Urinalisys, Interviews, and Honesty is the Best Policy?

I don't know how many urinalysis tests I've had to take.

I definitely remember the first one, in boot camp.

The ultra-motivated Drill Instructor was waiting inside the head (Marinespeak for bathrooms) for the 4 of us recruits to line up at the trough. He politely requested (for a DI) that we, uh, 'present arms' and fill up his cups for later testing. I got about half the cup filled up when he informed me (loudly) to stop pissing and get out of his sight. "You're done, maggot!"

???!

Recruit Murphy's bloated bladder almost dared to disagree with the DI for a second, there.

I discovered that it is possible to not piss all down ones leg while sprinting out of a bathroom followed by a screaming DI sounding off at decibels not previously thought possible by mere mortals.

A test I find rather difficult to forget.


Thankfully, the others were much less traumatic.

Usually what would happen for a 'random' piss test was that the platoon would line up, all clad in pt gear, and the Platoon Sergeant would call out the names of Marines to go provide a sample. This would normally be where the trash talking would commence.

"Hope y'all studied for the test!"

"You don't do pregnancy tests on the urine from male Marines, right?"

"Be the one, gents... be the one..."

"If anybody pops positive, you WILL be positively popped!"

My own personal mantra was, "again?" (I always seemed to be randomly selected.)


Not that I was worried, of course. I always kept my nose clean (Har!), and never had any trouble. A few of the guys, of course, well... there's always one knucklehead that thinks he can get away with anything, I guess.

Having said that, I was kind of surprised at the number of interviews outside of the Corps that touched in the interview process with past drug use. One particularly memorable time, I was in between finding miserable jobs and decided to run over to the Big City PD, to see what was shakin'. I had a few questions, and the recruiter was most informative. During our conversation, he rather gracefully guided the talk to prospective barriers to ones employment at the department.

Now, I'm no angel, and I told him so. He told me that as of that time there was nothing I had brought up that would forever outright bar me from working with them should I decide to do so. Nevertheless, he started through his list.

U.S. Citizen?

Yessir.

Ever been convicted of a felony?

Nosir.

Got any warrants?

WTH kind of friggin' post-op brain donor would go get info for a PD with a felony or warrants?

Nosir.


We spent the next couple of minutes just breezing through his checklist. Until he got to the part about drug use.


What kind of drugs have you used?

Prescription, sir.

(him) *sigh*

(me) Sir?

Come on, man. High school... college... life... ever had just a puff, a sniff, a lick, squirt or shot, or something?

Nope.

Ever go to any parties?

Yessir.

Parties... where there were drugs?

Probably, I would imagine.

So, you've tried them, then.

Nosir.

Everybody's tried 'em, once in their life.

Okaaay.

(him, again) *sigh*

You know you'd have to take a urinalysis and polygraph, right?

Hell, I could do the piss test in my sleep, brother.

I tried to explain that I was a geek in high school, too busy bombing with the ladies and finding new and improved ways NOT to study in college, got tested at every 'random' drug test in the Corps, and somehow never got around to that stuff.

He didn't buy it, not for one second.

Almost made me feel like I should have taken a puff or two (but not inhale, of course) just so I'd have something to admit to.

AAAAAaaatack!!!!!

Ah, memories.

For those not intimate with the Marine Corps boot camp experience, the video shows a hapless recruit failing to offer the proper greeting of the day to the Marine that enters the hatch. Thankfully, several Drill Instructors are there to helpfully provide him with some of the proper motivation to recognize the error of his ways, and to hopefully draw his attention to little things like maintaining a low profile, attention to detail, General Orders for Sentries, immediate obedience to orders, proper procedure, maintaining of one's bearing, stress management, tunnel vision avoidance, situational awareness, respect of rank, auditory chaos, chain of command, and last but (most definitely not least), Murphy's Law.

Boot Camp Humor

Boot camp is where just about all Marines develop their unique sense of humor. There comes a point where you learn to laugh about situations, (on the inside, of course) because the fact of the matter is, there is not a darn thing that you can do about it. This is one of the many lessons learned in boot camp that to this day I repeatedly remember.

