How I Became a DINFOS Trained Killer

Prior to leaving Navy boot camp in Great Lakes, Illinois for the Defense Information School (DINFOS) in Indianapolis, IN to begin my training as military print and broadcast journalist, I was advised to get some civilian clothes and then change back into my uniform on the train. (At the time it was a rule that you had to be in uniform when you reported to your next duty station.)

Arriving at night, it was a quiet taxi ride from the train station to Fort Benjamin Harrison, a rather sleepy Army base known as the home of the second largest government building in the U.S. (I’ve seen it. If you haven’t, you’re not missing much.) The guard at the gate directed my cabbie to the DINFO barracks. I paid my fare and, dressed in my navy dress blue “Cracker Jack” uniform, carried my green sea bag with me through the door to talk to the soldier on duty.

The barracks were U-shaped with three stories on each wing of the building. As all members of the armed services attended this school, space was somewhat limited. I was directed to “take the stairs to the top and go right” to the Navy’s floor. I topped the stairs and pushed the door open. Walking down the hallway toward me was a strikingly attractive Hawaiian girl named Leilani who just happened to be clutching a full fifth of Jack Daniels.

“Hey! Welcome to the Navy deck!” she said, excitedly shaking my hand. “What are we celebrating?” she asked me. I looked at her somewhat quizzically, but could tell she had already had a few. “It’s Tuesday! We’re celebrating that it’s Tuesday!” she exclaimed, raising her hands over her head. And then she walked past me, out the door and down the stairs.

I moved down the hall a bit and was met by Renee, a short, mousy redhead. “Hi! Welcome! Do you have your orders?” I put down my sea bag and handed her the marigold envelope I had been given upon my departure from boot camp. “I apologize. We’re a little booked up here at the moment. I’ll have to give you a room in one of the Army wings until the next class graduates and then we’ll move you up here,” she said. Renee handed me another packet with student rules and other important info and then escorted me to my room on the first floor in one of the Army wings.  

I had a week or so until another class formed up for the print journalism portion of my training. I spent this time doing admin tasks on the Navy deck, learning more about my classes from current students and seeing what life was like for students at various points in their training.

On my third night living in the Army wing, I ran into a small dilemma. I needed to do some laundry. My room was located at the far end of the hallway and peeking out my door I could see my Army neighbors were being subjected to a full dress uniform inspection by a very unhappy drill sergeant. She was literally walking from soldier to soldier with a ruler measuring the distance between their pockets and the ribbons on their chests.

Clad in my Navy jogging suit (dark blue with a big, white “N” on it), I grabbed all of my laundry items and headed down the hall toward the common area which housed the laundry facilities. I got past three confused soldiers when their drill sergeant wheeled around to address me, “And just what in the hell do you think you’re doing?” I mockingly looked around at the items I was carrying. “I have a bag of laundry and a box of laundry detergent. I was thinking about going sightseeing downtown,” I responded sarcastically. She glared at me, practically burning a hole through the “N” on my chest… just long enough for me to realize I should immediately proceed to the laundry room.

The next day I earned a roommate in the Army wing – Michael Murray. Michael, as I would soon find out, was a devout follower of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, more commonly known as the Mormons. We exchanged pleasantries and talked about our experiences so far in the Navy. Within a few days, he was openly referring to me as “The Antichrist.” Luckily for both of us, rooms became available on the Navy deck and we simply became future classmates instead of just religious adversaries.

My training was due to begin that Monday. For us in the Navy (as well as those in the Marine Corps), we were trained in both print and broadcast journalism. For members of the Air Force and Army, those roles were split up into individual disciplines and they had to choose one or the other. Members of the Coast Guard were only trained as print journalists as they had no need to be overseas, where most military broadcasters practice their craft. Either way, ahead of me was six full months of intensive training. In some classes only half of the people who began either program successfully made it to graduation.

The first three months of training consisted of print journalism writing, photography, print layout and public affairs training. They were actually training me to be the guy who would stand at a podium after a plane crashed who says something like, “We can neither confirm nor deny the existence of nuclear weapons at this time.”

The last three months of my training would focus on broadcast journalism including learning how to be a radio announcer, newsreader and disc jockey. I would also learn how to write, edit and record broadcast radio spots. For television, I would be trained on how to write, shoot and edit a news story for air on television as well as how to anchor a newscast. We also learned how to perform all of the roles associated with a newscast: running a teleprompter, operating a camera, running audio controls on a board, switching video and directing a newscast.

At roll call that Monday morning one of our more senior shipmates spoke directly to all those starting classes that day. “Look, you were all intelligent enough to get into this school which means you’re smart enough to make it class on time and on your own. Make sure to set your alarm clocks and don’t be late.”

