Julius Gillam - The Journey

THE JOURNEY

BY

JULIUS GILLAM

This book is a work of fiction. Places, events, and situations in this story are purely fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

2004 by Julius Gillam. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

First publish e d b y Au t hor H ouse 04/ /

ISBN: 1-4184-0665-1 (e-book)

ISBN: 978-1-4184-0665-3 (e-book)

ISBN: 1-4184-0666-X (Paperback)

ISBN: 1-4184-0667-8 (Dust Jacket)

Library of Congress Control Nu m ber: 2004091835

Contents

CHAPTER #1
THE VACATION IN THE WOODS

CHAPTER #2
THE UNEXPECTED KILLER

CHAPTER #3
THE GAMES BEGIN

CHAPTER #4
DIRECT CONFLICT

CHAPTER #5
THE BOOK IN THE LOG CABIN

CHAPTER #6
THE SEARCH AND THE CAVE

CHAPTER #7
THE PURSUIT AND THE RESURRECTION

Chapter #1
The Vacation in the Woods

It begins where it always beginsin the Alpha, or the present. The date is June 30, 1999 in the young mind of William Set h , who is 59and weighs 170lbs, with a modest build in stature, brown hair and hazel eyes.

*****

Everybody seems to enjoy my personality. But sometimes I question their real motives out of either curiosity or to protect myself from ever being taken advantage of again. I am the type of person that keeps trying, no matter whateven if it means sacrifices in my life in order to achieve my goals.

I was slightly ambivalent about what road to take in life; but whatever road I chose in life, I knew it was going to be a good path.

I dreamt of an interesting but horrifying spiritual being coming after me, in which it would come out of the walls and follow me relentlessly as I ran for my life, trying to get away from those spiritual beings of pure evil. I woke up crying in desperation for Jesus, the Son of God, my personal savior. After that, those evil spirits were no longer bothering me, and I went fast to sleep.

In the morning I would try and find something to do in order keep myself occupied, because I quit my job in the armed forces about a year ago. I, William Seth, saw the average television media advertisement, and got all inspired through that. I thought, well, I am going to join the navy, even though some of my friends and family thought it was a bad idea. So I went down to the closest recruitment center and said, I want to sign up for the navy.

I think the navy accepts a lot of bodies or persons that the air force will not. I mentioned some confidential information that was negative to the recruitment of the navy. The first class said, Well, we dont carejust keep it to yourself if anyone asks.So I said OK. The whole process took about two or three days.

After this, I went to a MEPS processing center and waited for about six hours. Then they called me in very professionally and had me sign some important papers in regards to the recruitment. The person who is asking the questions is always the person in charge. Anyway, he made up excuses to not give me an A School, and like a dummy I accepted that.

Then they gave me an airlines ticket to the Naval Recruitment Training Center in the Great Lakes. This is the portion of the training they send you through for ten weeks, not eight weeks like the manual says. There will be a van that takes you to a processing office where they line you up against the wall and drill you on the very basics.

Youll be degraded, humiliated, and yelled at in front of your face, so try not to stand out. You will be forced to say, Yes, petty officer, or chief in everything you say. They will shave your head and make you go through piss tests. Youll be assigned to a division and a command post. The average day in boot camp goes like this: getting all of your personal items situated with a lot of yelling about how slow you are. After this, youll clean the rookie dust off the floors with your hands. Youll be assigned a bunk-mate to perform tasks of making 45 % angles, with which to make your bunk. Therell be learning of extensive marching formation tacticsa lot of schooling that youll never use in real life or in the navy. And marching back and forth from the chow halls and exercise session, where theyll literally make puddles of sweat on the deck of the floors. Youll have your graduation day and only 60 out of 120 people made it through the entire boot camp process in our division.

Youll finally have a small party and the chief will say to you, I salute you for your outstanding performance.I personally was one of the 3 of 60 who were promoted from E-1 to E-2 after boot camp was over. The thing that really perturbs me is, when all this training is over, you find out that a lot of it was to make the instructor feel good by degrading you.

Your last step is being assigned to a location. I was personally assigned to the worst command in the navy, in my opinion, along with other sailors opinions. Thats what everybody else thought on the ship. It was the U.S.S. Independence CV-62 assault aircraft carrier forward deployed which decommissioned in Sept 1998. And all those other people were transferred over to the Shitty Kitty, or the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk CV-63.

The real navy begins when you arrive on your ship or land base. I was an Alman ranked E-2 arriving on the U.S.S. Independence around Nov. 23, 1996 in Yokasuka, Japan. I greeted the superior officers, but they said that it wasnt necessary to do thatbut thats what I learned in boot camp. Personally I was put in the air wing department and given all my essential equipment, like a float coat, a plastic helmet with goggles and gloves.

We had very poor living conditions and had our own personal space about eight feet long, two feet high and two and a half feet across, accompanied by 6,000 other sailors in the same situation.

Sometimes the commander would come over the 3M or intercom for the entire ship and say, Watch what you eat. I once ate something that caused an infection in my intestines and became really sick for three consecutive days. On the average day we would get up at 6 oclock in the morning and were on deck shortly after. We would wait in the Crew #1 Airman Department room for a petty officer to tell us all to get on deck for moves or the movement of aircraft. The Airman Department would move to re-spot aircraft from one fly to the other. There were three flies on our ship: fly one, two and three, which divided the ship into three sections. We would work 18 hours a day chaining down and chocking aircraft like the F-14 Tomcat, F-18

Hornet, EA-6B Prowler, along with other military aircraft.

Around 11:00pm we would finally stop running on the deck moving aircraft and having fire drills, where we would have to practice fire-fighting tactics, or muster (take a man count) for man overboard every day, or muster for a working party where you would be forced to work by moving 50-pound boxes of food or Coke hundreds of times over and over. Or you would be assigned to stand watch at 3:00 in the morning for the port-side lookout if we were docked in a port. And while in port there was a twelve oclock curfew for E-3 ranks and below: this rank left the boat the latest because of their lower rank. If you missed a muster or did something wrong you couldnt leave the boat to see your wife or your girlfriend or those outstanding ports in foreign countries.

Everyday the ship has captains masses, and it not something that I would recommend to any sailor that gets written up for various accusations. I have known a lot of people, including myself, who have gone to captains mass over true or false accusations that they dropped or held concerning UCMJ, and the navy quickly implemented the harsh punishments. For example, if you say to your petty officer who has one rank over you, to stop harassing you about buffing the floor, hell write you up for Article 92 of the UCMJ, stating you failed to follow a lawful order; it only takes three of these writeups in a matter of months or years. Then youll be sent to a Correction Facility or the military brig following captains mass. Most civilians have heard of the brig, but never really experienced it. This is the strict judiciary, compliments of the military, being carried out everyday.