Mark Fluet United States Coast Guard Boot Camp

The day had finally come for Mark Fluet to leave home. He was so happy that he was going to be away from his sister that he smiled for the first time in over 10 years. The recruiter came to pick him up and he was driven to the meps station in San Diego, California, where he awaited the plane to fly him to New Jersey.

For the Boot Camp for the US Coast Guard was in Cape May, New Jersey. There was all kinds of different folks on that plane. One was going to be a solid friend, but believe me it did not start out that way.

The night fell as they were all picked up from the recreation center, the bus drove right to the front of the gate, when a large man in a full dress coast guard uniform came on to the bus. The group that was on the bus was a motley bunch Mark Fluet was one of the guys with short hair, the rest were long haired teens that were just out of high school as well.

“YOU MAGGOTTS HAVE 10 SECONDS TO GET YOUR ASSES OFF THIS BUS, AND 5 OF THEM ARE ALREADY GONE!” Yelled the large instructor. With that the bus started to clear out as 50 guys all tried to scramble for the exit.

The first week went through and then Mark and recruit Warthen were assigned to Laundry detail. Well what none of you folks out there reading this may know, but Mark R. Fluet's Uncle was a Master Chief Petty Officer, and since the Coast Guard was such a small branch of the armed forces, everyone knew the name Fluet.

So in retrospect, Mark really could not get away with anything because everyone was watching him. It was a simple detail really, all they had to do was march to the laundry and drop off the dirty laundry for the entire unit. Simple or not, it was not going to end up that way. Warthen took one of the laundry bags and hit Mark square in the Back of the head. Well, of course Mark was going to retaliate so he struck Warthen with the dirty underwear bag right smack in the mouth.

This exchange of hitting each other only lasted but a few seconds when out of nowhere screamed an instructor, “ YOU ASSHOLES GET DOWN!” This was the command to drop and get ready to do push-ups till your body ached.

Warthen had a lot of days where him and mark would be doing push-ups and sit ups till they were tired. Mark and Warthen actually did become friends and Warthen took the same first unit that Mark did, they were both assigned to the United States Coast Guard Cutter Morgenthau.