Offshoot of this thread: The military. Did you join? Why or why not?
Hardass DI’s, section 8 bunkmates, exhausting all-day PT, fun midnight blanket parties, homesickness galore, pointless manual labors-let’s hear them!
I didn’t personally experience it, but at least three of the drill instructors at Navy OCS while I attended were later busted down for fraternization (banging the officer candidates). It’s an absolutely terrible abuse of power - DIs have power over your every waking moment; there’s no possibility of consent with that kind of relationship.
Oh this should be a fun thread.
Navy women’s recruit training in Aug of 1973 - no hijinx or horrors for me. We were about the last group of women who were not following a program similar to the men’s training. We didn’t carry weapons or do obstacle course or any of that kind of stuff.
One girl in the company was accused of being a spy by some other girls. It turned into a running joke. The only other “horror” was that it rained almost every day in Orlando, so we had to carry our raincoats every day.
I suppose it was like summer camp?
I went into the Navy in 1975, one week after graduating from high school. I found the experience to be rather surreal. I had never experienced something where your life was scheduled 24 hours a day. I didn’t find anything all that difficult, very little PT (there’s no place to run on a ship), 4 to 6 hours of class room training a day and carrying around dummy M-16 rifles for 7 of the 9 weeks was a rather pointless exercise. I found boot camp to not be all that difficult, I was surprised how many did. Only 52 of the original 80 in my company made it through without being set back. Out of that 28, at least 6 were sent home as unfit for military service. The only time I really wanted to go home was when I called home and found out my mother had been in a car accident. She suffered a broken arm but otherwise was fine.
I shipped off to boot camp in January 1980. That first night and first morning were surreal. One of the first things they do is cut your hair. They shear you quickly like sheep, and in 20-30 seconds all your hair is on the floor. I remember that first night, lying in my bunk (or, my rack in USMC-speak) and trying to grab any hair on my head with the fingernails of my thumb and forefinger. I couldn’t. The longest hairs on my head were my eyebrows.
What’s interesting about losing all your hair, is that you lose part of your identity too. After our haircuts we all, all 60 of us in the platoon, were more or less the same.
I had already signed my papers and was just waiting for my report date. A couple of weeks before reporting to Basic Training is when the movie Full Metal Jacket came out. That was an eye-opener. My Basic was almost exactly like that, except without the physical beatings. But we had really hard-ass Drill Sergeants. Speaking with others later, it seems harder than most. Several people had to be hospitalized after they made us do grass drills in full MOPP-4.
But anyway, the “horror” story of my Basic Training was the grenade range. I watched a recruit and a drill instructor get blown to bits right in front of me. There’s a long story, and there was an investigation–I don’t have time to type it all out right now. But whenever I see movies where a grenade goes off and it sends folks flying through the air, I know that’s not what happens. Folks don’t go “flying through the air.”
They get liquefied.
Day 8, 80 young men, none of whom have performed a bowel movement or had a nocturnal erection since arriving, are stood like posts while their first week of training is being evaluated
“WHY THE FUCK DID YOU JOIN MY NAVY?”
(First guy gambles on the most pleasing answer): “To serve my country, sir!”
“SERVE YOUR COUNTRY!? YOU CAN’T EVEN FOLD YOUR FUCKING UNDERWEAR! GET ON YOUR FUCKING FACE!”
“WHY THE FUCK DID YOU JOIN MY NAVY?”
(Next guy: honest answer gambit): “I couldn’t find a job.”
“IF YOU CAN’T FIND A JOB WHY THE FUCK DO YOU THINK THE NAVY WANTS YOU!? GET ON YOUR FUCKING FACE!”
At the end of the barracks, the dread overcomes someone. They step out of line and a quavering voice is heard:
“Please sir… I don’t think I belong in the Navy!”
160 ears hear the sound of steam pressure building for a few seconds
“EVERYBODY GET ON THEIR FUCKING FACES!”
Very realistic boot camp scenes. Gunny Ermey was great.
Wow. Just wow. Did the recruit panic and release the spoon and drop the grenade?
I kept the ring and cotter pin from the grenade I threw. A boot camp souvenir, of sorts. I still have it, though the little cotter pin is long gone. The ring is on my key chain. It is 44 years old. It was green, but all that paint has scraped off and it’s a sunny silver.
I’m interested to hear what happened on the grenade range. So tragic, and so sad.
