've been able to do with the crew. I think the really couple of things that kind of stand out in your mind are being able to go underneath a 90,000 ton ship and stand underneath it with nothing but wooden blocks holding it up. It's pretty cool. Our 36th birthday ceremony, we had a big sign on the side of the ship down there about the commissioning and then we allowed all the crew and the shipyard workers to come in and sign their name on the side of the ship. And I thought that was kind of a neat deal for folks to be a part of history. The other thing I thought was pretty neat was watching them take the propellers off. The level of technology that goes into doing that kind of work is pretty significant. So those and the rudders, I think it's pretty amazing. We've gone through, I think, a complete transformation on the ship that has been spearheaded by our Puget Sound Naval Shipyard team here. But the ship also did a tremendous amount of work. Overall, there was over 700,000 mandays in this entire availability and the ship was responsible for over 150,000 of those, which is a tremendous amount of effort. And I think about what they did in addition to the normal duties that our sailors have. So it wasn't just that they were working here to renovate, to rehab, to paint, to update the ship. It was also that they were studying for exams, they were studying for their work for specialties. We had people out deploying elsewhere with other ships to gain proficiency and qualifications. So they were doing all those things in addition to the work that they had to do here. The overall mission here was to make the ship more capable, more lethal than it was when we got here. Because the ship, at almost 37 years old now, obviously was not built with the technology that the rest of the world has today. It's changed dramatically and we need to keep up with that. Our new home port will be Ever Washington. It's not very far from here. Nimitz has been tasked to go and take the spot of Lincoln there and be the home ported carrier never at Washington. So we're in the process of moving people over there. We give our folks opportunities here and there as we can. It has been difficult to say the least because we moved up here from San Diego and now we're moving over there. So changing home ports like that and having everybody move multiple times in the course of 14 months is a dramatic stressor. So it'll be a little bit different for the crew, but I think it's going to be a good move. Everybody that's moved over there seems to like it and enjoy being over there. And I think once we get the rest of the crew over there, I think they'll like it as well.