It has been awhile since I posted on this blog. A long while now that I think of it. A whole lot has happened in that time, more than I can possibly explain adequately in one post, so I'm going to write a series of posts bringing my journey up to where I am now. Buckle your seatbelts, because unless I get in trouble for it I intend to give the most thorough and truthful inside view of boot camp you will probably ever see. I have an excellent memory, and many memories of Parris Island are as vivid as if they happened yesterday. At the same time, understand that my memory of exactly _when_ certain things happened is sometimes faulty. Time doesn't exist on the Island. Also understand, that I'm not just telling my story, but the story of 80 of my of fellow Marines from my platoon, some 400 Marines who graduated from Charlie Company with me, and every Marine who comes out of Parris Island.
I'll begin this story at the end, with a somewhat bizarre piece of ceremony that would look odd if you saw it and didn't know what it was. Its astonishingly silent on the Parade deck, which is usually ringing with drill instructor's cadences and commands, the thud of recruit's boots, and the crack of hands slapping rifles executing the manual of arms. Its not that early in the morning because the sun is just coming up, recruits are already training all over the island, but drill instructors know to keep them away from the parade deck, or keep them silent. They know what's going on, and will do everything in their power to preserve the gravity of the moment. Classic patriotic band music plays over a loudspeaker while recruits are arranged into the odd formation, I say odd because you don't make formations like this any other time. Its bitter cold, the wind cuts right through the light desert uniforms we are all wearing, but we ignore the discomfort, a skill that has taken 12 weeks to learn. The recruits all formed up, the commanding officer and first sergeant take their places in front of the U shaped formation and call the recruits to attention. The color guard marches out, then marches up onto the pedestal around the iwo-jima memorial. At the order present-arms, the recruits and drill instructors salute. The color guard takes a folded flag and hoists it up the flagpole being perpetually raised by those Bronze Marines from another time. The national anthem plays. Its ironic, all I can think about as order-arms is given and the color guard retires, is how cold those Marines must be in those short sleeve khaki shirts. Now the chaplain comes out and has a brief prayer. Between the tired, the cold, and the intensity of the moment much of the military customs of this opening portion of the ceremony go unnoticed, I'm almost in a dream world. Then suddenly it begins, a slow, powerful version of the Marine's Hymn plays over the loudspeaker. My heart begins to beat faster, Marines in campaign covers are going up and down the ranks with little red boards. Stuck into the boards are dozens of little metal symbols that cost a couple dollars at the MCX, but as a man who commands more respect and fear than anyone I've ever met presses one into my hand and says congratulations, its value is priceless beyond measure….
12 weeks before, Monday August 11th, I sat in a white 15 passenger van, on the way from Montgomery AL to Parris Island SC, along with 14 fellow wannabe Marines. Its hard to describe the emotions in that van. We all knew where we were headed, but somehow it hadn't really sunk in yet. One of the young men in the van joked repeatedly about how we're on our way to a field trip at a Bluebell ice-cream factory. "I can't wait to get to bluebell!" it was his way of dealing with whatever nervousness is inside. One of the fellows in the van looked like he was about 35, and he wore a wedding ring. Turned out, he was married, but only 21. He suffers from severe pre-mature balding, and has a very mature face. We stopped halfway to PI for what our driver called our "last meal" a government paid for all-you-can-eat Golden Corral buffet. I had two steaks and wondered what the chow will be like at bootcamp. The second half of the drive was quieter than the first. I tried to sleep, but I had very little success. Most of the van managed to nap. We stopped at a gas station about twenty minutes from the gates for one last breath of free air. Our driver was a Marine veteran. He told us to drink any drinks we had, and get our last tobacco fix in. Everything has to be thrown away before we set out on our last leg. Before we boarded the van he passed around an Eagle Globe and Anchor coin from his days in the Corps. He dismissed us to board the van with an Oorah! My heart began to pound as we approached the gates to PI. Someone pointed out that I was screwed since I was closest to the door, and would be the first person they would see.
