I've been in Orlando, Florida for the last few days - a place where I spent about 5 years altogether in my life. The first time I was here for any noticeable length of time was when I went to boot camp, then Naval Nuclear Propulsion School... then TPD (Transient Personnel Department, or 'The Pleasure Dome')... later, I was to return as staff at the old Naval Hospital Orlando where I was a shift supervisor for the Emergency Department.
There are a lot of memories in this town. Friends, places, girlfriends, stories of a younger version of me... so when I was here, I decided to take a drive off of I4 and head down Colonial Drive (SR 50) to see the old base. And... it simply isn't there anymore, and neither are most of the landmarks. Orlando Fashion Square Mall is there, but the gas station that was on the left hand turn onto Bennett is gone, replaced by a Boston Market. The old dive where we used to shoot pool on the right has been renamed and changed - no longer the same. Rows of roads lead into where the base used to be, townhouses and houses seem to be the uniform of the day. McGuire Boulevard, which was once a gateway for the base that lead directly past the Blue Angel jet to the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Core now pushes full speed ahead into Suburbia.
Its all gone. Well, except the old Roxy on Bennett - the strip club where so many young men saw topless women for the first time. I didn't check if the Foxhole was still around the corner...
Time changes everything, I know - and it was foolish to have any other expectation. Still, seeing Suburbia where so much time was spent as a sailor seems surreal. It looks as though the base were never there. Someone probably made a mint; this all started during Clinton's downsizing years. Why they didn't close Great Lakes Training Center makes no sense to me; buildings on that base were horrible, buildings had no elevators (my first duty there I ended up walking up 7 flights of stairs with all my belongings just to walk back down the next day)...
The economy around the base seemed to have survived. I walked through Orlando Fashion Square Mall and much of the mall was exactly as it was 10-15 years ago.
Ahh well. Obla di, Obla da... Just another place where the memories float around unfamiliar people. This I have seen many times before.
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Man I am with you on NTC Orlando.
I did the exact same drive you did. I spent 2 years there as a HM at the Naval hospital
I walked over to the old baracks which were fairly new when I was there. Now
they are a rehab facility for drug addicts. It was unreal to me to see a place
that brought such good times and such memories to many a young salior just
disappear as if it never was. It truly brought a tear to my eye when I went to a
park that it is the center of the new "Suburbia" called Blue Jackets Park. I realized that I was standing at the old e-club and that even made it worse. But oh well
life goes on. I really wish that that was still there only so I could take my kids and show them where there dad served. But,....that will never be. Carry on Shipmate!
Naval Hospital Orlando.
I visited the area several times but not after the base was torn down. I saw a Google Earth image and it was just a big sand lot.
Blew my mind.
You definitely can't go back sometimes.
Michael L. Heffron,
HM1 USN RET
how times have changed
i'll never understand why the newest and best NTC in orlando was decommissioned, i still have my old boot camp annual " the rudder " i was tring to find it on the map, but i was no where to be found, it was not until i looked at this site that i realized, it just does not exsist anymore. gone with out a trace. i must say, this really made me feel my age. i guess im just an old salt thats gone adrift.
Orlando Boot Camp is Gone but not Forgotten
Now this ain't no Sh#t - I was glad to get out of Navy boot camp in Orlando - but it's still sad to see that it is gone forever. Boot camp for me was only 7 weeks long back in the summer of 1973 (just a kid right out of high school). From boot camp I went to Sonar school in Key West which is also gone forever. I never went back to Orlando after boot camp but it is still an important part of my past and it is sad to see the base is a distant memory. I had no idea how true it was when I learned in high school science class that "the only thing that is constant is change". I think you guys are right, it must be real estate value that closed the Orlando Navy base and kept Great Lakes open. I never made it to Great Lakes but I never heard of a sailor that missed it - I hear it pretty much sucked. Oh well, you old salts hang in there - they can't take our memories away!!!
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