Lets not limit this to just USMC, if you’ve heard any myths about the Navy, Air Force, Army or any specialized training, post those too. That said…
Every now and then someone will find out that I am a Marine Corps Reservist and they’ll start asking me silly questions about boot camp. I have been asked “How many recruits were killed during ‘Hell Week’”, and “How is it that you don’t die from the Nerve Gas in the Gas Chamber?”
These misconceptions are every recuiters nightmare. I know that I and many other Marines have caused many. My Artillery school was at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, an Army base. While in the chow line with Army recruits (or Privates as the Army Drill Sergents call them) or new Army Soilders fresh outta Boot Camp, we Marines would reminisce about Boot Camp events that never happened just to see the faces of the terrified Army dogs. One of the best was when some Army dogs were bitching about the menu and about 10 of us Marines started talking about how during the Crusible we had to chase down wild goats and other animales for food. We talked about how we couldn’t cook the meat and had to eat the liver while it was still warm. Those were the days.
So let us use this post to put those questions to rest. If you’ve got any questions about Marine Boot Camp, I’ll be happy to answer them. However, I am more interested in hearing about those crazy stories people think really happen in the United States Military’s Training facilities.
ChiefScott, I am sure you have had some new Seamen (and women) hit the Fleet and say, “They said we had to man the rails untill we were over the Horizon” or something like that. I would charish your imput.
I heard from a friend of a friend of a friend that if you talk shit about the drill instructors in, lets say a letter or something, that they make your life a living hell. I am pretty sure this situation didn’t come up at your camp, but did the drill instuctors truly screw you guyz up?? For myself, I could never be in the USMC, I’d probably shoot the DIs.
Funny, I was talking with some people about boot camp today…One of them said that they don’t let you quit. You can get thrown out, but you can’t quit. Also, I’ve heard that it’s pretty darn hard to get a job after you get discharged. What’s the SD?
NO, you cannot, under any cercumstances, just quite.
YES, they can throw you out.
You cannot wake up one day, and say to your Drill Instructer, “Sir, this is too hard. I quite, send me home.” All that will accomplish is an even harder time in Boot Camp. The D.I.'s will not let you fall out of run, they will motivate you to finish. By motivate I mean yell and scream. If you are too heavy, or a “fat body” you will be sent to Physical Conditioning Platoon (P.C.P. aka Pork Chop Platoon) where their focus is not to train you, but to make you loose wieght. At the end of each week you will run the Physical fitness test, and after 8 weeks, if you still cannot pass, you are kicked out. Which brings us to the next topic.
Yes they can kick you out. If you attempt suicide or jump the fence and try to get away or something drastic like that, you will be kicked out. Things like this will get you a Dishonorable discharge and this makes it very difficult to get a job. Any Employeer who looks up your Social Security Number will have that info available.
However, if you make it to Boot Camp and it is discovered you have Asthma you will be kicked out with a Medical Discharge, which is not bad at all.
NO, you cannot, under any cercumstances, just quit.
YES, they can throw you out.
You cannot wake up one day, and say to your Drill Instructer, “Sir, this is too hard. I quit, send me home.” All that will accomplish is an even harder time in Boot Camp. The D.I.'s will not let you fall out of run, they will motivate you to finish. By motivate I mean yell and scream. If you are too heavy, or a “fat body” you will be sent to Physical Conditioning Platoon (P.C.P. aka Pork Chop Platoon) where their focus is not to train you, but to make you loose wieght. At the end of each week you will run the Physical fitness test, and after 8 weeks, if you still cannot pass, you are kicked out. Which brings us to the next topic.
Yes they can kick you out. If you attempt suicide or jump the fence and try to get away or something drastic like that, you will be kicked out. Things like this will get you a Dishonorable discharge and this makes it very difficult to get a job. Any Employeer who looks up your Social Security Number will have that info available.
However, if you make it to Boot Camp and it is discovered you have Asthma you will be kicked out with a Medical Discharge, which is not bad at all.