The building we lived in was directly across the street from the school building. The sad part was that members of the Army were made to form up in ranks and were marched across the street as a unit. Soldiers glared at my classmates and me as we walked past them on our own to class. For those in the Army, this school was essentially a continuation of boot camp for them meaning that if someone told them to “drop and give them 20” they were required to do it. The Navy was still the military, but much, much more lax.

My print journalism instructor, Air Force Senior Master Sergeant Marvin Reynolds, was quite possibly the whitest black man that I’ve ever met. I’m not saying that to be critical. I’m saying that because it was true. Also true was this: He was a hell of a writing instructor. At one point I received an article of mine which he had graded. The red ink on it started to overtake the printed black text. “Really, Senior Master Sergeant Reynolds?!?!” I asked incredulously. “Did you run out of ink here or something?” He half-smiled, “That’s not funny, Kaminski. Especially because I did run out of ink grading your paper.”

We had been warned about a very specific form of torture that all DINFOS print journalism students are required to go through: Features Writing. For this, every student would go to class in the morning and determine with their instructor a topic for a long form features article (this would be akin to an in-depth article you might find in a magazine or other publication). From there, the student had to have a 10 page, single spaced article composed, edited and submitted to their instructor by 6 a.m. the following morning – less than 24 hours from when they received the assignment.

When it was a Features Night, you could tell. The Navy deck was bustling right up until the 6 a.m. deadline. Caffeine and adrenaline (primarily found in the forms of Mountain Dew… I would buy it three 2 liter bottles at a time and No Dozz awake pills) kept the lights on and the Brother word processor keyboards clicking.

Every morning after we had handed in a feature article, we were subjected to public affairs training or photography classes (presumably so our instructors could have the day to themselves grading our stories). Public affairs (or public relations as it’s called in the civilian world) can be an incredibly dynamic and engaging profession. Sadly, the woman that DINFOS had teaching it to us could cure practically anyone of insomnia. Luckily, our photography classes always kept us active and moving – even if we were left sleepily working in a dark room surrounded by caustic photo processing chemicals.

The cast of characters inhibiting the Defense Information School was so unique I selected one of them as a subject for a features writing assignment. Older than many of my other shipmates, Steve Phillips had previously served as a construction worker and builder in the Army and went on to gain his Masters degree (summa cum laude) in Engineering from M.I.T. After a successful yet unfulfilling stint as an engineer, he gave that up to join the Navy and become a print and broadcast journalist at DINFOS. Sounds like a pretty interesting guy, right? I thought so too.

Well, I wrote up my feature article, handed it in and got called out because my instructors didn’t believe me. One of the tenets DINFOS stressed, as all good journalists should strive to do at all times, is check your facts. Our class even had a somewhat tongue-in-cheek motto: “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.” I was brought before Harry Summers, one of our civilian journalism instructors to explain myself.

“There is no possible way that someone could be in the Army, graduate from M.I.T. with honors, start a lucrative engineering job and then give it up to be here. Did you check your facts?” Summers asked me. I said that I had. He told me to do it again. I found Steve back on the Navy deck later that day. “You’re not going to believe this but the feature article I did on you – they don’t believe it,” I said to him, pointing my thumb in the direction of the school building. I asked him again pointedly, “So I have to you ask you again: Did you serve in the Army, graduate from M.I.T. and work as an engineer like you told me?” He began shaking his head, “Yes. All of it.”

I thanked Steve and went back to find Professor Summers, telling him that I had indeed double-checked my facts. Summers responded that he would look into it himself and let me know within a day or two. Until then, he was holding my article (and my grade).

A day passed and Summers sought me out in class. “So I called M.I.T. and spoke to their dean of admissions. As soon as I mentioned the name Steve Phillips, he perked up on the other end of the phone saying, ‘Steve Phillips! He was one of our best students. How’s he doing these days?’” Summers handed me my graded article back with large, red “A” at the top of it. “Good job on this,” and then directed me back to class.

Within the next few days my print journalism class would be graduating. During our graduation ceremony, the commandant of DINFOS, an Army colonel spoke to the Army, Air Force and Coast Guard graduates saying, “Write and file the stories you would want to read and you’ll do just fine out there.” And then he spoke directly to me and my Navy and Marine classmates who were continuing on to broadcast journalism training, “Make sure you don’t bump into each other in the hallways on the way to broadcast announcing class.” We took our diplomas and headed back to the barracks for a well deserved weekend free from homework.