For example, our Drill Instructors were very strict about mail. Letters and cards were ok, but if you got any food or packages, you were a marked man.

There was a recruit from Louisiana that wrote home and described how he was always hungry, and especially missed dad's beef jerky and mom's hot sauce. Well, his parents wanted to take care of their son, so they sent him a care package. I vividly remember the recruit taking breaks from his exercises to chug the hot sauce while the Drill Instructors sampled the jerky. They explained how, if there wasn't enough for the platoon, there was no need for the individual to get anything 'extra'. As we had about 76 recruits at the time, that would have been one heck of a shipping charge.

Another recruit had the benefit of a twin brother who had entered the Marines a few years earlier. This guy had sent a package to his brother, and addresses it attn. Sgt.Maj (recruit) Jeffrey 'Big Boy' Johnson.

The Drill Instructors had a field day with that.

When the soon to be hating life recruit 'Johnson' opened up his package from his mischievous brother, he found it full of male stripper specialty magazines, lotions, and 'adult toys'. That recruit got very strong from all of the push-ups that he had to do on account of his brother.

Almost as bad, one recruit's parents wrote TO DRILL INSTRUCTOR 'EVIL' and asked him to personally look after their 'schnookums'. They were really worried about him, and apparently having never heard of the Marine Corps, decided it would be a good idea to request additional care and attention. That poor guy certainly did get the 'extra' attention.


One Sunday, we got back from the chow hall, and prepared for religious services. I really like Sundays, because we got to sleep in an extra half hour, and actually kind of got half a day off for church. All church services didn't go on at the same time, so if you were going later in the morning, you had time to read a paper, write some letters, etc. As I was writing some letters at my foot locker, I remember feeling hungry. That was kind of odd, because I knew that we had only been back from chow for about 45 minutes.

I had never had the pleasure of experiencing severe food poisoning before.

After another 20 minutes, I started to feel ill. I then spent the next 15 or 20 minutes trying to decided which end needed to violently explode, in the relative peace and quite of the heads (bathrooms). After a particularly violent episode, I was lying on the deck of the heads, trying to get the world to stop spinning, when unbeknownst to me, one of the other recruits had gone to advise the duty Drill Instructor of my condition.

I opened me eyes to the sight of the Drill Instructor looking at me from about 2 inches away. He waited until my eyes were about half way open before he started to scream at me to stop malingering, and told me that he would ensure that I had something to be sick about. He then glanced at the evidence of my illness that was (mostly) contained in the toilets, and muttered to a few other recruits that they better help me get some gear together for a trip down to sick bay.

It was at this time that another Drill Instructor came running up to inform the other that there were 5 or 6 recruits up-chucking in the dirt in front of the barracks, another 7 in the squad bay that weren't feeling too hot, and a Staff Sergeant on the phone with am illness advisory.

Turns out that there were many, many recruits that got sick that day.

A couple of my buddies helped me to the pick-up truck that one of the Drill Instructors would use to drive us to the sick bay, and they helped me into the cab. "OH, HELL NO!!!. YOU MUST BE HIGH ON DRUGS, NUMBNUTS!!! YOU ARE NOT WORTHY TO RIDE UP FRONT WITH ME, GET IN THE BACK, THING!!!' politely suggested the designated Drill Instructor driving. So, I piled in the bed of the truck with about 10 other sickly recruits. This is where I first head the joke,

Question: How many Marines can you fit into a pick-up/Hummer/LAV/etc.?

Answer: One more.

In our condition, it got a few amused/ill groans.

To say the least, the sick-bay was overwhelmed. I wound up sharing a puke bowl with two other recruits, in one corner of the receiving room, until they could free up enough beds. Not a pleasant afternoon.

