Photo By Petty Officer 1st Class Timothy Walter | 170215-N-FU443-007 HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (Feb. 15, 2017) Machinist's Mate 1st Class...... read more read more
With the Navy, he has travelled around the world from Australia to Africa but nothing could replace the feeling of home.
“There is something about that southern hospitality. I have been stationed on the east coast and the west coast. But there is nothing like coming home to Alabama. When you get here, you see how much you have accomplished since you left,” said Machinist’s Mate 1st Class Artavius Robinson, a native of Birmingham, Ala.
When he returned to his home state to serve as a recruiter at Navy Recruiting Station Huntsville, Ala., he was quickly joined by another native of Alabama who grew up just a few miles from the station. In fact, Electrician’s Mate 2nd Class Bryan Jasper lives in the same zip code he did as a child and now recruits out of his alma mater.
Yet neither expected to be in Alabama when they first applied for recruiting. For Robinson, fate stepped in. He was originally slated to go to South Carolina but while he was in training at the Navy Recruiting Orientation Unit, another classmate, who had orders for Alabama, wanted to be closer to his hometown in the palmetto state. Robinson worked to switch locations and within a week was headed back to his home state even if it wasn’t his hometown.
At first, he didn’t know what to expect from Huntsville.
“A lot of the places around here were slow developing when I left. When I came to Huntsville, I was expecting nothing more than corn fields and greyhound bus station,” he said.
On the other hand, Jasper, who grew up in the town, was just as surprised coming home after spending several years in Japan.
“In that short time, it’s amazing how much has developed and changed. I remember before I left, there were cotton fields that have now developed into thriving communities,” Jasper said.
Originally, Jasper wanted to be stationed a little further from home.
“My mother wanted somewhere where she could go visit,” he said with a large smile that his fellow recruiters have come to expect and know.
Looking back though, he now credits his hometown placement as a privilege for him and his family.
“I grew up with a very close family. One of the things we were taught is that if you don’t have family, you don’t have anything. So in the end, coming home was the best thing that could have happened to me because I am able to be around my family and I am able to be there to help,” said Jasper.
Another side-effect of being in his hometown was how he was able to reach out to his community.
“I grew up here and I came from what you might call an underprivileged school. But now I recruit in that same school. I know some of these kids’ parents. I still live in the same zip code that I grew up in. So when I leave my house, I see these kids down the street playing basketball. They see me and say, ‘There is the Navy guy,’’ he said.
Being that approachable is something that he desires to maintain, because in one way he feels it is his way of helping others in the same way that the Navy helped him years ago.
“I understand at the end of the day that everyone is not going to join the Navy or the military, but when I go to my old school and see the teachers that taught me with these kids, I try to push them to do something better for themselves, even if it’s not the military. I care about these kids. When I was growing up I only had one other friend who graduated. I barely graduated myself. For me it’s personal. I will put in the effort for that person that maybe needs to study more or work harder. I give the kid that time because someone gave me that time in a Navy recruiting office,” he said.
For two years, Jasper and Robinson have served together at NRS Huntsville and they teamed up to find new recruits wherever they went, unafraid to speak about the opportunities that Navy has to whoever would listen. It’s a skill they acquired from home as much as in the Navy.
“We could go out right now and start talking to someone and you would think we knew them for years. But I would tell you that I just saw them for the first time in my life,” Robinson said, laughing.
Robinson said that their respective jobs in the engineering department made it so that they had to deal with virtually every person on the ship, no matter their race, background or personality. When a light went out, the captain would call on Jasper to find a fix. When the ship stopped moving, Robinson had to make a repair. But to hear them tell it, in the end you would need both of them.
“Our jobs are similar. We work on the same equipment, he just works on the mechanical side and I work on the electrical side. If we were on the same ship, we would work together all the time,” said Jasper.
Even though Robinson was recently moved to a nearby station in Decatur, Ala., to fill a gapped position, both men still work as a team to help one another out. Robinson still lives just behind the recruiting station in Huntsville and stops in often to see how his fellow recruiter is doing.
“Everything we do here reverts back to the ship. Talking to different people and helping out your fellow Sailors are traits we can’t forget. We have to do what’s necessary to make it happen. And that is really the point of it all,” Robinson said.
Navy Recruiting District Huntsville is one of more than 20 stations under the command of Navy Recruiting District Nashville, which is responsible for recruiting efforts throughout more than 100,000 square miles of 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: | 02.27.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 02.27.2017 13:39 |
| Story ID: | 225035 |
| Location: | HUNTSVILLE, AL, US |
| Hometown: | BIRMINGHAM, AL, US |
| Hometown: | HUNTSVILLE, AL, US |
| Web Views: | 522 |
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This work, Sweet Home Alabama: Navy Recruiters and Native Sons, by PO1 Timothy Walter, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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