They needed a contigent to represent the USCG but the only large group that could march was those in Boot Camp. We drilled for 3 days doing manual of arms drills with the old WWI rifles but when the officers reviewed our performance they decided to have us march with M-16s at sling arms. It was a long day driving from Cape may to DC and back but the Chiefs and 1st Class PO's had a great time bringing along several cases of beer making them piss-drunk by noon time.
That old reprobate LBJ would've definitely loved it!
The Cape May Boot Camp Honor Guard was a pretty good outfit; they practiced every day, close order drills. From a distance, you could not tell that they were recruits who had only been in camp six weeks.
We used the Garand M-1; but they used clean Springfields.
I don't remember exactly, but somewhere around the third week of camp, during a routine formation, somebody, a chief or a first class petty officer, went down the ranks and examined the stature of the tallest seamen recruits. They were asked some simple questions, and then a few were summoned for trials.
We had one guy out of a company of 99 men, enter the Honor Guard.