We had passed all our ID's to the driver, and it only took a minute for the guard to check them and wave the van through. It was after dark, around 10pm as we drove to the receiving building, so we couldn't see the route. My heart just kept beating faster as we approached the famous yellow footprints, and the driver told us to put our heads down and not to look up until greeted by a drill instructor. The van stopped, and so did my heart. I heard someone in the van quietly say "Oh shit, oh shit!" Then the door was ripped open by the very first drill instructor any of us would meet. It is quite simply impossible to describe exactly what its like to be on the receiving end of a Marine Corps drill instructor, but its much more difficult when its a female drill instructor. Thats exactly who was now screaming in my face in an inhuman voice, voicebox torn apart by constant abuse. We ran out of the bus and were directed by more scary hats to the terrace in front of two large silver hatches (doors). The gold letters above the door bore the famous words: "Through these portals pass prospects for America's finest fighting force. United States Marines." The female drill instructor paced back and forth in front of us like a wolf surveying its prey, bellowing out a speech I don't remember one word of, basically welcoming us to hell. Then she ordered two in the front to open the hatches and we were rushed inside. I barely had time to process the fact that we didn't stand in the yellow footprints. I would later understand that the night we arrived was what's called "L5," meaning lighting has struck within 5 miles of the base. Personnel are required to remain under cover during L5 conditions. Since the footprints are out in the street, we missed out on them.
We had passed all our ID's to the driver, and it only took a minute for the guard to check them and wave the van through. It was after dark, around 10pm as we drove to the receiving building, so we couldn't see the route. My heart just kept beating faster as we approached the famous yellow footprints, and the driver told us to put our heads down and not to look up until greeted by a drill instructor. The van stopped, and so did my heart. I heard someone in the van quietly say "Oh shit, oh shit!" Then the door was ripped open by the very first drill instructor any of us would meet. It is quite simply impossible to describe exactly what its like to be on the receiving end of a Marine Corps drill instructor, but its much more difficult when its a female drill instructor. Thats exactly who was now screaming in my face in an inhuman voice, voicebox torn apart by constant abuse. We ran out of the bus and were directed by more scary hats to the terrace in front of two large silver hatches (doors). The gold letters above the door bore the famous words: "Through these portals pass prospects for America's finest fighting force. United States Marines." The female drill instructor paced back and forth in front of us like a wolf surveying its prey, bellowing out a speech I don't remember one word of, basically welcoming us to hell. Then she ordered two in the front to open the hatches and we were rushed inside. I barely had time to process the fact that we didn't stand in the yellow footprints. I would later understand that the night we arrived was what's called "L5," meaning lighting has struck within 5 miles of the base. Personnel are required to remain under cover during L5 conditions. Since the footprints are out in the street, we missed out on them.
Inside the building we were in a large room with a very high roof. The room was full of school desk looking things. We were directed to fill in these desks. I say directed, but in fact it involved a lot of very loud screaming. Every command was followed by "now scream Aye Sir!" Which we dutifully did, adding to the chaos of the situation. We were in the room for what seemed like a long time, but it really wasn't. To sum up, we received a blue bag, and wrote our names and a number we didn't understand on it. Then we put our Id's and money. Some papers may also have been involved. What I remember most vividly about this whole experience is that my whole body was shaking, and I could barely do what we were being told to do. The commands came thick and fast, and every one had to be followed by a screamed "Aye Sir" or one of the hats pacing up and down would be in your face in a heartbeat. From this room we filed into a hall where a row of phones was on the wall. Here we lined up in front of phones in little gray cases and made our last phone-call. This phone call involved yelling verbatim a script written on the inside of the door on every phone. I called my wife first, but she didn't answer. This is a bad thing because the constant barrage of screaming from the hat strongly implied that nothing short of living death was in store for anyone who didn't get an actual person. I tried twice to call my wife, and wound up leaving a message of the script, which by the way we were not supposed to do. But the hat was busy screaming at someone for failing to close the door on the phone after their call and didn't notice. After that I kept trying to call someone. I wound up being the last one in the hall with an angry hat before I finally got my recruiter and rattled off the script. Relieved I closed the phone and scuttled off after the other new recruits, screaming "aye sir"s back to everything the hat was yelling at me. From that point we were able to catch our breath while we received a couple briefings and filled out paper-work for our paychecks and stuff like that. It was hard to stay awake once the adrenaline cooled down a bit.
