Great Lakes Naval Training Center marks the short interval in which William Stanley Milligan entered military life, briefly became a disciplined recruit leader, and then lost the position as others struggled to understand his changing behavior. The training center is more than a stop in his itinerary: it is the setting where signs of instability became visible to his company and where the U.S. Navy’s assessment of him ended in discharge.

Arrival and command

Within a week of the General Education and Development Test, Allen was on his way to Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Illinois. He was assigned to Company 109, Battalion 21, for basic training. His experience in the Civil Air Patrol during high school led to his appointment as RPOC, or Recruit Petty Officer in Charge, of 160 young recruits. The role gave him responsibility over a large company, and he approached it as a strict disciplinarian.

When Allen learned that the company most proficient in the sixteen-count manual would become the honor company, he and Tommy looked for ways to save time in the morning schedule. Tommy proposed cutting out showers. Allen made the idea a demonstration: he walked through the showers in uniform while checking his watch, then explained that each recruit could shower in forty-five seconds. His plan was for all 160 men to be washed and dressed in less than ten minutes and to reach the parade grounds before the other companies. The next morning, Company 109 was first out on the grounds. Allen was pleased; Tommy was already thinking of further efficiencies. Allen also received the Service Medal for good conduct.

Disruption within Company 109

The apparent order did not last. Two weeks later, Allen called home and learned that Chalmer was beating Dorothy again. Ragen became angry, while Tommy, Danny, and Allen were also deeply affected; Arthur did not care in the same way. Their depression precipitated another mix-up time. What had started as a private crisis at home began to register in the routines and conduct of the company.

The changes were noticed in concrete, sometimes bewildering ways. Shawn wore his shoes on the wrong feet and left them untied; David became slovenly; Philip learned where he was and showed little concern. To the men of Company 109, their RPOC could seem like a capable leader one day and, the next, someone who sat talking while paperwork accumulated. The contrast mattered because the position depended on steady authority: Allen’s earlier drive to get his company onto the parade grounds first gave way to behavior his recruits could not reconcile with that command.

After Allen was relieved of the RPOC position, Tommy became depressed and Danny went to sick bay whenever he could. The account also describes sleepwalking and Tommy tying himself to his bed at night after someone told him about it. These episodes further unsettle the picture of military routine: the company had already seen its leader’s performance change, and now sleep and daytime conduct alike offered no dependable boundary between one state and another.

Evaluation and discharge

On April 12, 1972—two weeks and four days after Tommy joined the Navy—Philip was assigned to the Recruit Evaluation Unit. The company commander’s report traced the deterioration from the beginning: the recruit had first served as RPOC, then spent his time trying to boss others, and, after losing the post, increasingly went to sick call and avoided classes. The report said he was far behind the rest of the company and required watching. The loss of the leadership role had thus become part of a formal assessment of his capacity to continue training.

A psychiatrist interviewed David, who did not understand what was happening. A check of records from Ohio disclosed that Milligan had previously been in a mental hospital and had lied on his recruitment papers. The resulting psychiatric report judged him to lack the maturity and stability needed to function effectively in the Navy, and recommended discharge as temperamentally unsuitable for further training. On May 1, only a month and a day after his enlistment, William Stanley Milligan was discharged from the U.S. Navy under honorable conditions.

Departure from Great Lakes

Milligan received his pay and an airline ticket to Columbus. On the way from Great Lakes to O’Hare Airport in Chicago, Philip learned that two recruits on leave were going to New York City. Rather than use the United Airlines ticket, Philip joined them on the bus. He wanted to see New York, a place he knew as his own but had never visited. Great Lakes therefore serves both as the site of Milligan’s brief military service and as the point from which that service gives way to another journey: the promised return to Columbus is displaced by Philip’s decision to travel elsewhere.