Posted on 05/17/2005 7:42:30 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Semper Fi bump
PLT 1114 MCRD San Diego
Oct-Dec 1974
'fraid I missed all the good times at MCRD, but my twin brother was a member of the class of '63, while I was across the fence at NTC.
I completed boot 12/20 and he completed ITR at Pendleton on the same date.
We both came home on a 14 day leave. He went back to Pendleton and I went to school at NTC before sea duty.
That leave together was the last time we saw one another 3 1/2 years when we both got discharged.
He did a tour in Vietnam, duty at Okinawa and mustered out from Camp LaJunne (sp?)
I pulled three WESTPAC tours aboard a Destroyer Tender.
Semper Fi bump from a squid
Graduation, 24 Aug., 1970, Senior DI was SSgt. Fox, SSgt. Johnson, SSgt. Cooper
Maybe we passed in the chow line or PX.
The constant drone of jets, mostly PSA air, taking off and landing over our heads.
In August, the smell of jasmine or some other fragrant plant, particularly at night when the winds off the ocean would push in.
Chow line chatter as we left the mess hall: 'where you from private?'; then finding someone from your hometown.
Best 25 cent haircuts in the world!
All the ambulences lined up around the grinder and any other place where young recruits were known to need medical assistance.
First woman seen in over a month - a BAM!
Those guys that could not cut the mustard, and that would get sent back a week; watching them wait outside the duty hut with seabag and rifle, wondering if they will ever make it.
Graduation week, and getting to go to the base theatre to see a movie! Being treated as pond scum by the DI - which meant that we were moving up from whale shit!
As we were about to graduate, watching new recruits in their tennis shoes and un-bloused utilities, walking arm-in-arm, making cow and duck sounds.
The mass religious conversions after the first Sunday, when those not going to church were digging holes while we went to mass - the next Sunday church attendance was close to 100%; the DI's reference to Mormons as LSD's.
My father went through NTC in the 50's.
AKA Phantasy Island, where women become Marines.
Bams have feelings too! :-)
I remember:
1. I was a local SoCal boy and was dropped off in the EARLY AFTERNOON by my recruiter, that bastard. The Marines hazed me all day until the buses full of recruits showed up at midnight. I was given a traditional first meal of hard chipped beef and tabasco sauce, white bread, and applesauce on the side. Revolting. I had nothing but that to go on for the first 24 hours, which was pure agony.
2. The bus ride from MCRD to RFTD in 2nd phase. We had to keep our heads down in the bus so as not to be seen by civilians. That was the only time I remember napping during the day for a blissful 40 mins.
3. The frightening leadup to the dreaded 'Mount Mother****er' at RFTD. What a letdown when I finally saw it. I zipped right up to the summit. In the fleet, I climbed hills far worse carrying far more not too far from Mt. Mother.
4. The amusing little signs over the 'Slide for Life' on the Confidence Course that warned of disturbing the habitat of endangered guppies.
5. The disagreeable platoon Guide we had who thought it was his job to terrorize fellow recruits when the DIs went to sleep. In first phase, he fell from the top of the rope climb into the sand pit and shattered his ankle. I laughed and got burned for it by the DIs. I know he was still in PCP platoon when I graduated because he had to 'Gangway, Marine!' for me at the chow hall with my high & tight, cardboard-stiff utilities, bloused cuffs, shiny boots, and coveted 'elite' green t-shirt while he had a gray sweatshirt, crutches, and a cover that looked like 'Jiffy Pop®'. Yes, he was still yelling at some other PCP recruit as I came up from behind him. Quite happy to leave that miserably unlucky schmuck in my wake, I was.
6. The crack of rifles at 6:00am on Edson Range when the early morning fog smells like sea salt and decaying seaweed.
7. The red clay dirt ("California Loam") from the pits near the barracks at Edson Range: "Hi Ho! Hi HO! It's TOOOO the pit we GO! To bend and thrust and eat some dust ...Hi HO, Hi HO, Hi HO, Hi HOOOO!"
8. "Indy 500" the week before graduation: Put your footlockers on your bunks, fill two GI cans with soapy water, kick them over, grab your white hand towel, assume 'mountain climber' position on the floor, and use your feet to propel you in 100 slippery laps around the perimeter of the squad bay in an ocean of water until someone collapses from exhaustion or the SDI ("Daddy") comes in and saves you from the juniors. Worst punishment ever endured in all of USMC Basic.
9. I actually *liked* the gas chamber. I got in trouble again for laughing with snot running from my nose to my toes with my arms stretched out to the side. I wanted to go in again. Worst trouble I ever got in was when the prohibited MRE gum (two green Chicklets) fell out of my chest pocket *while* I was bending for some other perpetration I was guilty of.
10. Saved the best for last: I found a whole unsmoked cigarette on the ground near the porta-crappers in the field at RFTD. It was fresh too. I carried it around surreptitiously all day in my chest pocket (buttoned up this time after the lamentable 'Chicklet incident') until nighttime where I smoked it all alone in my fighting hole. That still counts as one of the finest seven minutes of my life. I returned the favor later on in the fleet when I dropped a cig or two near the same recruit training area as I was passing through in a LAV-25. If some recruit got caught, that's his problem.
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