"Double Time!" Poolee Function on the Beach

(All set up to grill some burgers and hot dogs.)

I arrive a good fifteen minutes early, a good habit to have. The Recruiting office isn't even open, so I just sit in my car. This Pool function was well announced and all the Poolees for the Pensacola and Pace Marine recruiting stations are supposed to be here today. Within a minute a truck pulls up next to me. I see a Marine Corps sticker and figure that it's another poolee. When the driver gets out wearing his poolee uniform, the navy blue shirt with maroon emblem, and required black shorts, I'm proven correct. I get out of my car too and greet him. Within a couple minutes we are joined by several more poolees. We discuss when we ship out, and the plan for the day. Originally we know this function was supposed to be a run on the beach followed by a grill out. The weather was really nasty yesterday calling this plan into question, but by the looks of the morning it might be back on. We won't know till later. By the time 7:30 arrives, the time I was told to be there, there are many poolees gathered around the door to the recruiting office. More keep arriving too. I hang around chatting with various and sundry poolees. Most are pretty sharp, both in appearance and intelligence. Most are between 17 and 19, only a couple others are in their 20s. I estimate around 40 poolees in total, and an exact count later gives 37. Around 7:30 the recruiters start arriving. Staff Sergeant Thorne opens the office and comes out a minute later with a clipboard. He gives it to a poolee and tells him to start having people sign in. The poolee he gives it to wears a black "Pain is Weakness Leaving the Body" shirt. I met him at the last pool function. He is a fitness nut and has a lot of experience in NJROTC. He apparently passed some insane challenge at a previous poolee function, which is how he earned the shirt. He ends up selected as the de-facto platoon sergeant for the pool function. While everyone signs in, conversation continues. Staff Sergeant Throne pulls his truck up and calls for volunteers to unload the grill and propane. I quickly hop up with another poolee and we hand the grill down to other willing hands. After a time, I hear a voice loudly call "Fall In", which just about causes me to fall apart. I have no idea what I'm doing. I see other poolees scrambling into a formation and I find a place in it as best I can. Eventually we form a very sloppy formation standing at attention. First off we have to fix our formation. We are instructed on how to spread out our squads (rows) by having the first rank take so many steps forward, the second rank (where I am) take so many steps forward, the third rank stands still and the fourth rank steps back. Then we are allowed to relax to parade rest. 

Next Staff Sergeant Thorne reads off the names of the six week and thirty day shippers. These are the poolees who are within six weeks, or within 30 days of their ship date. He reminds them that they must be ready to go to boot camp right now, as within the 30 day window he can call them at any time and tell them they're leaving tomorrow. Six weeks shippers also have some paperwork to do in order to be ready for their 30 day shipping window. Now for the fun part. Staff Sergeant Thorne announces that we will have inspection. We should be wearing the correct uniform, have our Marine water bottles and knowledge books, and we should be clean shaven. I'm good on all of those except the knowledge book. I forgot I was supposed to bring that. Staff Sergeant Thorne starts at the back of the formation, Sergeant Hensley starts at the front. Neither go easy. I can hear Staff Sergeant Thorne somewhere behind me asking Poolees if they're going to "forget" their rifles or ammunition or other crucial equipment if they become Marines. These poolees forgot their water battles or knowledge books, or forgot to shave. That last one seems to be a big one. Sergeant Hensley is verbally more abusive. I hear him calling every other Poolee a "Nasty little thing" for not shaving. Some tried shaving the night before in order to sleep in a little longer this morning, they don't get any mercy either. I consider myself lucky, Sgt. Hensley walks right past me and looks at my face. He shakes his head and says something about "Nasty little thing" as he walks away but I'm not sure if he's addressing me or still grumbling about the previous poolee he inspected, who got a real dressing down. He is so focused on the shaving (which appears to be a big issue with todays poolees) that he does not ask about my knowledge book that I forgot. I resolve to put my lucky escape on this issue to good use by not forgetting it next time! Once the inspection ends the recruiters address us as a group about the shaving issue. All poolees must shave the morning of pool functions. If we have this problem at the next pool function, we will do group PT as punishment. The threat of what happens if you "forget" things in boot camp, is held heavily over our heads. 

Next we do hight and weight. By squads (rows) we go into the office where Staff Sergeant Castleberry (female) has us give our name, step on a scale, and give our hight. I only weigh in at 146 pounds, 2 pounds over the minimum for my hight. Granted I haven't eaten yet today, but still, I feel the need to gain weight. After the hight and weight It feels like we stand in formation for quite awhile. At one point I hear a poolee in the first squad try to request a head call. He gets it wrong and is told by Sergeant Hensley to try again. He still gets it wrong, about five more times before he manages to get it correct at the top of his lungs. "This Poolee requests permission to make a head call!" Then he is allowed to go use the restroom. Staff Sergeant Thorne addresses us about the day's plans. We're going for a "fun run" on the beach in formation while calling cadence. He calls up Staff Sergeant Castleberry (male) who is going to start off the cadences. Staff Sergeant Castleberry asks who does not know how to run to cadence and I raise my hand along with about half the poolees. He has us run in place and demonstrates. I'm getting a little pumped by this point, this sounds like a lot of fun. They ask if any poolees know cadences and would be willing to lead them, much is made about how "C130 rolling down the strip" doesn't count because everybody knows that one. Nobody volunteers. 