Note, I call the drill instructors who were interacting with me during this point "hats" because thats really all I remember of them. Those drill instructors are only there to provide initial shock and awe, and guide you to the next step in receiving. I don't remember faces or names, but I'll never forget that campaign cover. After those classes we met a drill instructor who would specifically work with our platoon for the remainder of receiving. His name I do remember because he would be the first DI to actually interact with us, but I won't put it out there. The first day and a half of receiving is very difficult to remember and describe because in encompasses the initial shock of arriving at Parris Island, along with sooooo many stops and events. The best I can do is describe particular parts, but the order isn't necessarily correct. The first day of receiving lasts a day and a half. We arrived monday at 10, and went straight through till late Tuesday evening. So exhaustion is involved as well. I remember initial issue of personal items, where we received a white mesh bag full of stuff like a razor, canteens, "skivvies" (our underwear) soap, towels, ect. We also received our go-fasters (running shoes) at this point. All of these things were deposited in a huge open room upstairs in the receiving building. This room would practically be our home all through receiving week. That done we received our uniform issue. Seeing each other in those desert digital cammies restored a little bit of motivation that had been lost in the stress of those first few hours. It didn't last long though. We did not get to wear boots, these we stuffed into green sea bags, along with the rest of the stuff we received. Instead we wore our go-fasters. We also had to hang neon reflective green glow straps across our bodies. The go-fasters and glowstraps tell the world that you are a receiving recruit. You can't get any lower in the Marine Corps world, except for poolee.
It wasn't till Tuesday night that we left the receiving building for the first time, and stepped it out to the barracks that would become our home for the next 13 weeks. I'll never forget my first sight of our squadbay. It was so unbelievably dismal. The floor was just plain, hard, smooth concrete. There was next to no color, metal racks lined both sides of the squadbay with two black boxes at the foot of each one. It felt like such a dismal place. It was dusk when we arrived, and we still had a ton to do before we could finally rest. We had a lesson on making military racks (beds), we had to mark our belongings, learn where to hang and stow our bags and belongings, and hygiene. The frantic rush of that first hygiene time cannot be described. We were given 10 minutes for 85 recruits to brush our teeth, shave, shower, and get dressed in green skivvies again, we didn't even make it in time. Its funny now, because by the end of boot-camp we would consider 8 minutes a luxury and would be able to get decently clean in that time. Finally, completely exhausted, physically, mentally, and emotionally, we climbed into our racks and promptly went straight to sleep. Except for the unfortunate souls that the Drill Instructor had picked to be the very first fire-watch.
I felt like I'd just fallen asleep when the lights flickered on and we all tumbled out of our racks to the screaming drill instructor's instructions. In fact it was only about 4 hours of sleep because of how late we hit the rack, and in boot-camp you get up at 0400. I'm not going to explain every moment of the next three days, but I'll share some of the key memories. One of the very first things you do, before we even left receiving, is learn to make a formation. The formation on the Island consists of four squads, facing the direction you march. We hadn't learned to march at that point, so instead you "step it out." This is a major feature of bootcamp, and consists of the DI yelling "Step it out!" and all the recruits yelling "Step it out Aye Sir!" This mantra is repeated over and over again as long as you're walking to where you're going. When you make a turn the DI yells "Turn right!" and the recruits reply "Turn right Aye sir!" When you stop its more complex because you respond "Stop Aye sir, Good morning/afternoon/evening Sir!" This is the formula for every time a drill instructor yells stop, and we spent plenty of time yelling it.
This brings me to another feature of bootcamp, the greeting of the day. It is absolutely mandatory that whenever you pass a drill instructor, or enter a room with a drill instructor, or many other circumstances that take time to learn, you must give the greeting of the day. Till afternoon chow it is "good morning sir," after that its "good afternoon" until evening chow, and so on. It is also vital that if there is more than one drill instructor, you must say "good morning/afternoon/ect _gentlemen." Woe to the recruit who only says "sir" when two DI's are within 50 feet, or who fails to scream the greeting to a Drill instructor, or who is late with the greeting.
During receiving we spent a lot of time in that large open room upstairs of the receiving building. We ate boxed chows there, and waited there for our turn for the next bit of processing. During these times we were often left alone with no Drill instructors around for an hour or two at a time. Usually two to three platoons would be in the room at one time. The result of placing a couple hundred stressed out, undisciplined, ambitious recruits alone like this was total chaos. A dozen or so recruits in each platoon, desiring to be "leaders" and usually with JROTC experience in high school, tried to take charge of everything, with utter failure. For myself, being a good 5 years older than 90% of the recruits, it was a supremely frustrating experience. I mostly quietly studied the book of knowledge we'd been given and tried to ignore the JROTC wannabe drill instructors. It is interesting to note that none of these wannabes ended up as squadleaders or guides once bootcamp really got going. Ironically a time would come when I would long for those hours of chaos with no DI's around.