I haven’t heard any myths about USMC Boot Camp. My daughter just got out of the Marines last January. She was in for 4 yrs and made Sergeant last summer. She didn’t seem to think boot camp was difficult at all. In fact, she always compared the physical part to track practice in high school and college; and she thought boot camp was the easier of the two. She didn’t like the gas chamber, but only because she was somewhat claustrophobic about wearing a mask on her face. She felt that anyone who has a problem with authority and discipline was at a disadvantage, but all in all, she loved being a Marine. She would still be one, but with two daughters…well, it bothered her that they could send her away from her children. She did have to go on ‘manuevers?’ a couple of times, and she hated being away from her kids.
Adjusting to civilian life is somewhat difficult. She doesn’t care for the disrespect that employees show for their employers. As far as having a hard time getting a job…well, she got a good job after a couple of days of looking. Having been in the military seems to be a real plus in the job market for both her and her husband, (he was a Marine as well, and has been out for a couple of years).
Good luck, and I hope no one comes up with a war just to make the time go faster.
learae
Ok, after I read learae’s reply i felt that I needed to reply again. I have a several freinds who have been through USMC boot camp and NONE of them thought it was easy. They all seemed to think that it was a test of physcial strength as well as mental strength. The hell that they put you through during the first week and the grueling tests of the final weeks really taxed the body and mind.
So I guess my question is: do they treat women different? I am sorry learae, and I mean no offense, but I can not, under ANY circumstances see boot camp being easier than track, of all things. Unless her track coaches were crack addicts I can not see where there is any kind of comparison. So DAYUIZ, have you witnessed or heard stories about women getting things easier? Another reason I ask this is because I remember the movie GI JANE, where the expectations they had of her, as a women, were less than that they expected from a man. So what is the SD on women in the USMC? Is less expected of them or are the requirements the same?
I was a cook at OCS for a summer (work hours 3:00 am - 12:00 noon, with night differential pay) and used to feed candidates breakfast and lunch. The food was actually pretty good, but the stress those guys and women were under…whew. Better them than me.
We had fixed pancakes one morning and as a candidate came through the line I tossed a packet of syrup on his tray and then put the pancakes on top of it. The packet read “Pancake and Waffle Syrup.” Unfortunately, the pancakes covered up the “Pancake and” part, so it just read “Waffle Syrup.” He took a step out of line and turned to me and said, “Excuse me, sir, but I’d like pancake syrup.” I had no idea what he was talking about until I looked down and saw what he was looking at. About that time one of the instructors came over to see what the delay was about. The candidate said, “Sir, this candidate is having pancakes today, and this is waffle syrup.” I actually thought the instructors head was going to explode all over the chow line. Just the most incredible berating of this poor guy and everyone in mess hall is looking at the poor SOB. The guy just whigged out right there and had to be taken to the infirmary.
Also, I drew the short straw and had to serve breakfast to the candidates in the field in the middle of one of the worst thunderstorms I’ve ever experienced. Very pleasant time was had by all - the eggs were so watery is looked like yellow water with little clots of “stuff” floating in them. Right next to the chow line a candidate is getting a huge set of blisters attended to by the headlights of a jeep. Two days before a “cattle car” had flipped over killing two candidates.
At the end of the summer the enlisted cooks gave us civilians tee shirts that read “Marine Cook - Death from Within.”
I don’t have any myths, but I do have a few truths about PI Platoon 340 in '67 …
I believe that Basic was wilder before the famous Swamp Incident ('57?) in which a DI took his platoon on a night march into the swamp and several recruits (5?) didn’t come out. And things may well have changed since '67.
I well remember what happened when one of the DI’s got really pissed at one recruit (although I’ve forgotten exactly what started the incident). The kid wound up doing squat thrusts in a corner of the (cinderblock and concrete) barracks. The DI poured a quarter-circle of lighter fluid near the kid, lit it, and sat in a chair about 5 yards away screaming his head off and throwing metal tent pegs as hard as he could, darned near the kid.