As a result of some suspicious ham and milk, quite a few of us got three days of bed rest in a barracks designated 'sick-bay central'. After the first day, most of us were going stir crazy. They did have one Drill Instructor from another platoon to baby sit us, and he did his job of ensuring that we went from the rack to the heads and straight back to the racks. So to pass the time, we started doing what many recruits and then Marines did, we started talking shit.

Some of you who have experience in the military or more specifically the Corps know that Marines will talk shit to just about anybody. If there is no one else around, we will talk shit to other Marines. We were having a conversation (amongst many) of who had the worst Drill Instructor. I had just completed a fairly decent recap of the 'Evil' story to the other sick bay commandos when who but Drill Instructor 'Evil' himself came walking through the squad bay. Of course, we popped to the position of attention, still lying down in the beds, and gave him the appropriate greeting of the day.

To the severe befuddlement of my story and to my own personal amazement, he was quite civil. He had just come to check on us, to make sure that we were recovering well, and getting fed enough. Jeeezus, if I didn't know better, I would suspect that this guy was actually human!

Scuzz Brushes, Punishment, and Evil

There are all kinds of people that attend Marine Boot camp. Most of them you will find are very young, 18 to early 20s. Some are older, very few are younger. Some have had other jobs, like cops, firefighters, or worked in an office. I knew a Marine that ran a computer business, got bored with the work and wanted to do something that meant something to him. He gave up a $65,000/year job in the mid 1990s to make Pvt. pay for the Marine Corps.
This is a story about one person who joined the Corps at 17, all names changed, as usual.

There was this kid, we'll call him Neets. Neets was still in high school when he decided that there was nothing in life that he would rather do that enlist in the Marine Corps. Instead of postponing his entry until he turned 18, he got his parent to sign the waiver and he got in when he was 17.

Marine boot camp is what you might call a stressful environment. Others know of it as a three-month kick in the balls. The trick is, you have to help your buddies, and know when to rely on them to help you out, i.e. teamwork. It really is a marvel of preparation for combat, when I think about it. During and after Iraq I realized how much of boot camp was oriented towards preparing the Marine for all of the little things that can wear one down in the fog of war like lack of sleep, confusion, reliance upon those in charge to make the right decisions, and a deeply help personal refusal to quit under any condition save for being dead. These are just a few of the characteristics that are ingrained in boot camp. Like I said, somewhat of a stressful environment.

A little too stressful for Neets...

He was otherwise a good guy, I think that the stress of it kind of got to him, once in a while.


One of the favorite mind games of the Drill Instructors was the scuzz brush races. To explain, the scuzz brush was a hard-bristled brush, about 6 inches long. This brush was used for everything from cleaning uniforms, boots, knocking crud off of weapons, and as a projectile when one of the Drill Instructors found one lying around.

Racing would entail the recruit placing both hands on the brush, the brush on the ground, and then pushing the brush through the squad-bay.

One day one of the Drill Instructors got a wild hair up his ass and a crazy look in his eye.

Oh, Shit.

He sounded off in the way that only Drill Instructors can...

WEEEEEELLLLCOME ALL YOU NASTY FUCKERS, TO MY SCUZZ BRUSH 500. ALL YOU HEINOUS MOTHERFUCKERS, STAAAAAAART YOUR ENGINES!!!!!

Crap!

We new what was coming, and why we had been performing close order drill with everything in the squad-bay. Close order drill is what you sometimes see a platoon doing with their rifles. Right shoulder, left shoulder, port arms, etc. Try to imagine doing a right shoulder movement with a full foot-locker, or a bed, for that matter. The devious purpose of the harried squad-bay redecorating was to clear the 'race track'.

According to the rules of the Scuzz Brush 500, while 'scuzzing' along, the recruits had to make noises of a race car. If your thighs gave out and you fell to the ground, you had to make crashing noises. All alot of fun for the Drill Instructors, I am sure.

After about 10 minutes of this, things were getting interesting. Thighs were getting burned out, shoulders were screaming, and we were still going round and round, with the Drill Instructors adding their own brand of color commentary. At the far end of the squad-bay where all of the foot-lockers and beds were piled, one recruit thought that he might have a few moments of respite. He was crouched down trying to rest his cramped legs, while all of the other recruits were 'driving' past.

