She has steered an aircraft carrier, guided hovercraft into an amphibious dock and trained countless sailors fresh out of boot camp on everything from anchoring at sea to chipping paint. For Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Corrie Parrish, those experiences have proven to be 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.
Sharing Her Navy Story
“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, California.
Some of those stories are mission-focused, while others are just about having fun. Some don’t make sense to the uninitiated until they hear the passion in her voice. It may be fair to ask why a sailor would enjoy having to sleep in the well deck of the amphibious dock landing ship USS Germantown between multiday operations to load equipment at sea. Her motivation is found in the reason that led the ship 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,” she explained. “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.”
As the ramp marshal, Parrish stood in the middle of the well deck armed only with two wands and was charged with guiding in an 185-ton air-cushioned landing vehicle for transporting personnel and weapons from ship to shore and across the beach. At the age when some people are just finishing college, she was already leading a team that was responsible for a vehicle worth nearly $40 million.
Even More Responsibility Earlier
But in some way that was a step down in responsibility, because a few years earlier, Parrish was the master helmsman on the $5 billion aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, rotating with three teammates in 30-minute shifts while leaving or entering ports to accurately navigate the ship according to the conning officer’s instructions.
“It’s stressful,” she said. “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.”
Now, Parrish helps to navigate students fresh out of high school. She tells them about the stressful situations and the hard situations, but she doesn’t leave out the lighter side, such as 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 OK.”
The 21 Club
Being forthright has allowed Parrish to develop relationships with the applicants who walk through the recruiting office’s 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 into 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, Parrish said.
“The best part is being able to share my knowledge about the Navy to those that have no idea about the Navy at all,” she added. “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, she said. Others tell her they don’t want any part of the Navy for the same reasons. Both situations usually reveal that the applicant doesn’t know the full story, Parrish said, and they definitely don’t know her story.
Shooting Down Assumptions
“In the fleet as a boatswain’s mate, I worked with a lot of kids that had just come out of boot camp,” Parrish said. “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.”
But just like her time as the ramp marshal on the Germantown, she acknowledged, recruiting isn’t always an easy day.
“There are so many different aspects to recruiting,” Parrish said. “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 you 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.”
It comes down to a simple mantra, Parrish said: “I always told myself, ‘I can’t fail.’”
Navy Recruiting District Nashville is responsible for recruiting efforts throughout more than 100,000 square miles in Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky and Virginia.