A week before the start of classes most college kids are out and about, trying to pack as much fun as they can into the last days summer. But not for incoming students enrolled in Washington State University’s Navy Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.

These students spent their last week of summer getting acquainted with the Navy way of life: the routine, the expectations and the courtesies, said Battalion Cmdr. Chad Lemrick.

On day two of the six-day program, the NROTC students toured the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station.

Following a question and answer session with Lt. Nate Robbins in the “ready room,” the students got the chance to look inside the cockpit of a Prowler aircraft and talk with pilots. Afterwards, they learned about the Navy’s search and rescue operations, breaking for lunch before aquatics training.

Civilian life is very different, Lemrick said, and there’s a lot for the incoming NROTC students to learn.

“The goal of this week is to give them a taste of what the Navy is like. There’s a sternness to get them out of the civilian mentality,” he said, “But we try to make it as enjoyable as we can.”

Incoming freshman Joseph Kuzmick lived in Oak Harbor for four years while his dad served at NAS Whidbey. Kuzmick enrolled in NROTC to follow the path to work in aviation.

“I want to do what my dad did,” he said.

“It’s all pretty new,” Kuzmick said of the week-long prep course, adding “we learn quick.”

Kuzmick said his dad is happy to share his interested in aviation.

“It was weird how the smells brought back memories in the hangar,” Kuzmick said. “When I was a kid, I remember running around in those and being shooed away from the planes.”

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