WHAT IN THE HOLY HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING, NUMBNUTS?!!!! Queried a curious Drill Instructor. The recruit, thinking fast responded with 'Sir! This recruit is undergoing a pit stop as a normal course of the race, Sir!'

Pit Stops were then officially banned for the duration of the race.

After another 15 minutes or so, on one pass I noticed Neets lying on the ground. A glance over my shoulder confirmed that there were no Drill Instructors in immediate visual, so I stopped to ask what was wrong. All I heard was some muffled sobs and a comment about his legs. I told him that I knew his legs were hurting, everyones were. I also suggested that he get off of the deck before he incurred the wrath of the Drill Instructors.

After that, I proceeded to 'race another lap'. About half-way though the lap, the particular incoherent scream of a Drill Instructor viewing a recruit taking it easy told me that the DIs had spotted Neets.

Poor Bastard, it was nice knowing him...

Coming around, I noticed that there were two Drill Instructors, crouched over him. Their veins were throbbing, they were the customary 1/10000 of an inch away from him, and they were screaming themselves hoarse. Neets did something that was blood in the water for the DIs.

He started crying.

As I was passing by, I don't really know why, I grabbed Neets by the scruff of his cammies, and attempted to pull him along behind me. Perhaps I thought that by showing the Drill Instructors that other recruits were taking care of him, they could cut him a little slack. All it did was make them notice me. They kindly suggested that I lay on the deck (read, they threw me to the ground) in front of him so that they could yell at us both.

Sweet relief for my legs!!!

See, at this time I had long ago developed the ability to 'turn off' the screaming, yelling, and insults. I had realized that this was their job, and that there was literally nothing that I could do to avoid the stress. Neets had not developed the ability, yet.

So now, amidst the almost forgotten Boot Camp Scuzz Brush 500, all of the recruits (save 2) scuzzing around and around, there were two guys laying on the deck, with 4 Drill Instructors yelling and screaming. One of them had even gotten a tent stake and was beating it in a trash can, a la Full Metal Jacket. Neets was still crying, face down. Me, I was directly in front of him, staring straight ahead, enjoying the break for my shoulders and legs.

One of the Drill Instructors decided that it would be a good idea to try to get a hold of the situation. He instructed two of the other DIs to see to the rest of the platoon, and he attempted to reason with Neets. He was trying to explain to him that this was nothing personal, they were just doing their job. They were trying to instill in him the ability to persevere, to accept and handle the stress, to find in himself the refusal to quit. Neets was still whimpering in front of me.

The Drill Instructor wanted to make sure that he had Neets attention and understanding. He told him (actually not screaming, for once) 'Neets. Hey, Neets. Come on. Look at me.

This. Is. Not. Personal.

Stop crying. This is just a job, man, no need to cry. Look into my eyes. Am I telling the truth? Tell me what you see when you look into my eyes.'

In response to the 'what do you see when you look into my eyes' question, Neets raised his head from his arms, tears streaming down his face, and with his own particular half-whine, moaned out

EEEEEVIIILLL!!!!


The Drill Instructors could not keep it together.

This was the only time possibly in recorded history that all Drill Instructors could not keep from cracking a smile.

They attempted to maintain composure, even to the point where they all retreated to the duty hut (an office just inside the front door). Periodically, one would come out of the hut with a kick-ass look on his face, start to yell and scream, snort... chuckle, and have to return to the duty hut.

Developing the Warrior Spirit

Essentially, the whole of Marine Boot Camp is oriented to one thing; combat.

Hand to hand combat is a rare event now days, but it is an aspect of training that gives multiple benefits. Besides developing fitness and stamina, it gives the young Marine more tools for his Warrior toolbox. When it came time for the hand to hand training I had a blast, for the most part. I had grown up competing, in all kinds of different sports.

One of the last that I had most recently started was karate.

