I won’t dignify that last post with a reply, although I do think those Girl Scouts are scarey. As far as the mail being ‘held-up’, you won’t get anything for about two weeks, but from then on, it’s regular every week day. (My girfriend sent me a letter every day and they were always two weeks ‘behind’.) I don’t think there was any official policy of withholding mail. I do remember the PMIs advising us to not read our mail the night before taking our rifle qualification test, as they said more than one recruit had gone ‘unk’ (unqualified) due to a ‘Dear Satchmo’ letter at the wrong time. But this was just advice. As far as ‘just quiting’ was involved, we were given that option. But ONLY provided you were willing to go to the company commanders office and swear to him that you were a homosexual and you wished to be discharged ‘for the good of the corps’. Then you had to call your parents and tell them. Then you got a dishonorable discharge. But I never heard of anybody taking up that offer. Of course, this was in 1977, I have no idea if this is even an issue now. With the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy in effect, I don’t really know if things are better or worse now.
Satch “call me Corporal”
Just stirring the pot, huh? :rolleyes:
Most of the general stuff has been covered, so I’ll just touch on my experience in Basic Training (Army).
Total dead: 2 (1 Drill Sergeant, 1 recruit).
One recruit was sent to CCF (Correctional Custodial Facility) for disagreeing with the DS over the timeliness of the recruit’s reporting. CCF was the last place you wanted to go. Basically, it is jail with a DS assigned to you 24/7, with nothing else to do but make your life a living Hell.
One discharged for psychological failure. I’m not sure what instigated the interest in the particular recruit. But the DS’s for whatever reason decided to ride him until he broke. They must have sensed/seen some defect that necessitated his pruning.
Three recruits hospitalized for heat exhaustion, brought about from having to do grass drills in MOPP 4 (gas mask + full chemical protective suit) during the summer. I can testify from experience that sufficient oxygen and body cooling processes are extremely compromised when put through constant aerobic activity in MOPP 4.
Except for the deaths, probably fairly representative of Basic Training pre-Clinton era.
divemaster said:
Can you fill in the details a little more on this part? How did a recruit and DS end up dead?
I’ve never been in the service, but I do remember one story I was told 35 years ago which shocked me. It’s pretty tame compared to some of the stories above, but I’m curious, and it may encourage others to post the horror stories they have been told.
Here’s the story: recruits are made to run into some sort of pond or swamp, then pushed under water until they are almost drowning, and when they come up for air, garbage is shoved in their mouths.
“Mild” as this may seem, I remember it “grossed me out” as a kid.
I knew a guy who joined the Navy just out of high school. On one of his leaves, he came to a party at my house. He told a story of how he was gang raped in the shower in boot camp. Most of us knew he was just kidding. One other guy didn’t think he was kidding, however. He was set to go in after his HS graduation on delayed-entry program. He didn’t see a way out the bureaucratic way, so he tried something else…
He figured if he failed his drug test that they’d reject him and he’d be out. (He had been abstaining from drugs for months in preparation for joining up.) So he jumped off the wagon and became a dope fiend again. (In one of his binges, he actually became nauseous and vomited, the only person I know to do so.)
Well, he did fail his drug test, but they *didn’t * let him out. They sent him to rehab for a month, then to basic training and his manditory service.
Dope. What an appropriate term. 
Iswote asked:
There is is a complicated story behind the incident and subsequent investigation. The incident itself occurred on the grenade range. The recruit was holding the grenade by his ear (in the arm cocked, ready to throw position we had learned), when the grenade went off. I, along with about half my platoon, was behind the safety glass directly behind the grenade bay in question. The ones who were direct witnesses (myself included) were questioned during the investigation as to what we saw.
The grenade bay is over 3/4 enclosed concrete. They had to bring in the fire trucks to hose it out; there was not much left of the recruit or DS once the grenade went off in such a confined space.
As I said, there is quite a bit more to the story. If I get a few e-mail requests, I will write up a detailed report; but this would take a little while. I do not believe any of the information is classified.
You got off light. For those that have never been, MOPP 4 is full chemical warfare protection (or so they tell us…damn lowest bidders). Rubber booties, rubber gloves (about the same thickness as the dishwashing gloves your mom used to use), and cotton overgarments lined with charcoal, covered with a tight-fitting (for obvious reasons) and heavy rubber mask with a hood.
However, as a chemical warfare decontamination specialist (54 Echo, back in the day), they often put our dumb asses in rubber overalls with built in boots. When we finished that particular decon exercise (only a couple of hours…it was hot out), we had to pour the sweat out of them. Ick.
Years later, in the National Guard, I was out at Yakima Training Center in a mech inf brigade being evaluated by regular army types. I was an NBC NCO at the time, trying to stay out of the sun (it was 125 degrees, even in the shade), doing some NBC classes when I heard that a regular army type had goaded a company commander into charging his company uphill in MOPP 4. Needless to say, they had over 80% heat casualties (luckily, only a couple were serious).
-Corporal Spankboy, proud member of the E-4 mafia