Saturday, July 7, 2012

Making my mark on tradition


By Boatswain’s Mate 3rd Class Trenesha Clark
 I’m very family oriented. I’m pretty much doing the unthinkable right now being in the Navy. I have a little bit of family background in the military but I’m the only female, I know, in my family who was in the military.

I always thought about joining the Navy. My uncle, who was a [master-at-arms], was always kind of pushing me into it and telling me to think about it, but I wanted to see what was out there first, as far as the real world. I was on a basketball scholarship and my main focus was studying criminal justice. I had numerous jobs—two or three jobs at once, so I was pretty much everywhere and then all of a sudden I got the urge to join. I thought, why not just give it a shot? I was in [the delayed entry program] for five to six months and the next thing I knew I was in boot camp.

My mom was kind of like, are you sure? But she’s always said that I was responsible and make good decisions as far as what I want to do with my life. She was pretty confident I was going to do well. She was still a little nervous, you know, her baby girl was leaving.  I was kind of surprised though. I thought she was going to say, “Oh no. I don’t want you to go. Not the military,” but she let me go.