I really liked the sparring because it was like a physical game of chess, with a forced move time limit. You had to think quickly on your feet and analyze your opponent. You could agree to focus on one aspect of sparring to develop a skill set, or you could just go all-out to test your stamina.

The Marine training was necessarily a little rigid. They have to boil down the concepts enough to be able to trail them to a large number of recruits in what I am sure they feel is nowhere near enough time. As always, though, the Drill Instructors provided the motivation for us to give our utmost effort, all the time. Finally, we had trained enough to spar.

Standing in line, waiting for one's turn to spar, a recruit had to perform a number of exercises. There were stations with dip bars, jump rope, pull-up bars, etc. The concept was again oriented towards combat. Total exhaustion, no other weapons available except for your fists, what are you going to do?

While going through the stations, I was idly counting the number of matches before me, and decided to count the number of recruits in the other line to see who I would be matched up against. I figured that the recruit I would fight was a pretty scrawny guy who I out-weighed by a good 20 pounds,

Sweet.



Unfortunately, I had forgotten about 'Recruit Murphy'.

The boxing rings themselves were tiny little things. If I remember correctly, you have room enough to circle your opponent, and not much else. Basically, the recruits are at about arms-length distance, and expected to slug it out. The Drill Instructors line the sides, providing motivation and instruction. If things got out of hand, all they had to do was reach into the ring to grab a recruit. Getting into the ring, I was confident.

About 5 seconds later, I was fighting for my life.


Turns out the little guy was some sort of junior golden gloves champ.


Needless to say, I got my ass unceremoniously beat down.


Looking for redemption, I eagerly awaited the pugil stick competition. A pugil stick is kind of like an over-sized q-tip. It is meant to stand for a rifle, and what techniques you would use a rifle for if you were out of ammo and had to beat someone down with it. Surely, I thought, I would do better in this. I had done some wooden staff training, and while this was also different training than what I was used to, unless I got paired up with a former Shaolin Monk in the pugil ring, I figured that I would do pretty good.

Again, you go through the stations, awaiting your turn. This time, however you can't see your opponent. He is on the other side of the building. The 'ring' is actually a small building, slightly recessed in the ground. As you approach the building, you see through the doorway that there is a short hallway leading into the only room. There is another doorway on the other side, from which your opponent enters. Windows near the top of the room provide for the Drill Instructors viewing pleasure.

While waiting for my turn, the Drill Instructors outside were explaining the rules. Make sure that you have all of your protective gear on. Even though the tips of the pugil sticks are padded, if you get whacked with one, you will feel it. Fight until the Drill Instructors tell you to stop. A head shot is usually a killing blow. If you are a coward, the Drill Instructors will let you get your ass beat for longer, so you might as well go in swinging. Etc. etc.

I was pumped.


For some reason, I didn't figure that Recruit (first class) Murphy was there for that training period. With a motivated war cry, and a burning desire to make up for the earlier boxing fiasco, I charged down the hallway at the first milli-second of the starting whistle...and tripped entering the room. Flying through the air, I had just enough time to see my opponent enter the room, and then I did a passable imitation of a human lawn-dart, head first, into the sand. Before I could spit the sand out of my mouth or open my eyes, I could feel my opponent attempting to drive the pugil-stick through the back of my skull, repeatedly.

An easy win for him.


Damn.

What is in a name

Names can be brought about and mean many different things, depending on what part of the world you are from. For example, for some of the Native Americans names were a reflection of an animal, or a certain characteristic that they were supposed to have. For some in the middle east, a name can tell people where your tribe is from, and what is your lineage. Some Hispanics can trace their lineage back through the years through their name as well. I had a friend of mine that had about 8 or nine names. While not quite as long as his, my name is long, and is actually 2 names, hyphenated.

In the military, for official documents, names are not usually hyphenated. That meant when the Drill Instructors would be conducting roll call, when they got to my name they would pause, mutter "what the fuck?", and then proceed to butcher my name. After a day or two, it got to where the Drill Instructor could only get to "What the..." and I would sound off with a loud, "Here Sir!" Another day of being named recruit 'What the..', and one of the Drill Instructors officially changed my name to Alphabet.

