Educators from Dallas received a tour of Naval Station Great Lakes (NSGL), and surrounding tenant commands, as part of NSGL's community outreach program April 24-28.

The group consisted of high school counselors, engineers and school board members, and all were offered a chance to see how NSGL trains Sailors for a career in the Navy.

Day one of the tour consisted of an all-day inside look at how civilians are transformed into Sailors at Recruit Training Command. The educators were shown over the course of 8.5 weeks, civilians are molded into Sailors across several different programs such as firefighting, basic damage control, drill and other basic military requirements. For lunch, they ate with recruits at recruit barracks USS Arizona. They were also taken to see Battle Stations, a 12-hour simulation that is the final evolution before a recruit graduates.

"I really liked eating with the recruits, it was so interesting hearing where they were from, and seeing how young they were," said Brianne Martin, a high school counselor with the Dallas group.

Day two of the tour brought the educators over to Training Support Center to view how Sailors further enhance their knowledge base with highly technical "A" schools following basic training. They were given in-depth tours of Surface Warfare Officers School Unit and Center for Surface Combat Systems Unit, where a majority of Sailors learn their respective rate before heading to the fleet.

The group of educators intends to share the knowledge and experience from this tour with their students and student leaders; to teach them the philosophy of the Navy, and how it offers different opportunities for students about to graduate from high school.

For more information, visit http://www.navy.mil, http://www.facebook.com/usnavy, or http://www.twitter.com/usnavy.

For more news from Commander, Navy Region Mid Atlantic, visit www.navy.mil/.