My Mormon classmate Michael Murray had been set up to room with another member of our class, Ed Burke. Over the course of our print journalism classes, all of us had become a little closer but I’ll say it: Burke was a weird dude. I’m not quite sure if he had one too many acid trips or what, but he was slightly off kilter. Murray, one of the few of us who had a car at DINFOS, had decided to go out that Friday night with some friends downtown. Burke, as odd as it may sound, specifically asked that he not leave him alone in their room. Upon returning to their room in the wee hours of Saturday morning, Murray was surprised to find the majority of his and Burke’s possessions on the floor – all assembled into multiple, neatly drawn and intersecting lines covering the entire floor (this was all reminiscent of a scene out of Pink Floyd’s The Wall). To prove that he wasn’t making it up Murray did two things: 1) Show me and 2) leave everything exactly as he found it for when Burke woke up. The next morning Burke awoke, took one look at the floor and said to Murray, “See? I told you. You shouldn’t have left me alone.”

We filed into our broadcast announcing class early and were introduced to our instructors: Air Force Technical Sergeant Steve Mulligan, civilian instructor Jack Linden and Navy Petty Officer First Class Daisy Dalton. If you tried, you couldn’t find three more different people. Mulligan was amiable enough, but could be bitingly sarcastic. Linden was an older, retired military broadcaster. He had the type of booming voice which could fill a room (no microphone required). And then, there was Daisy. I have never met another woman more physically imposing in my life. It’s not that she was big or stocky. Instead she was muscular and incredibly well-built – she looked like the bodybuilder version of Condoleezza Rice. The buttons on her uniform shirts just barely held in her ab muscles as she inhaled and exhaled. And also, as befitting an instructor of broadcast announcing, her enunciation was dead-on perfect.

The purpose of broadcast announcing class was to train us all to speak clearly, minimize any sort of pronounced, local accents or lisps and allow us to be able to get in front of a microphone to expertly deliver news and/or entertain the masses. In the far corner of the classroom was a pile of hockey sticks. Every day that a student messed up in broadcast announcing, they were made to pick out and carry one a hockey stick with them everywhere they went that day as some kind of half-assed scarlet letter. I got quite familiar with the best stick to grab for all occasions – especially for taking with me to the restroom.

We had all sorts of vocal exercises which we went through constantly. Some of us required more attention than others. For instance, one my Navy shipmates, Carolyn Bert, hailed from Little Rock, Arkansas and had a very intense southern accent which our teachers were seeking to rid her of.

And then there were classmates who had other problems. An Army private in our class, Tom Barry, was incredibly cocky and annoying. He claimed to have been a civilian broadcaster and said that he didn’t need the training. Clearly the instructors disagreed as he carried a hockey stick with him way more days than me. Things came to a point one day when he got into an argument with Daisy. He made the vital mistake of attempting to end said argument by saying to her, “You know, you’re pretty cute when you’re angry.” And that is when Daisy simply put threw him up against one wall of the classroom, got her hand around his throat and, with one hand, lifted him off his feet until 1) he requested air by pointing toward his windpipe and 2) ran off out of class, never for us to see him again.

Later that week, another incident occurred. This time it was between Daisy and my wacky little friend Ed Burke. During a one-on-one instruction session, Burke kept insisting that Daisy’s voice reminded him of someone. Daisy, in her perfect intonation said, “Well, who do I remind you of?” Burke encouraged her to keep talking until it dawned on him. “Wait!” he pointed at her. “You’re Jocelyn Elders!” (For those of you who may not remember, Jocelyn Elders was Surgeon General during the Clinton administration and was considered highly controversial for her stances on legalizing drugs and distributing contraceptives to school aged children.)

Daisy glared at Burke as he continued in a mock southern drawl, “Do you want to legalize drugs?” And then he paused for effect, “Do you want to hand out condoms to elementary school children?” With that, all of Daisy’s perfect inflection went out the window, “Fuck you, you conservative pig!” she said as she grabbed Burke by the collar of this shirt, forcibly dragged him from the classroom and slammed the door behind them. Our civilian teacher Linden broke up the silence, “Back to work everyone. Now!”

From broadcast announcing we moved onto radio news reading and disc jockey training. Our instructor, Marine Staff Sergeant Rick Sands was a hard ass with a great sense of humor – as many Marines I’ve known over the years are prone to be.

As part of our DJ training, we had to put together radio shows including gathering content to share during breaks between songs, picking out music and then putting it all together into a finished product for air. We had to do this across formats, meaning you had to do a country music show as well as a rock show, pop music show, etc. In order to grade us, we would each be placed into student DJ booths equipped with a radio board, cart machine (similar to 8-track tapes, these are what commercials were recorded onto), CD players, a record player, headphones and, of course, a microphone. Each studio was monitored by Staff Sergeant Sands via a video monitor and audio feed. He could give us directions via a one way intercom. To make it especially fun, all student radio shows were recorded so we could review them that evening.