Drill Instructors did that often, whenever a recruit did something somewhat memorable, or there was some particular trait about the guy. In my time I have known many Marines that if pressed, I would not remember their name. I would remember on the other hand, that we called them names like Barf, Crazy, Elmo, Barney, and Bear.

Recruit 'Crazy' was an interesting fellow. I didn't really get a good read on this guy in boot for several reasons. The biggest one was that there were only so many seconds in a boot camp day that one had time to get to know people. He seemed like a nice enough guy, with an odd sense of humor. He would do stuff that just boggled the mind, just for 'shits and giggles'.

A basic layout of a squad-bay. Imagine a very large 'H" shape building, several stories tall. The 'center line' of the H would be the heads (bathrooms), the 'legs' would be the squad-bays. There would be stairs leading to the different floors where the legs would intersect the center line, and that is where you would enter your squad bay. The first portion of the squad-bay contained the quarter-deck and the duty hut. The duty hut was the Drill Instructors' office and had a rack for the duty DI to sleep in at night. The quarter-deck was where recruits went for some quick classes, and where they passed the time in 'additional incentive training'. The rest of the squad bay was where the racks were set up.

In order to pass from the squad-bay main area to the heads, one had to pass in front of the duty hut. The Drill Instructors always kept the door open, so in order that a recruit might not violate their privacy with their unworthy eyes, the recruit was to face away from the duty hut, and practice side-stepping (a close order drill movement) whenever he crossed in front of the door.
Crazy was heading to the showers one evening, and as he was side-stepping in front of the duty hut open door, the towel that was wrapped around his waist dropped to the floor. He shifted the wash-cloth, shampoo, and soap-box to one hand, bent over and retrieved his towel. As he was facing directly away from the duty hut, he also flashed his ass, in all its glory, to the Drill Instructors. That troubling view, intentional or not, got him a trip to the quarter-deck for some of that 'additional incentive training', when he was fully clothed, of course.

The above-mentioned training was perhaps the thing that got us into the best shape. It was a standard set of exercises that increased in repetitions just about every day. It got to the point where the Drill Instructors would tell us to stop counting, and just do the exercises until they told us to switch to the next one. I (now) fondly remember doing push-ups until my arms fell asleep up to the elbows, doing flutter-kicks to the point of dry-heaving, and doing leg excercises until one recruit's eyes rolled up and he went ass over teakettle to the deck.

Crazy spent so much time on the quarter-deck that he would volunteer to thrash. Sometimes the Drill Instructors would have a few moments, so he would pull out his 'shit list', and read off the names of the recruits that had incurred his wrath earlier. When the DI would get up to the quarter-deck, most times he would see crazy there, whether or not he had been called out.

The other thing that Crazy liked to do was to torment the recruits on the other side of the squad bay. For those that have seen 'Full Metal Jacket', do you remember the evening inspection scene? Boot Camp was pretty much exactly like that. All recruits in the platoon were lined up in their skivvy-drawers, at the position of attention. The Drill Instructor would walk the line, inspecting the recruits for any medical, physical, or other issues. When the Dril Instructor would get to you, you had to stare straight ahead, and sound off with the authorized responses to his questions. The problem for me was that I happened to be staring right at Crazy when speaking to the Drill Instructor.

One night Crazy got a weird look in his eye, and as the Drill Instructor was inspecting me, Crazy (behind the Drill Instructor's back) started blowing kisses at me, trying to get me to crack a grin at his stupid antics and get myself into trouble. When that didn't work, Crazy started running his hands silently over his body, tweaking his nipples, and doing a spastic dance. I think that the Drill Instructor might have suspected something was up, because he did turn a few times to look over his shoulder. Every time that he did glance around though, all he saw was Crazy and the rest of the platoon in the model, picture perfect position of attention, patiently awaiting their own inspection.

