MCRD Bootcamp -- Military and Veterans Discussion Forum

Friday, May 2, 2008 - New servers are in! Click-in for more info!

[ VoyUser Login optional ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 15:10:30 03/24/02 Sun
Author: Jerry Martin
Subject: MCRD Bootcamp

Greetings, My name is Gerald C. Martin (Jerry) and I was a former Corporal in the U.S Marines serving aduring the time period of 1957 to 1962.
Forty-five years after the experience I have put my recollections on paper for all involved to pleasantly revive their own memories and remember what it was like. This is a true story of thats the way it was. If you were never a Marine, then this is the straight "skinny" telling you the truth of what it was like.
The book has 10 interesting chapters and is entitled:
"MCRD BOOTCAMP a TRUE STORY"
It sells for $15.00 with free shipping anywhere in the Continal USA.
Enclosed is the first chapter to judge for yourself if it's worth reading.
Send check or MO. to:
G.C. Martin
409 Kathy St.
Conroe, Texas 77301

Any questions, email me back.

_______________________________________________________________________________
1.
Chapter ONE

RECEIVING AND INDOCTRINATION

We left our home city of Houston, Texas in the evening and flew to San Diego, California and this was my first plane ride on a DC-3. A two prop job. I left with two other lads whom I had never met before and we were sent to the airport in a limousine.
This was my first and only ride in a limo. We felt very important.
That was going to change.
We compared notes on what to expect or speculated on what we were in for. We found all three of us had older brothers that were in the Corps or had served before.
We talked about our medical inspections we had taken in order to enlist. We joked about the box lunch we had received there which was two dried sandwiches and a apple. I can still remember those sandwiches. They must have came out of King Tut's tomb.
Never have I ever had such a dry hunk of bread with no dressing of anykind on it. Just before we left, the recruiter doled out to each of us thirty-five cents each in order to buy our lunch.
That sounds outrageous but in the 50s at most drugstore counters you could buy a hamburger, small soft drink and a order of fries for forty-five cents.
Not in downtown Houston, the same thing would cost around sixty cents.
Boy this story is starting to make me feel very old.
Each of us had a couple of dollars to supplement our thirty-five cents.
My Father had dropped me off downtown and as we said good-bye he pulled out his wallet and creaked it open and gave me five dollars. The most money he had ever given me in my life except when he died. He left me and my brother ten dollars each. Kind of squeaky my Pop was. He was married eight times. I don't need to say more.
On went the airplane and we had to stop in three other cities to let passengers off and receive more.
During some of these stops we picked up some seagulls (Navy) that were coming off their boot leave. These guys found out we were new, where we were going, and tried to make out they were old salts and had been around. They kidded us good naturedly. The weather at night started getting very rough, raining and all passengers were ordered to buckle their seatbelts.
That plane would hit a airpocket and felt like it would drop three miles before it got a hold of some air and would climb back up. Then another airpocket, same thing.
The good looking stewardess came by and cooed, are you ready for your dinner now?
All of us Marine boots were worried and by now air-sick as dogs.
We already had our barf bags out ready for action. We refused chow.
The seagulls took note of this and started their Arh, har, har sissy routines and was soundly making fun of the Marine landlubbers.
Not one of us Marine boots threw up but we felt like warmed over death.
Even my teeth hurt.
The swabs got their chow and made yummy, loud smacking, slurping noise to further aggravate us.
Handing the trays back to the stewardess with much lip licking and sorry you Marines didn't want any. The food was so gooooood.
Still the weather was getting worse and zoom down and roar back up while our tummies were doing flip-flops.
One by one out came the barf bags for the Navy as they lost their dinner holding their heads down in order to escape the retaliation from the Marines.
We didn't bother them as we were to miserable and sick.
I arrived in MCRD about 2:00am and were met by some yipping Corporal that started laying down the law. No talking, get rid of your gum, don't speak without permission. I never heard a man talk so fast in my life.
We got aboard our bus and were driven through the gates of MCRD.
Immediately we were met by several troop handlers who usually spent their leisure time sharpening their fangs.
Everyone was screaming at once, trying to out scream the other and telling us the basic rules. Such a racket.

2.