Staff Sergeant Thorne also explains that we will need to carpool to Pensacola beach. He instructs us to figure out within our squads who is driving and riding. I turn to my left and right and announce that I have two seats. The two poolees on my left need rides so that pretty well settles it. A little later Staff Sergeant Thorne asks if everyone has rides and who the drivers are. He gives final instructions and dismisses the formation. I grab the other two poolees who are riding with me and we hop in my car. One sits in the back and is really quiet. He doesn't say much at all. The fellow in the front and I enjoy conversation about various things. Turns out he has played a lot of airsoft, like me, so that makes for fun talk. At the meeting spot at the beach we meet other poolees gathering outside the bathrooms. We stand around talking about what our run will be like and how hot and sunny it is. When the recruiters arrive they have us move to a large pavilion. A a few poolees help unload large coolers of water as well as the grills and food supplies. I start stretching, along with some of the other poolees. I don't know how hard this run is going to be, but it will be easier if I'm stretched out. A poll goes out who would prefer to run barefoot and who would prefer to wear shoes. Barefoot wins and everyone has to take their shoes off. After a time we are called into formation again inside the spacious pavilion. This formation is not the same as the previous, we don't all end up in even remotely the same spots. Once it's formed it gets slightly re-arranged when Staff Sergeant Thorne has slower runners take the spots that will be at the front of the run. He says he wants to set a slow pace and not wear everyone out. 

When we're ready, we move down out of the pavilion, then right face, which aligns the formation for the run, and head towards the beach. One of the recruiters sets the marching cadence. We mostly don't know squat about marching, and the formation sort of gets messed up, especially trying to weave around beach goers, but I do my best. When we reach the beach we wheel left and come to a halt. I am on the right side of the formation, and I'm knee deep in surf. I realize that this is going to be a little bit wetter than I'd imagined. Recruiters hand out final instructions, at the command double time we are to shout "Marine Corps" and start running. Then the order comes, "forward march" and we start walking. When the double time command comes a few moments later we shout "Marine Corps" and start running. Sort of, it seems like the shout fizzled out. Once we start running Staff Sergeant Castleberry starts out the cadence with what I call the "lefty righty" cadence. It consists entirely of variations of "left" and "right" along with calling noises. I think it is designed to set the cadence and help us get into rhythm. A problem immediately becomes apparent however. We're running in the the surf, the noise is crazy. I can barely hear Staff Sergeant Castleberry and sometimes I can't hear him at all. As soon as he leaves the lefty righty cadence and tries a real one, most of the formation is unable to hear or follow along, and the thundering unison turns into more of a weak quartet of whoever is closest to Staff Sgt Castleberry. I resolve to just make noises that sounds vaguely like whatever I thought i heard, and I wind up doing that quite a bit to be honest. Things improve slightly when Sergeant Lovett or Hensley takes their turn at the cadences. Their voices are a little louder and they alternately speed up and slow down so that they are sometimes near the back of the formation and sometimes near the front, which helps keep everyone able to hear sometimes and thus motivated enough to at least make those vague noises when they can't hear. Sergeant Lovett has a nice simple call he starts his cadences with that everyone can follow. First "Left foot!" a couple times, then "Drill Foot" then back, or sometimes "Kill foot!" then he'll launch into a cadence. He calls a couple that sound a lot like those called by the fictional Drill Instructor Hartman in the movie Full Metal Jacket, which makes them a lot easier to follow since even when I can't hear I know what is supposed to come next. The running itself is not that hard. I'm slogging through water that is sometimes up to my waist, but the pace is pretty slow and a couple times we halt briefly or walk to give us a chance to catch our breath. To my surprise I notice that some people are falling out. I know this only because several times I have to move position in the formation as the people in front of me are shifting to fill gaps toward the front of the formation. After awhile we come to a stop, then wheel all the way around and start back toward where we started. Now I'm on the beach side of the formation, which is nice since it's a little easier to run with water only around my ankles, and I can hear a little better. On this side I'm able to notice that we are running past hundreds of beach goers. Many are cheering us on and taking pictures. On the way back I notice more people falling out of formation. One comes right down the middle, flagging and slowing down with the formation flowing around him. We all slap him on the back and shout encouragement as we pass. In filling gaps I wind up moving from the back to almost halfway to the front of the formation. I'm in the zone by now, calling cadences and running steadily at a slow pace. The recruiters seem to have recognized the hearing problem and are calling the "lefty righty" cadence a lot, since it's easy to follow even when you can't hear. Sergeant Hensley even does the "C130 rolling down the strip" cadence he said we weren't going to do, presumably because if everyone knows it they can follow better. When we come to a halt where we started my first thought is "that's it" I don't feel very taxed at all. My body is telling me I've been using it, but I'm not winded, tired, or sore. For our finisher we receive instructions on falling out by column into single file and running back to reform in the pavilion. The guidon carrier (carrying the maroon colored standard for our recruiter's unit) takes the lead, with the column behind him running behind him as he heads off, then as soon as the last person in that column passes the first in our column we fall in running behind them in single file, and so on all the way back to the pavilion. This short run, up hill through deep sand, gets my wind going more so than the whole beach run up till that point. I'm actually breathing heavily by the time we sloppily re-form the formation. 