And the guy who accidentally closed the bolt of his M14 at the rifle range when he wasn’t supposed to … he got the bolt closed on his thumb and did ten laps of the platoon supporting his rifle by his thumb in the bolt.
I saw a show about Basic on the Discovery channel a few days ago, and have a few questions for anyone who knows:
Apaprently they shoor M16s at the rifle range now. When I used an M16, the sights were hell to adjust. Do they just use the nose of a bullet to adjust the sights, or do the newer M16s have more easily adjustable sights?
Apparently Basic at PI is now twelve weeks. In my day, it was eight weeks followed by four weeks at ITR at Lejeune. I seem to recall that Lejeune was closed. Does Basic at PI now include the stuff that we did at Lejeune?
Hey, JonF, the “swamp incident” was actually at Parris Island (SC), not Camp Lejeune (NC). The events are detailed in the book “Court-Martial at Parris Island : The Ribbon Creek Incident.” I have not read this book, but the review I read said that a lot of the “swamp incident” is legend.
I was in Marine Boot at Parris Island, SC in the fall of 1972. The physical stress is great but the Drill Instructors mess with your mind a lot more. As mentioned above you can’t quit, but in my platoon at least one guy got discharged by acting psycho. The Drill Instructors will try to get to you psychologically any way they can. In particular significance to me was they played hell with anyone who requested to go to sick call and when you got back from it. I hurt my leg running PT (physical training) and wanted to see the doctor, but I was terrified of having the Drill Instructors get on my case so I decided just to gut through the pain. Unfortunately what I had was a stress fracture in my right femur and a couple days later the leg broke right out from under me when I was running PT, the bone shattering like a baseball bat handle when you pound the end of a bat into the pavement. I was a squad leader at the front of my platoon and my platoon was the first of 4 in my company running in a formation 4 men wide. I feel into the center of the formation when my leg broke and all 4 platoons ran over me, many of the guys kicking me because they thought I was a “run drop”, a guy who tries to get out of PT by being a wimp. I was in the hospital for 2 ½ months and got a medical discharge. It was a year before I could walk again.
[QUOTE]
**And the guy who accidentally closed the bolt of his M14 at the rifle range when he wasn’t supposed to … he got the bolt closed on his thumb and did ten laps of the platoon supporting his rifle by his thumb in the bolt…
Apaprently they shoor M16s at the rifle range now. When I used an M16, the sights were hell to adjust. Do they just use the nose of a bullet to adjust the sights, or do the newer M16s have more easily adjustable sights?**[/QUOT
I can’t imagine anyone accidentally closing an M-14 bolt on his thumb unless he was single loading and even then it’s unlikely. An M1 Garand is a different story. I know if I don’t load an en-bloc clip in mine carefully the bolt will try to shove my thumb into the chamber.
The A2 style sights on the newer M16s have big fat knobs for windage and elevation and are pretty easy to operate. I’ve got an M4A2 replica with that style and they’re a lot easier to use.
In the first day or two at the rifle range, we were issued rifles and told to keep the bolt open. One recruit was playing with the litle lever that latches the bolt open, and closed the bolt (loudly) by mistake … but not on his thumb or anything, he just closed it.
The DI heard the noise and called the recruit forward. The DI opened the bolt, placed the recruit’s thumb at the base of the chamber, rammed the bolt home with the thingy that sticks out the right side, and told the recruit he could open the bolt after taking ten laps.
There are a lucky few recruits that make it to the end of boot camp without ever having had an individual problem with the D.I.s. These recriuts are the ones that may say it was easy. Also, the fact that boot camp is now 13 weeks long (first week is proccessing and shots, next 12 are training) things become routine. A group of grown men shouting for no reason at one recruit may look strange to an outsider or Fresh Meat (new recruits), but trust me, after a couple of weeks, you don’t even pay attention to it. So at the end of 13 weeks of routine hell, when a recruit is asked if it was hard, he may say “No, not really.” The memories of boot camp can become even less terrible after 4 years of active duty, since you have those 4 to compare the first 13 weeks to.
