Yeah. What’s this “Extreme” or “all out” talk? It’s counseling…with a wall. Then the other wall. Then the first one again. Duh.
As for the gas chamber, they have you do some tricks first before you take of the mask- basically, “shake your head vigorously.” Then they’re like “See? The mask stays on. You’re fine, aren’t you?” and everyone’s like “Yeah, I guess.” Then they go “You might not think there actually is gas in this room right now. I’m going to prove that there is. Masks off!”
But the other important part comes next. It not only teaches you to trust your mask, but it trains you on how to clear it. When you put the mask back on, you have to go through the procedure to clear the thing, thus training you to do that under attack.
Hah, if I had to say the gas chamber training teaches you anything, it’s “Don’t take off your mask”
For the Air Force, they had us shake our heads (IIRC) and do some jumping jacks, though I didn’t make the connection to it showing us that our masks would stay on (I just figured the six tight elastic straps wrapped around the back of my head would signify that well enough). I figured it was just getting us used to moving around in the MOPP gear, which was heavy and bulky.
Before they had us take our masks off, they had us open up the suits, so you knew the gas was there, cause you could feel it burning the skin (mostly your neck and collar was what was exposed, as the starched BDUs did a partial job of covering your skin from the CS crystals). The whole point of the exercise is to give you confidence in your MOPP gear, so you’d be more likely to actually use it if you ever needed it.
Supposedly CS gas affects males far worse than it does females. Of course, it could be that was something the instructors said to help save face for the large number of males sobbing uncontrollably after coming out of the gas chamber. That crap HURTS.
Hollywood Marine here, 1987. Two of my DIs were black, and the other was Puerto Rican, and I don’t remember any overt racial stuff, but the PR DI liked to pick on recruits that were born outside the U.S. “Hurry up you fucking immigrant!” was a favorite phrase of his. And yes, the language was as colorful as anything in Full Metal Jacket. The dumping of the foot locker was common too.
They seemed to purposely push the limits of what they could get away with to find out who the whiners were, such as the one day out of my whole hitch I was on light duty (wisdom teeth pulled), and I got quarterdecked anyway. I could have called him on it, but what for? I’d have gotten it double the next day.
Another strange thing I’ve heard about FMJ is that a lot of people who have never been in the military view that first half as some kind of tragic high drama. I think it’s the funniest hour in film history. The most fun I’ve ever had at the movies was seeing FMJ in the base theater at 29 Palms.
My first experience with being screamed at profanely was at the San Diego airport in 1967. Three of us arrived there early in the morning (headed for boot camp) and found the military help desk unoccupied. So we wandered off to find some breakfast. We had a leisurely meal and wandered back to the podium to find some guy in a blue suit with a bunch of fruit salad on his chest standing there.
We sauntered up, me with a cigarette in my mouth, one of the other guys with a toothpick hanging out of his face, and I said (ah, the naivete of youth): “Hey man, can you . . .” That was as far as I got.
He seemed annoyed with us and didn’t really seem to want an answer to his question. I had never been spoken to like that in my life, let alone in a public place.
Another quick question-did your DI’s assign recruits nicknames, like Ermey did? Like Rambo for someone who was seriously hitting the weights, Beanpole for a skinny guy, Picasso for someone with a big nose or was ugly, etc.?
I’ve heard stories of recruits in their first hour in the Spanish armed forces calling someone señor, having watched too many Hollywood movies. You never call anybody señor in the Spanish armed forces, recruits are expected to learn the grades faster than they learn where their bunk is. You don’t have to use the full grade: a Teniente Coronel is adressed as Coronel, any kind of Sargento is Sargento (at least during your first few months and if no similar ranks are present, so there can be no confussion whether you’re adressing the plain Sargento or the Brigada); if you’re unclear on how many stripes a noncom’s shoulderpads have, saying Sargento won’t get you in trouble (worst case scenario, you’ll get a snarled “I’m not old enough to be a sergeant”). I understand the standard response when a kid still in civvies adresses the DI as señor is “¿señor? Do we speak English here? We do not speak English here! The next plug’n’play brain(1) who calls me or any other instructor señor is spending 24h in the pen! Are we clear on that, recruits?”, usually followed by a timid “¡sí, mi sargento!” from someone smarter or better-instructed by his father than the rest.
