Steering The Ship And The Next Generation Of Sailors

Photo By Petty Officer 1st Class Timothy Walter | 161019-N-FU443-010 NASHVILLE (Oct. 19, 2016) Petty Officer 2nd Class Corrie Parrish poses for a photo outside of Navy Recruiting District Nashville Headquarters. (U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Timothy Walter/Released)  

MURFREESBORO, TN, UNITED STATES

10.25.2016

Story by Petty Officer 1st Class Timothy Walter 

Navy Recruiting District Nashville

She has steered an aircraft carrier, guided hovercrafts into an amphibious dock, and trained up countless Sailors fresh out of boot camp on everything from anchoring at sea to chipping paint. For Petty Officer 2nd Class Corrie Parrish, it was perfect training for how to steer, guide and mentor the next generation of Sailors living in middle Tennessee.
To hear Parrish talk about it, being a recruiter at Navy Recruiting District Nashville is pretty basic when you get to the heart of it. It’s all about sea stories.
“It is awesome to give a high school presentation and put a picture of yourself overseas in a slide and say this is what I did and where I’ve been. It’s like getting to share my Navy story all the time,” said Parrish, a native of Burbank, Calif.
Some of those stories are focused, while others are just about having fun. Meanwhile some don’t make sense to the uninitiated until you hear the passion in her voice. One might ask why a Sailor would enjoy having to sleep in the well deck of the USS Germantown (LSD 42) in between multi-day operations to load equipment at sea. Her motivation is found in the reason that led them there in the first place.
“The main mission of our ship was to transport the Marines and their equipment and so it all revolves around you. Even while you don’t sleep that much, it’s really cool to be in that spot. You are in charge and the ship’s mission is on you,” she said.
As the ramp marshal, she was responsible for being the one person in the middle of well deck armed only with two wands and charged with guiding in a 185-ton Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC). At the age when some people are just finishing college, she was already leading a team that, in the moment, was responsible for a vehicle worth nearly $40 million.
But in some way that was a step down in responsibility, because a few years prior she was the Master Helmsman on USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), an aircraft carrier worth nearly $5 billion. With a team of three others, she would rotate in 30-minute shifts while leaving or entering ports to accurately navigate the ship according to the instructions of the conning officer.
“It’s stressful. For the master helmsman, you can’t be off by more than a half of a degree of your ordered course. If you are over that, the captain will relieve you on the spot. You literally have to focus the entire time you are steering,” she said.
Now she helps to navigate young students fresh out of high school. She tell them about the stressful situations and the hard situations, but she doesn’t leave out the lighter side, like being able to make port calls in Japan, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand and Australia.
“I went white water rafting in Australia but we had to be careful because there were crocodiles,” she said laughing. “The guide told us not to stick our hand in until he said it was okay.”
Being forthright has allowed her to develop relationships with the applicants that walk through the door. In just over a year, she has already had her name written on the 21 Club plaque, which means she has recruited 21 new Sailors for the Navy. Recently, she put four people in the Navy in one month and helped her station to achieve recognition as the Large Station of the Month.
Part of her success is her desire to use her experience as a boatswain’s mate to tell the real story of the Navy, not just the one that might play out on TV.
“The best part is being able to share my knowledge about the Navy to those that have no idea about the Navy at all. You get these kids that come in here and they say I want to join the Navy. Then I ask them why?”
Some tell her it’s because they read a story or saw a movie. Others tell her they don’t want any part of the Navy for the same reasons. According to her, both situations usually reveal that the applicant doesn’t know the full story. And they definitely don’t know her story.
“In the fleet as a boatswain’s mate, I worked with a lot of kids that had just come out of boot camp. I was able to train them in the Navy way. Now I get to do the same job in recruiting with high schools students. I like that. I like when they challenge me on the Navy. I say, please, let me shoot down your incorrect assumptions,” she said.
But just like her time as the ramp marshal on the Germantown, recruiting isn’t always an easy day.
“There are so many different aspects to recruiting, you may not be good at everything but you learn the tricks of the trade. It is one of those jobs in which the amount of time that put into it determines how successful you will be. I don’t want to say it’s not hard, you just have to put the hard work in to make it a success,” she said.
For her, it comes down to a simple mantra: “I always told myself, I can’t fail.” Looking back on the 21 new Sailors she helped into fleet, it’s hard to argue with her story.
Navy Recruiting District Nashville, which is responsible for recruiting efforts throughout more than 100,000 square miles in the states of Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky and Virginia.
For more information on NRD Nashville, visit us at http://www.cnrc.navy.mil/nashville/ or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/NRD.Nashville

• Date Taken: 10.25.2016
• Date Posted: 10.25.2016 09:58
• Story ID: 212841
• Location: MURFREESBORO, TN, US
• Hometown: BURBANK, CA, US