This could be the case with ** learae’s ** daughter. Or maybe she had Joseph Stallin and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Track Coaches, who knows?
As for wemon having it easier… My only experiance with Wemon Marines (W.M.s) is in the reserves. I have ** seen ** a few while in boot camp and other schools, but this does not give me the right to stereotype all W.M.s by those brief encounters. The W.M.s in my unit carry their responsibility with better than the average Male Marine. They seem to be aware that they few and take it upon themselves to have high standards. If anything I feel it is their supperiors that let them off the hook. Most the Staff NCO’s won’t put the W.M.s on gate duty or shit detail (clean the head, take out the trash) because it doesn’t seem appropiate to have a “woman” do it when there are plenty of men around. For the same reason, a Safeway Manager probally won’t have the only woman on the shift clean out the backed up tash compactor when there are 15 guys standing around. Get my point?
I don’t know how hard my daughter’s track coaches were. She was a long distance runner (3-5 miles) in both high school and college, and was in excellant shape when she went into the service. Before going in, she went to several weekends with the recruiters to ‘prepare’ for boot camp, and she could outrun most of the Marines who had just graduated boot camp. She could also do more situps, and pullups than they could. So, I suppose you wouldn’t consider her the average recruit.
I do remember that she complained a bit about the bugs…(at Parris Island) but she was lucky enough to go in in January and graduate in April, so she missed the worst part of the bug season. My daughter doesn’t do anything halfway, and she learns very quickly. She was proud to be a Marine, and she had no respect for anyone who didn’t put their heart into whatever they undertook.
It’s not easy to make Sargeant in just over 3 years. Her MOS was ‘motor t’, but she spent most of her time in the Marines in charge of the training in her platoon. She earned several medals during her time in (the names of which escape me) and was commended on the excellant job she did. Just the other day, she talked with one of her old CO’s and he mentioned that they had an inspection…and they failed miserably. Needless to say, no one can do her job as well as she did. (They never failed when she was in charge of things.)
Oh, and she was pregnant with her first childwhen she went through her schooling; (they gave her the option of quitting, but she’s not a quitter), and she had a second child shortly before making Sergeant.
I’m sorry…did I mention how proud I am of my daughter?
Betcha can’t tell, huh. learae
I remember Tank Hill, Fort Jackson, in 1986. Tank Hill is (was?) the old WWI barracks at Fort Jackson, and there was a certain pride amongst those who went through there (as opposed to the folks in ‘Hollywood’, ‘New Hollywood’, or ‘the Starship’). The facilities on the Hill were pretty primitive-no real heating or cooling, only two showers for each platoon (40 people in our training platoon) barracks-but we allegedly had the best food.
I remember the gas chamber (the ‘Disco Hut’ was its nickname). The trick the drill sergeants played on us was to tell us we would be inspected that day, and to shave extra close. Oh, man, my pores hurt just thinking about it! However, after basic, I went to US Army Chemical School in Fort McClellan, and getting gassed sort of lost its punch-we got gassed all the time.
Nowadays, I understand the Army has ‘stress cards’, whereas if the drill is tearing you a new one, you can hold it up and he/she will back off. What kind of crap is that???
Question I have for you USMC types-is it true they restrict your incoming mail for a certain period?
My only experiance with Wemon Marines (W.M.s) is in the reserves. I have ** seen ** a few while in boot camp and other schools, but this does not give me the right to stereotype all W.M.s by those brief encounters. The W.M.s in my unit carry their responsibility with better than the average Male Marine. They seem to be aware that they few and take it upon themselves to have high standards. If anything I feel it is their supperiors that let them off the hook. Most the Staff NCO’s won’t put the W.M.s on gate duty or shit detail (clean the head, take out the trash) because it doesn’t seem appropiate to have a “woman” do it when there are plenty of men around. For the same reason, a Safeway Manager probally won’t have the only woman on the shift clean out the backed up tash compactor when there are 15 guys standing around. Get my point?
learae