Staff Sergeant Sands laid out his rules for us very succinctly: 1) If any student were to curse at any time while the microphone is live, they would automatically fail class for the day. 2) We were warned that if we ever forgot and left our microphones on during a broadcast, he would make us regret it and 3) If you faded out the Queen song Bohemian Rhapsody before the actual, true end of the song, you would automatically fail class for the day.

It was stressed to us that if any sound fell below a certain threshold on our Volume Unit (VU) meter, that we should immediately fade it out and move on to the next portion of our show. Bohemiam Rhapsody is tricky because it does this late in the song intentionally. Thankfully, no one took the bait and placed that song in their rotation.

Putting these “shows” on and knowing that you were being monitored by Staff Sergeant Sands was nerve-wracking at best. You had a ton of stuff to keep track of and on top of that, your job was to be entertaining. During a country music show which I had put together, I decided to lighten the mood a little bit, specifically by “sending out a special request to one Staff Sergeant Rick Sands.” The song? Jose Cuervo by Shelly West. As the record played and I turned off my microphone, Staff Sergeant Sands came over the one way intercom with a one word reply, “Nice.”

Some of my other classmates were not as lucky. My Mormon friend Michael Murray at one point got mixed up and messed up his show so badly that he, in full on exasperation, said “Fuck” on his live microphone and auto-failed for the day. Another one of my classmates was doing well enough but left his microphone on. Staff Sergeant Sands made him regret it by coming over the in studio intercom and reading that day’s weather forecast – thus ruining his show.

After getting the hang of it, I found the idea of working as a radio DJ invigorating. I wasn’t very good at it, but why should a little thing like having no talent stop me? Either way, we were mostly through with our radio training and it was on to television news reporting, anchoring and directing.

I have what is commonly referred to as “a face for radio” which is one of the many reasons why I simply didn’t feel comfortable in the television anchor chair during my time at DINFOS. Luckily for me, we cycled through all of the support roles as well including broadcast camera operator, floor director (the person who gives time cues and other messages to on air talent), teleprompter operator (a really easy way to mess up someone’s day is by toying with the order of their copy), mixing board operator, audio controller and overall news director.

My time as news director was marred by the fact that my mixing board operator, a female Marine private first class named Sara Haney, didn’t agree with one of my directions to her and threatened to kill me instead of following through with my request. Eventually, we all made it through each broadcast news role at least once and felt like we may actually be learning something.

Toward the end of our time at DINFOS, all of us in the Navy were required to speak with a shadowy figure known simply as “the detailer.” This is the person empowered by the Bureau of Naval Personnel to assign you to your next duty station. Generally, a group of sailors would get together and all speak with them on the phone in quick succession as to most efficiently use the detailer’s time. The detailer I spoke with recommended for my next duty assigntment that I take a spot on the amphibious assault ship the USS Kearsarge.

As funny as it sounds, you know with this being the Navy and all, I actually wasn’t too excited about the prospect of serving on and living aboard a naval vessel. In a way, I was quite terrified. I consulted with my favorite M.I.T. graduate Steve Phillips to see if he had any advice. In a supportive tone he kept repeating to me, “Well, at least I’m not you.”

I had another call scheduled with the detailer where I needed to either agree to the assignment or request some other option. During my call, I inquired about other options. I was told that the only other slot open to me was a one year rotation as a broadcast journalist on a little known “remote duty station” called Diego Garcia. All I knew (and all I needed to know at the time) was that it land of some sort and not a ship. I decided to take a shot and say yes. Seafaring would have to wait.

Soon after choosing my assignment on Diego Garcia, I joined my fellow classmates at our broadcast journalism graduation ceremony. From that moment forward, we were all informally known as DINFOS Trained Killers, which is pretty much a joke because we don’t kill anything but computer printer ink cartridges.

I had set up to take leave (the military’s version of vacation) with my family in Philadelphia for a few weeks following my time at DINFOS. My flight from Indianapolis was scheduled to depart just three hours after our graduation ceremony. I corralled one of my classmates who had a vehicle (in this case a purple Mazda pick up truck) to take me and my fellow graduate Ed Burke to the airport – I ended up riding in the truck bed with our familiar green sea bags. I had little idea what was in store for me next. Heck, I hadn’t even found Diego Garcia on a map yet by this point. Either way, I was heading out “to the fleet” as a trained journalist and broadcaster. And I couldn’t wait to get to work.

- Scott Kaminski

* - All names have been changed.