I went into the Navy in 1975, one week after graduating from high school. I found the experience to be rather surreal. I had never experienced something where your life was scheduled 24 hours a day. I didn’t find anything all that difficult, very little PT (there’s no place to run on a ship), 4 to 6 hours of class room training a day and carrying around dummy M-16 rifles for 7 of the 9 weeks was a rather pointless exercise. I found boot camp to not be all that difficult, I was surprised how many did. Only 52 of the original 80 in my company made it through without being set back. Out of that 28, at least 6 were sent home as unfit for military service. The only time I really wanted to go home was when I called home and found out my mother had been in a car accident. She suffered a broken arm but otherwise was fine.