It’s really a complicated and long story. Over drinks, it’s about a 30-minute conversation. But the short version:
Grenade range day–4 platoons, each one grouped behind the safety observation glass. Each platoon could observe the grenade bunker in front of them. I was in second platoon.
Watching each recruit do his thing. Step into the concrete bunker with the assigned drill instructor. Get prepared–have grenade in hand, pull the pin, cock the arm, and throw over the concrete wall, releasing the spoon. BOOM
repeat–repeat–repeat
Then in was Pvt. Hall’s turn. I didn’t know him well (not one of my “platoon buddies”), and didn’t know it was him in there until after, but that’s who it was. The Drill Sergeant was Sgt. Jones. These names are important later.
Still watching them do their thing. Step into the concrete bunker with the assigned drill instructor. Get prepared–have grenade in hand, pull the pin, cock the arm (grenade is basically next to your right ear), and…MUCH LOUDER BOOM and smoke everywhere. Everything was obscured by the smoke except I distinctly saw the drill’s red (safety) helmet go straight up in the air.
It took me a moment (probably only a millisecond) to process it, but it seemed like slow-motion. “Wait, that was MUCH LOUDER than before…something’s not right…”
Then pandemonium. Instructors running around yelling for T-shirts. All the recruits frantically doffing t-shirts…everyone herded out of the range.
We are all scared, nervous, sitting on the grass…waiting for someone to come by and tell us something.
The word came that both men were dead. The request for t-shirts was moot. There was nothing to bandage or staunch. There was…nothing. They knew who the instructor was, of course, but had no idea who the trainee was. They came by where our platoon was sitting and asked us if we knew who was in there. I distinctly remember them asking if it “was a black guy or a white guy.” Trying to ID what was left. Later on that day we saw the fire trucks show up–to hose out the bunker.
So what happened? Did he drop the grenade? I’m 95% sure that was not the case. Did the spoon release and no one noticed? Or someone panicked? I did not see the spoon release, but I wasn’t paying that close of attention to say for sure either way. Neither acted panicked to my eyes. Even if so, that grenade went off a lot quicker than those tossed over the wall. At least it seemed that way, but time ends up being a tricky concept in such situations. Did the spoon fly off WAY before the arm cock? Was the grenade defective, with quick fuse? I don’t know. I do seem to have a mental image of seeing the Drill Sergeant turn toward the private quickly right before the explosion, but that could just be in my mind. I could not swear if that happened or not.
That is the short version. The way the Drill Sergeant had been acting all day was weird…almost premonition-ly. I heard a couple of the other Drill Sergeants in the chow line a day or so later discussing alcohol as being a part of the situation.
There was a memorial service. Between the two men, there were 7 little kids, now without daddies. Seven. All not even yet teenagers; some too young to comprehend.
At Ft. Leonard Wood, I heard that one of the barracks was renamed “Jones Hall” in memorium (recall the names of the two men). I’m not sure if that’s true, but I’d like to think it is.
Grenade training was shut down. Not sure how long, but I never got to actually throw a live grenade. They had to take everything out of service in case there was a defective lot.
I saw a newspaper clip months later (years?). The completed investigation concluded “operator error” or some similar language to indicate fault from either the soldier or the instructor, not with the equipment. The report probably had details, but the news clip did not.
Shit. Thanks for that. A tragedy, and I’m guessing it was a bit traumatic for you and the others there.
Here’s an article; it was apparently human error ➜ Human error caused soldiers' deaths - UPI Archives
Of note in the article:
“The grenades used on the range Oct. 9 were part of a lot that had been suspended from use by the Army Sept. 29 because of problems with excessive duds, munitions that fail to explode when armed”
And,
“traces of alcohol were present in Hall’s body at the time of the accident, but that also was not a contributing factor, he said.”
For my own boot camp experience, I remember the DIs being fully alert during this exercise: imagine you’re in a small pit with some dumb kid (like I was) you don’t really know, and he’s a boot, a rookie, and he’s holding a live grenade just 12” from you. You can bet your ass I’d be fully alert.
A tragic event. Especially since it was during training.
I still have the ring from the one grenade I ever threw, and here it is.
Folks, keep in mind that I never really did anything serious in my time in. So I sometimes talk freely about it. The ones who did the really bad shit don’t talk about it. I was fortunate to have never been in combat.