The recruiters immediately instruct us to retrieve our water bottles and begin sipping them to hydrate. We stand at parade rest sipping on water for a little while. I hear one girl ask to retrieve hers as well. Sgt Hensley asks why she did not get it when she was instructed, and tells her to listen closely to instructions. Then he tells her to go get and double time. She starts walking and he starts yelling "go go! Faster! 13, 12, 11," he counts down and she doesn't make it back to her spot in time. He yells "on your face!" And a random poolee in the first rank drops to the pushup position. "No not you." Sgt Hensley begins, then changes his mind. "Nevermind, everybody on your face!" He tells us that we need to pay attention to instructions, and to move quickly when we are instructed. Then we all do 20 pushups. After this Staff Sergeant Thorne addresses the group. He asks who was embarrassed and a lot of hands go up. He says they should be and scolds everybody for not showing motivation and sounding off loudly in cadence. He does say that plenty of us did fine, but that it seemed like some people were acting like they didn't want to be there. I certainly don't feel embarrassed. I ran steady, sounded off loudly, and at least made noise when I couldn't hear. It really was hard to follow the cadences over the sound of the surf. Once Staff Sergeant Thorne walks away Sgt Hensley gives a more sympathetic address, which I find amusing considering how hard he has been on people so far. He says that we did good, and that most of us should be proud of ourselves. Then he allows the de-facto platoon sergeant poolee to dismiss the formation. Some of the recruiters and poolees go to cook burgers and hot-dogs. A couple other recruiters are talking with poolees about their experience. I hang around chatting with poolees I know while we wait for dinner. I bump into Sergeant Lovett, my recruiter, who asks me how it was. I tell him it really wasn't hard, just fun and I could do it again. After a while Staff Sergeant Thorne gets everyone's attention and instructs us to form a line down the pavilion ramp and around to the grills. I realize that where I've been standing I'm at the very front of the line, and poolees begin falling in behind me. "Ladies first!" I call out, and others echo. The female poolees gratefully come around and form the line in front of me, leading us off to lunch. The burgers are good and I enjoy chatting with the poolee I drove down with too. Eventually the recruiters call for their particular recruits to gather around. Sgt. Lovett congratulates myself and his other poolees for running well. None of us fell out of formation and some of us expressed willingness to go again. He tells us that we are free to go or we can stay and continue to hang out. One of the poolees I drove up with needs to head back so all three of us throw away our lunch plates and cups and head back to the station. I drop off the other two and bid them farewell. I actually go back to the beach, my wife works right nearby the beach and I have to pick her up in the near future. But it has been a full hour by the time I get back to the beach and everyone is gone, so I simply go to my Wife's place of employment to wait the hour till it's time to take her home. The poolee function is officially over for me. 

(Some of the other poolees hanging around talking after lunch.)

This poolee function was a great time, I got to experience an inspection and some formations, and had a motivating cadence run. It is a good reminder of what I am getting into. The close order drill maneuvers we butchered so horribly as poolees must be performed to perfection by the end of recruit training, and the drill instructors who will teach us will not be merciful like our recruiters are. The verbal grilling offered by our recruiters during the inspection paled in comparison to what we will face when our drill instructors inspect us. The recruiters didn't raise their voices, or get in anyone's face, something they made sure to remind us. Everything the Marines I've met in this enlistment process have done has had a purpose. At MEPS the Marines did their best to intimidate those who were processing to join. Why? Because they don't want undisciplined recruits. In describing my experiences to others I have frequently heard "I couldn't handle that," "I'd get mad." "You're not even in yet!" To which I respond that that is the point. The Marines don't want people who can't handle that. They want people who can handle anything that might be thrown at them, from harsh words to hand grenades. So the recruiter's goal with the pool function was to help prepare poolees mentally for boot camp, as well as motivate us and keep us excited about what we're doing. It sure works for me.