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I heard that when I left PI, the rawcruits that followed had weekly PX calls. Was that true?

Boot is boot, same as it ever was, same as it'll always be. I went through MCRD SD in '82, and there was a recruit Exchange. You are issued a chit book in advance of some of your pay. You may buy things like collar stays, Wisk, a scrub brush for washing your laundry and boot polish supplies. If you attempt to purchase contraband, you will PT in the pit until your head explodes. Back in those days, you could buy a pack of cigarettes there, but you were required to immediately forfeit them to the Drill Instructor. When we won the drill competition or did well on an inspection, the smokers were issued one cig apeice from a randomly selected pack (always something gross, like Kools). We were then directed to stand at ease in a circle outside the squadbay door. One man held an upside-down garbage can lid as an ash tray. There'd dang well better be a correct count of butts in that lid when the smoking lamp was extinguished, too.

I think we had one recruit PX call per month- so a total of three while in boot camp.

Cool.

In '73 at PI we received our PX call at the reception tables where we got off the bus. The only option we had was on brand of cigs. We each got 1 carton. Throughout boot, whenever the DI had a feather fall out of his butt, he would yell out - "SMOOOOOOOOOOOOKKERRRRRRRRRRSSSSSSS - DRAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW ONE (or sometimes two).

Then we would assemble at the wash racks and one of us would carry a steel bucket with sand around the wash table. But not before our DI told us why we got 1 or 2 cigs and then screamed out "LIGHT UP!", at which time the bucket guy started moving around the wash tables to collect ashes and the butts.

Sometimes we got our 1 cig but our DI was pissed and only gave it to us because the senoir told him to and make us smoke it by the whistle.

But we NEVER had a PX call till 2 weeks before graduation and we were told what to buy (or maybe what we needed to have, don't remember exactly)

Semper Fi