The troop handlers got through jacking with us, we finally got to close our weary eyes at about 4:00am and reveille sounded at 4:30am much to the delight of the awaking assholes.
We also had to shower, wash our hair good but DON'T COMB IT. Boy did we ever look silly with hair going ever which way.
We would stagger around making a attempt to make our bunks look neat and then march about a mile to chow. We got one cigarette after every meal and one at night if we were good lads.
In boot camp we NEVER got enough sleep.
Today I pulled out my old tattered MCRD graduation book you get when you finish boot camp and yes we had to pay for them. Boy this thing has seen some wear. It is now forty-five years old. But it does bring back memories.
I don't know why they couldn't have done that the next morning. Instead they ran us all over the place, outside, inside and we all had leather soled shoes which at a gallop, you would slide a half mile trying to make a fast corner or stop. Those barracks floors shined and they were slick. More than one boot slipped, fell and gave the deck a good buffing with his butt.
Endless forms to fill out and after we got enough boots together, we were taken in
a large room for our bucket issue.
This is where we got tooth paste, brushes, a sweatshirt, soap and washcloths, towels, shoe polish, a bucket and necessary articles which also included "The Marine Corp Guidebook."
That went into our hip pocket and you could always tell the new, new guys with that bulging book in their back pocket.
At every moment we were waiting for something, the guidebook came out and we pretended to read it.
It was already outdated. I threw mine away as soon as I graduated. I kind of wished I had saved it now as a nice souvenir.
The bucket, we did more things with it that a monkey could with a peanut.
We washed our clothes in it, washed the decks with it, it was a foot rest, it was a stool and sometimes a hat.
If we accrued the wrath of the DIs and things were not going right we fell out with the buckets on our head.
I had observed other platoons standing at rigid attention as the DIs went along giving their buckets a sharp wrap with their swagger stick.
It's like having you head in a bell, "GONG!!" That left your ears ringing.
Nothing looks funnier than a formation of men walking around in circles with a bucket on their head.
We gave the bucket back at graduation. It was well made.
We were given a chit book to pay for these thing which was deducted from our Marine Corp pay. Seventy six dollars a month I think it was. If we went to the PX to resupply, we paid with chits. We were told our initial buy had already been taken out of our chit book which was $?????? amount of money.
After a while I started counting up my chit book against what I was being charged and low and behold some snake had helped himself to about five dollars of all our chits extra.
We don't know who did it and then the other boots noticed it. Did we report it? NO! We were to rattled. But a scoundrel working there that had access to our chitbooks helped himself.
Probably made a good living at it too.
We were paid twice a month and unknowest to us we were getting cheated out of a months pay a year. If you never knew the formula for this robbery, here it is.
Civilian companies do this to this day.
Say for example you are making $100. a week. Fifty-two weeks in a year times one hundred equals $5,200. right?! Now if you are paid on the first and fifteenth, twice a month, four hundred times twelve equals $4,800. A loss of one months pay. Toward the end of my enlistment the pay call was changed over to every other week. Did we ever get compensated for our loss. Hell no!

3.
Ah, now for haircut time. We all had our beautiful civilian hair styles and I was always picky about my hair. It was real purty. We were marched over to the boot barber shop and I didn't see myself getting a haircut in a mirror but I was chuckling to myself, watching every single hair being removed from the other boots heads. Har, they sure do look silly I thought. Their heads shined like a billiard ball.
We went on to chow and the were marched back to our quarters and were told to go upstairs to a wait for a troop handler. I went on in and had really forgot about my shaved head until I passed the head and happen to glance in and saw some idiot looking monkey staring back at me and I walked a couple steps more and then it hit me that monkey was me and that was a mirror.
I jumped back to do a double take and the tears really did brim over up in my eyes as I thought "God, what have they done to me?" After the initial shock we all got used to looking like monkeys and never thought anything more about it. We had no choice.

Shaving the heads takes away a persons civilian identity and gangland style mode. Some of the boots came in wearing their gang colors, motorcycle jackets and long greasy ducktails. After the modification everyone looked like a scared drowned rat.
No longer could anyone intimidate another with his background. We were all the same.
Then we were marched over to get our initial issue of underwear, shoes and utility "fatigues" and this is the first time some of these guys ever wore underwear and didn't know what they were for. Talk about being raised back in the sticks. Some didn't know what toilet paper was for. Believe it or not this is really true. For some this was the first new clothing they ever had and they were very thrilled.
We put on our new uniforms the best way we knew how and thought we were pretty slick. Why there is nothing to this bootcamp, we already knew it all.
Heh, heh, hehhhhhhhh the DIs were thinking as they were getting ready to come get us.

This was at a time period the Corps were going through a uniform change on fatigues.
Boots always had to keep their utility jackets buttoned up to the neck.
Only when we graduated were we permitted to unbutton the top button.
The very tall or fat boys were given the remnants of the WWII uniforms and it was very prestigious if you had them. I didn't. They still had the old brass buttons and pockets on the outside of the utility jackets. Some who had abnormally large heads also got the old style caps. Covers we called them. Marines didn't wear pants. The Navy and Army wore pants. Marines wore trousers. The rest of the services wasn't worth mentioning.
They had us wrap up anything civilian to send back home. The only thing I can remember getting to keep was some family pictures.
I don't know why I sent my dress shoes back because we had walked a good distance to chow back and forth and I had wore holes in them the size of a silver dollar. They wasn't worth the postage.
I didn't even own a wallet as I never had anything to put in it. How's that for being poor?
Next was the more through examinations where we were punctured with every disease fighting serum known to man and all had sore arms for days.We were x-rayed, probed, poked, explored, questioned, recorded until everything appeared to be in order. I swear every Corpsman was grinning. They really enjoyed their work.
One of the disgusting things we had to do is enter a large room with corpsmen all over the place. We had to strip down stark naked and be facing a boot directly across from us. About a distance of ten feet away from the other person. The order was given for the other side to about face.
Next was the order for the boot to bend over and grab his knees. This was done.
If this wasn't bad enough the order was given to our side to look straight up the other sides asshole as they were given the order to "SPREAD THOSE ASS CHEEKS WIDE." Good grief I thought, what kind of pervert thought this up?
The corpsmen were quickly walking back and forth checking out the other boots rectums and at the same time checking us to make sure were staring at the other mans poop chute.
How much worse can this get I moaned to myself and then it was our turn to model for the other side. Oh me, isn't anything sacred?

4.

This bothered me for some time and about a year later while drinking a beer with our assigned Navy corpsman I related this story to him and said this behavior always bothered me. Why do you think they did that?
He replied, first they were checking one side for hemorrhoids and signs of VD
and skin diseases and they watched the other sides for the queers.
Usually when a queer sees a snappy asshole he would get to thinking about it and get a hard on. That's just another way of rooting out the perverts. Well I be damn I thought. I didn't think about that.
Then we were sent to dental and through a assembly line they ground, probed, and yanked teeth that didn't measure up to snuff. Much groaning and gurgling sounds emitted from the closed doors increasing the tension of our upcoming turn.
We had one poor fellow have every tooth in his head pulled out. It was to much for him and he was the first to be set back.
Others would get their jaw bones bruised and much swelling occurred but the strong persevered.
I was fortunate. My teeth were near perfect and to this day I have only had four fillings. Not bad for a old timer.
At last here came our DIs to get us. This was in the dark. God why can't they do things in the daytime.
One of the first things they laid down to us and this was repeated many times. You people will not say "I, you, me, they, we." Try carrying on a conversation like that. We learned.
We got our duffelbag (only one) and they lined us up in twos and had us pick up our bag with all our gear in it and start off carrying it in our right hand.
It wasn't heavy. (then) On and on we walked and you think they would let us switch to our left hand for a little rest on the right hand.
On and on we walked and in the dark we didn't have the slightest idea where we were at or where were going. The seabag was getting heavier. Finally some of the weaker ones starting losing their balance and started tripping over their seabags and went sprawling much to the verbal abuse of the DIs.
I didn't think that was funny as my right arm was starting to hurt. On and on we went among the insults and screaming of how the DIs got stuck with a bunch of sissy weaklings. On and on and my arm was on fire. Many of the boots were whimpering and some crying with pain. Finally we got to our Quonset huts. A relic of World War Two and as was much of the Marine Corps barracks I was later to find out.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

Re: MCRD Bootcamp -- Jerry Martin, 16:07:21 03/11/03 Tue

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 2.94, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums^(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2008 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.