Fixing photo link:
Thanks Mr. Bullitt. That news article reads very similar to the one I came across regarding the incident. Perhaps the same one? I see that I switched the names of the Pvt. and the Sgt. in my recap, so it’s good to have that corrected for the record.
Knowing what I know from living that day, and knowing how the Sgt. was acting all day, I’m fairly confident that the alcohol factor has been downplayed. The other Drills were even talking about it, and the way Sgt. Hall was acting all day was…not consistent with SOP. I’m sure no one wanted to throw the guy under the bus, given the situation, and perhaps the Army wanted to close ranks and make sure all insurance was paid out to the family. I don’t know from nothing, but “made a mistake” probably is a lot easier to process than “was too drunk to comprehend the situation.”
By the way the article reads, it seems the investigation determined the spoon had been released in the bunker and the Sgt. did not notice, and the Pvt. was probably too nervous or uncomprehending of the situation to realize the ramifications of that. I honestly don’t remember if I had to answer any official questions about the incident that day, but I’m sure I was not called to do so at a later date.
What a story. Sorry you had to see that.
Hum! That’s a hard story to post after. Pretty rough for a brand new recruit.
My story isn’t nearly that tough.
We had a cycle of reservist drill sergeant’s from ¿Indiana? maybe, the memory is kinda vague on which state.
Anyway, I guess whole companies of drill sergeants in the reserves for “just in case of war” was a thing at one time.
One day one of these drills was KP pusher and went off his rocker. Tried to make a recruit stand with arms extended holding 1/2 full mop buckets.
The civilian cooks called the chain of command and the white coats came and took him for a psych eval.
Oh! Also the first weekend of Advanced Individual Training, when we were supposed to get our first off post weekend pass, the battalion Sergeant Major’s daughter was found in a hotel room in Louisville pullin’ a train so all our passes got revoked. At least that was the word on the grapevine for why.
One thing that struck me later was how long it seemed between milestones during training when it was only a week or less. It felt like forever until the gas chamber. It was an eternity until weapons qual. It just felt so long.
We had this one kid that slipped through the cracks. I don’t know how he passed the ASVAB or the physical. He has this tiny golf ball head and was obviously very slow. I wouldn’t be able to diagnose him but there was obviously something wrong with him. He couldn’t do the simplest tasks. We had to make his bed. We had to shine his boots. There was literally nothing he could do.
When we first got our rifles it was scary. He was pointing it everywhere and was completely oblivious. We were no where near ammo at this time. We had the rifles to learn the parts and maintenance. We talked amongst ourselves and agreed someone had to tell the Drills this kid couldn’t be around a loaded weapon. It didn’t seem like they noticed.
They noticed. We didn’t have to tell them. Before we got to the first day of the range they pulled this kid out of the platoon. It took a couple weeks but they separated him out of the army. While he was waiting they treated him well. The Drills put him in charge of us a few times and he made us do pushups.
And that’s why the men all get their hair cut alike.
Just a quick question on HOW they corrected you. In FMJ Hartman often did a slow smolder, and even when he was truly pissed and about lay down the law on some poor schmuck he still “took his time”, so to speak–he made his points crystal clear and intelligible. By contrast a lot of YT vids of boot camp has the DI’s, often all of them, immediately rushing over and SCREAMING at a machine gun’s pace at the fuckup in question, to the extent that I often cannot understand what they are saying or why they got upset all of a sudden. I wouldn’t feel corrected in such a situation and determined to do better, I’d be overwhelmed and confused–which maybe is the point. Hartman by contrast always got his point clearly across with minimal confusion involved.
[I know why Kubrick focused on him and not his assistant DI’s, for dramatic purposes]
Edit: Grenade pits. Don’t they have a grenade trench in the front for it to roll into or be quickly tossed into, in case it does get dropped or something? I know they are trained to dig such a trench in the front of their foxholes when in the field.
Does OCS count? Because I did that, too. I went thru as part of 3 companies of enlisted folks going over to the Dark Side… 
There were 3 SEALs among us and the one on my company was a character! He didn’t wear underwear or a jock under his gym shorts - I discovered that when we were facing each other while stretching for PT. 
I was the victim of hijinks of a sort one night. I was having a rough time for some reason and I was really down. So 3 guys from my company “kidnapped” me and took me off-base one night. I really wasn’t in the mood to party, but it was nice of them to cheer me up and get me over the hump.
Of course, I should never have made thd transition to officer. I sucked at it big time. I was a much better petty officer.