(1) foul language has been forbidden since at least the 16th century. I had a boss who had been a TEDAX Sergeant and he had the most amazingly creative way to make any word sound like an insult to the honor of your mother, her mother and all further ancestresses between you and Eve.
I (and most of my friends, none of whom ever served) ALL seem to agree that the Parris Island portion of the movie is HILARIOUS. And then the 2nd part of the movie is brilliant drama, with lots of humor mixed in. Overall, a MUCH better movie than Platoon, which came out, I believe a few months earlier.
What I love about it is how the first half of the movie is orderly, symmetrical and clean, and the second half is chaos. It really sets off the differences between ‘this is training- that’s war’.
I’m sure it was high comedy for airport employees. We ended up being stood at parade rest on a grassy strip in front of the airport, waiting for a vehicle to come pick us up, and with instructions not to move or he’d plant his number 12 so far up our asses we’d be tasting shoe polish for a month. It seemed like a very long wait.
For a minute I thought we knew the same Drill Sergeant. Then you mentioned words of encouragement and I knew they were two different people.
The Drill I knew was the gruffest, biggest, blackest guy I had ever met and he didn’t have a kind bone in his body. He almost threw a Private off Victory Tower because the Private was afraid of heights and didn’t want to repel down the side. That, along with the time he threw around a Road Guard because he wasn’t fast enough (in front of the C.O., no less) resulted in him riding a desk for the last two weeks of Basic. I think he ended up losing his Smokey hat.
Aside from that one Drill there was no physical abuse. Tons of verbal but nothing that would make you run home to mommy. I went through Basic at Fort Jackson in the summer of '91.
Petty people with petty power: it’s not just restricted to the military. At least it prepared us for what was coming. One of the first things the company commander told us was: “Don’t worry about your girlfriends, maggots. When you get home, she’ll be just like you left her: freshly fucked!” As with many things, he was right about that.
As the old joke goes: What’s the difference between a fairy tale and a sea story? The fairy tale starts with “Once upon a time. . .”; the sea story starts with “Now, this is no shit. . .”
As a former submarine officer, I couldn’t agree more. At least the scene came early in the movie, so I didn’t have long to wonder if the movie was going to suck or not.
Any junior officer who tried that stunt would find himself in the XO’s stateroom getting his ass handed to him. Hell, the JO would probably be fired for general stupidity. A commanding officer who tried that stunt would likely find themselves relieved of command once word got back to the squadron commodore.
In general, once you get out of boot camp and into the fleet, the Navy (and especially the submarine force) has very little tolerance these days for “screamers.”
Now for a sea story of sorts: [Now, this is no shit…] when I was going through submarine school, we were told a cautionary tale of a CO who couldn’t keep his temper in check (but somehow made it through the selection process to get a command in the first place). Anyway, word made it back to the submarine squadron, so the squadron commodore decided to “ride” the boat during some weekly ops. The CO was apparently on his best behavior for the week, but at some point toward the end of the week, some junior enlisted sailor set him off, and he actually physically pushed the sailor hard into a bulkhead, just as the squadron commodore walked into the control room.
Without a beat, the commodore loudly announced in the dead silence of the control room, “Attention in control! This is Captain [Lastname], Commanding Officer, Submarine Squadron [Number]. As of [time], I am assuming command of this vessel. Quartermaster, record this in the log. Captain [Screamer], please confine yourself to your stateroom.” :eek:
Needless to say, this didn’t do much for the former CO’s career.
BTW, the first time I saw Full Metal Jacket on video was in the summer of 1988 in the barracks at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton during CORTRAMID training for NROTC midshipmen.
The Marine Gunnery Sergeant assigned to our company put it on for us. :dubious:
