Semper Fi!!!

 

I went through army boot camp 10 years ago, they were just starting "kinder, gentler military" thanks to clinton. They'd occasionally beat on us, nothing extreme, nothing that I didn't expect. Like if they thought you had some contraband, they'd make you empty your pockets and then do a "pat down" of your pockets and bdu's to make sure you weren't hiding something. It sucked but you didn't try to pull one over. 2 years later I transferred to the Navy, went through boot all over again, it was a joke. We didn't have the stress cards but it was pretty lame. But then again it was navy and not army or marine corps, they weren't training soldiers.


The story about the spit reminded me of this. My grandfather told me about his boot camp for WWII. He had just finished a smoke break and threw his cig on the ground. His DI flipped out that he didn't properly dispose of his cig butt. So he made my grandpa bury it. Dig a hole 6 ft deep 3 ft wide and 6 ft long, place the cig there and then fill the hole up. Of course after that, he never disobeyed an order no matter how trivial or dumb it seemed to him.

 

I went to Paris Island in 95. The one memory that sticks out in my mind is When a recruit "wasted his lunch" Threw up. The obvious happened and the DI made the recruit eat it and he was doing it rather slowly and would from time to time add back to it. So the Di said "If you are not gonna eat it I will" and he did. I couldnt read the article that was posted, but I can guess what it was about. That being said What is up with all these &%$#ers disgracing the name of our corps? This aint freakin summer camp never meant to be and as far as guys compairing Army boot camp with the Marines boot camp, You can go relate somewhere else. You dogs have no respect for the history of your service or the bond that marines share. The other thing that pisses me of Are the people that made 75% of boot camp and say they are Marines. I was wearing a Marine Corps baseball hat at wal mart one day and the girl behind the counter said oh im a marine too. I gave a propper greating and was gonna shake her hand and she said " Ya I only had 3 weeks to go." S he never made boot camp. She dropped out somehow or another. I told her what she needed to hear and went on my way. As I watched her reaction I could tell what kind of recruit she would have been. The one that uses "I" When talking about herself. Sorry for the rant but what a sorry state.

 

I would of done the same thing. That cig butt deffintly could of been the lives of him and his comrads. He did the right thing and I thought that was a really cool way to make him remember what he did wrong.

 

From what the drills told us in 1987, Army Basc had already been watered down from what it used to be. No longer could a Drill SGT give a recruit "Wall-to-Wall Counseling" when they messed up. That still didn't stop one of my drill SGT's from whipping the **** on two recruits in my platoon.

Then, later on, 3 or 4 of them got into something of a fight, and when one of the drills broke it up, he slapped one, gut checked the other two, then asked the 4th guy (the smallest and shorted guy in the Platoon) "What happened?"

About 5 years later, we were told trainees were now given "stress cards" and the drills couldn't mes with them, if they held up their stress card. I don't knwo how true that is, and if it's true- I duno how it really works. But God, I'd hope it's not that easy...

So yes, there was still wall-to-wall counseling for the kids that richly deserved it. I went in there expecting a little hands on training. I mean, how bad could it be? I've had my **** whipped at least 3 times in the BAND, no les- during "initiation". I'm talking about a fisticus free-for-all in the freakign bandroom. Did anyone of us whine or cry to the principal? No. And, let me tell ya, when you're in teh 7th & 8th grade, and you're gettign your **** whipped by 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th.11th & 12th graders who were in the band before you- some of those hits are GROWN-MAN hits to you. It happened to me three times, because I quit and came back, quit and came back.

Football was no different. We got our ***** kicked there too. Bullring anyone? No way can one man defend himself against 30 jokers tryign to get a piece of him at the same time. But, we got "bull-ringed" a few times. If you messed up in school and coach found out, you got bull-ringed. Missed practice? Bull-Ring. Out past curfew? Bull-Ring. And, this was high school athletics and extra curricular activities.

Go to college and join a Frat or Sorority, and you'll probably get hazed in one way or another. I had a friend who was an Omega, and he had to hold a lantern with his bare hands and knuckles, skin being burned ever so slightly by the flame, until the "Big Brothers" told them to stop. The whole time yelling, "Omega! Come get your boy!" As he "crossed the burning sands" and joined the frat. My wife and sister endured some sort of hazing they STILL won't talk about when they crossed their "sands". I would have crossed those sands too, had I gone to college right out of high school.

So, why would someone who volunteered for the job of defending a nation, and destroying its enemies- if told to do so, feel the trainng to be able to do that, could be accomplished in a candy-**** manner? You're gonna get hands put on you. Be it in hand to hands combat training, pugil pit, or somewhere. I went in expecting a beat down or two, and blanket party or two, but received neither- because I was always squared-away. Even at that, I bet I still did enough push ups to lower Fort Jackson by three feet.

It's part of the progression from being a candy-**** civilian into a professional Soldier or Marine. If you aren't tough enough to join the toughest forces in the United States... There's always the Air Force.

 

Sounds like he received proper training in Noise, Light, and Litter discipline...

Leave a cigarette butt, or hony bun wrapper on the ground, and the enemy finds it, they'll know you were there, and that it hadn' been very long ago.

 

When I went to bootcamp (1964) I had one DI that beat on me everyday. I swore if I ever saw him again I would kill him. At 29 Stumps after my 1st tour in Vietnam I ran into him and I told him thank you for saving my life. The DI's have the hardest job in the world taking young kids (I was the oldest one in my plt. 21) and turning them into Marines. S/F Sgt. of Marines 1964-71. GGY.

 

I didn't see anything like what I.C. Light mentioned, and I was in PI in '96... that would've been a "No-No" and someone's mommy would've cried to her congressman about it. We had our share of "other disciplinary" actions taken against us though.

All the pansy **** panty wastes are the ones who call it 'hazing'... I considered it preperation, and saving my ****!

Semper Fi! YAT YAS!

*We should have a military section here... swap stories, share experiences, etc.*

 

Kids these days arent used to being spanked or really punished for anything, Im sure all of it seems like abuse to them.