Bollinger County veteran: Garrett Cook — U.S. Navy

Garrett Cook is a 2015 graduate of Woodland High School.

He served in the U.S. Navy from 2015 to 2022.

“I have a lot of family that was in the military, my uncle was in the Navy,” he said during a recent interview. “It was kind of last minute for me to make a decision. I had already graduated (high school) and decided to sign.”

His commitment was signed in July 2022, and he began training to be a gas turbine system technician.

Basic training took place from November 2015 through January 2016.

Basic training was at Great Lakes near Chicago for eight weeks. He then served in Japan, then went to Norfolk, Virginia.

“I thought they did a pretty good job of getting us ready,” Cook said. “It’s mainly getting you to take orders, be neat with things, organized, get you into a routine.

“It was good training, I didn’t feel like it was too hard. The hardest part was the physical training. Every day you had to do some type of PT.”

This included conditioning — completed a mile-and-a-half run in a specified time — plus push-ups and sit-ups.

“On the ship, you walk down stairwells, which are pretty inclined, so you get used to walking up and down stairwells, sometimes taking up heavier things, cleaning,” he said.

“The biggest adjustment for me was being away from family,” he said. “The whole time I was without my family. Your first tour you couldn’t bring your family with you. That was the policy at the time.”

This policy was later changed.

Cook said he stayed in touch by phone.

Eventually, when that concluded he was given his preferred places to serve.

He wound up in Sasebo, Japan.

That was his only overseas option. He also chose San Diego and Norfolk Naval Base in Virginia.

The people in Japan were very nice, according to Cook.

“I loved the culture,” he said. “People were extremely nice. The language barrier wasn’t all that bad. As soon as you get to Japan they do ‘in dock’ and you learn some basic Japanese phrases and you learn how to use chopsticks, basic things to get you going there in Japan.

“Sasebo base is a really small base. We didn’t have a whole lot of amenities on base. Every day, when you’re in port, you typically went off base into the city.”

The normal working schedule was 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. unless more had to get done, then it was later

“We were constantly in and out of port,” Cook said, adding he traveled to four continents and many countries, including Australia, South Korea, Vietnam, Singapore and Thailand.

He got married in between boot camp and going to Japan in 2016.

While serving he wasn’t directly involved in combat, though the amphibious assault ship often carried Marines to different parts of the world.

“We haven’t been in a Navy conflict since World War II,” he said. “We’ll mainly be there to support or drop off (U.S.) Marines.”

While on the ship, Cook often saw the commanding officer as he was attending to his normal duties.

“You’d see him just about daily,” he said. “(He’d be) walking around, talking to everyone.

As for what he liked about the experience, Cook said it was the relationships he developed.

“I enjoyed the people that were around me more than anything," Cook said. "I made a lot of friends in the military, still talk to most of them today.

His initial enlistment was from 2015 to 2019, but then he re-enlisted for three years.

“That’s typically the same for every branch,” Cook said. “I enjoyed my time while I was in.”

After completing his service in Japan, he then went to work in northeast Ohio at the Naval Reserve Center in North Canton.

While the nearest naval reserve center is in St. Louis, he wound up closer to the Great Lakes than the Gateway to the West.

“It’s a little more laid-back, and a lot more sitting down at a reserve center. I was at a desk doing training and operations at the reserve center, basically made sure everyone did their training," Cook said.

During his tenure, the ships he served on included the USS Ashland and the USS Ramage.

There were valuable lessons he took from his time in the U.S. Navy.

“I’m in more control of my daily life now than I was then, that’s been about the biggest change,” Cook said.

Probably the biggest adjustment to civilian life was working a swing shift job at a factory.

Initially, he started a 12-hour shift at Mondi in Jackson from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Later, he worked at a sand plant from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.

"I got tired of working every other weekend, so I tried something else," he said.

He tried a local guttering job and later was asked to work at Lutesville Ford in Marble Hill. That job has a schedule of 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day.

“I can stop what I’m doing and leave,” Cook said, adding that typically doesn't occur in the military.

Garrett is married to Taylor. The couple have three children, ages 6, 3 and 1.

He also is a volunteer with Woodland Fire Department. His father-in-law volunteered with the fire department, and a few of his brothers-in-law also volunteer.