The most time consuming events of receiving are the medical and dental examinations and vaccinations. There's really not much to say about these. Some of the navy hospitalmen who supervise the process seemed to take Parris Island as an excuse to behave like drill instructors and be jerks to the recruits. Others were nice, and the doctors themselves were very nice, happy to answer medical questions and questions about the military. Two things stick out in my memory. The infamous peanut-butter shot is definitely one of those. This penicillin shot is very thick, theres a lot of it, and it is injected into the buttock which makes it very painful to walk or sit down for the next couple days. The other is my dental exam, because I knew as soon as I was sent back for a second set of x-rays that I was in for a lot of dental work. Boy did that turn out to be right.
The highlight of my receiving week came when we were getting our pictures taken for our military ID cards, called CACs. One by one we were entering a booth and sitting at attention in front of the camera while an admin Marine, not a drill instructor, asked a couple questions then snapped the picture. There was a parapet to the side of the booth that faced the main office. When my turn came, the admin Marine was chatting with a Drill instructor who was leaning on the parapet from the other side. I sat at attention facing the camera and answered the Marine's questions. While he entered the information, the Drill instructor said "hey recruit, how many channels do you get?" Confused, I replied without losing bearing or moving my head or eyes: "Sir, how many channels does this recruit get where sir?" The DI sniggered and said: "With your satellite dish ears recruit!" Without hesitating, moving my head, or making any expression at all I responded. "Sir, this recruit gets a thousand channels sir." This caused the Marine to laugh out loud, and got a tiny chuckle out of the Drill instructor. I didn't get in trouble. This is a supreme feat in bootcamp, to make a drill instructor laugh, and I was made to tell the story many times to my fellow recruits.
One of the receiving events I will never forget is the IST, the initial strength test. Each recruit must pass this test to begin training. It consists of a max set of pullups, as many crunches as you can do in 2 minutes, and a mile and a half timed run. We headed out to the PT field before the sun was up. As we stepped it out into the field it started to rain. It was dismal and dark as we made a U turn and got set for the run instead. It was literally pouring down rain as we did our mile and a half run. In spite of the conditions, I still ran the best time that I had ever run, 9 minutes and 30 seconds. Once the run was completed we went back to our squadbay and did the crunches and pullups indoors. There was a set of pullup bars hanging out of the ceiling that we used for the pullups. During the IST, I noticed some men in red C company T shirts hanging around. I would later find that these were our drill instructors, come to see what kind of platoon they would be getting. One person failed the IST, they were trying to cheat on their crunches and got caught. They were immediately dropped, meaning they would join the next platoon to arrive and try the IST again. I don't even remember them leaving.
One last interesting note about receiving is that already, there were signs of things to come. On our second day in receiving the receiving Drill instructor began teaching us how to march. His cadence was painfully slow, "LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEFFFFFFTT………..RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGHT!" but we quickly began to get in step. We also learned how to execute a right and left face, and an about face. As we marched around to our receiving events, and to chow, I noticed that no other receiving platoons were marching. They were all still stepping it out. It wasn't till the last day of receiving that one other platoon started trying to march. It occurred to me at this point that my platoon might be a good platoon, yea even the best. It seemed like we were catching on to things pretty quick. We discussed the possibility in whispered conversations after lights out. We wouldn't know for a very long time whether or not this was true. By the way, that number we didn't understand, that we wrote on our little blue bags in the first minutes on the Island? That was our platoon number, 1081. A number that is seared into my soul.
By the time these first three days in receiving were drawing to a close, we honestly couldn't wait to start real training. We were sick of waiting around, and were anxious to meet our drill instructors. Boy was that naive. All of our uniforms and gear had been issued. We'd learned where to stow our gear, and how to lock our rifles to our racks, hanging by their slings. We'd learned the basics of how to make a rack, and how to march. We felt ready to attack boot-camp. Well as it so happens, boot-camp was about to attack us. Lights out on thursday, the night before black friday. The after lights conversation was focused on one thing, how we felt about the trials before us, and wondering what it would be like…