Recruiters

Marine recruiters are some of the most professional, hard-working Marines out there. Mine were great, but then again the whole process was pretty easy. They did have a few non-recruiter Marines working there that were pretty upfront about the whole boot camp process, but by then I was already in, if not already completely signed up. This post is not about the hard chargers in the recruiters fold, but what happens after the one rotten apple gets the gullible kid to sign on the dotted line. Enjoy.

Most Marines that I know have heard one or two stories about unscrupulous recruiters. Those that were really pushing the hard sell, or tweaking the truth. You can't really fault them for being thorough in their job, but when they do lie, it makes for some interesting stories. One of the best ones that I have heard of, from another Marine, is the one about the Asian kid who showed up to boot camp with the bag full of advanced mathematics book, and a very broken command of English. Turns out he is there for a math camp, not Marine boot camp. 'Welcome to the Corps, Wakahiri...'

A few of my own stories might beat that one, we shall see...

Very shortly after being dropped to our DIs, one recruit decided that he had experienced enough. With full intensity, he assumed the position of attention (PoA), and sounded off to the DI that he wanted to take advantage of the 'switch service' option of his contract.

Insert the movie sound of the record being scratched as it is taken off the player, cut all background noise. The pin hangs suspended two inches above the floor, afraid to go any farther...

The DI, instead of literally killing the recruit on the spot, inquired politely (for a DI), what in the hell the recruit was talking about. The recruit elaborated (dug his own grave deeper) to the effect that his recruiter had made very clear to him that he could attend Marine Corps boot camp for up to 2 weeks. If, anytime in that initial 2 week, he determined that perhaps the Marines were not for him, all he had to do was notify his chain of command, and he could switch over to the Navy, no problem. This was reasoned as an attempt to find the best fit in the service for the individual. It sounded to me like the recruiter had a way with words to convince a shaky kid. Back to the story

The combination laughter/shrieks from the demons that run Hell (DIs) was something that I will remember for the rest of my life. The DIs probably could not believe it.

Me, I was relieved.

Remember how I mentioned that I had volun'told', violating one of the cardinal laws of boot camp? This gullible recruit had just wiped the memory of my name from all DIs' minds for the immediate future. They had a new play toy. For three looong months.

He was screwed.

The other not-so-honorable mention was a kid who was positive, as positive as one can be, that he had a guaranteed slot in the Marine Band. Not just a base band, but the one that plays for the president. One night, the DI was instructing us on how to report our physical condition during evening inspection. Among many other bits of information, we had to sound off with our name, MOS, and the fact that we did or did not have any physical maladies to report at that time. The DI would then visually inspect us (a la Gunny Hartman in Full Metal Jacket "Toe jam!...Trim those nails!..." you get the picture)

This guys first mistake was in deciding that it would be a good idea to question the DI about his MOS. This immediately drew the DI to a distance of about 1/1000 of an inch away from the recruit, screaming almost incoherently about everything regarding the recruits mental function or lack thereof. I have to give the kid credit, he was able to somewhat coherently explain to the Drill Instructor his belief that he had been guaranteed a band position, and he wasn't sure why he was classified as 0300.

For those not in the know, 0300 signifies infantry.

He was really screwed.

Boot Camp

I'm sure many of you have heard of Murphy's Law. When that law came into being, Mr. Murphy was a civilian. What you might not know is that in May of 1995, Mr. Murphy came with me to enlist in the United States Marine Corps. His stint in the Corps was a raging success, and the basis of this whole blog. While I only made it up to the rank of Sergeant, Murphy made it up through the ranks, eventually being promoted to Lord Murphy, Ruler of all Mortals and Commander of all Combat.

I got shafted, huh.

Going into boot camp, I had a little bit of an idea of what it was going to be like. I was in pretty decent shape (I thought), had a decent head on my shoulders (most of the time), and used to generally higher levels of stress. Let's just say that boot camp was still a kick in the balls, the first of many in my time in the Corps.

When you get to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD), several things are happening at once. Different flights are getting in at different times and days. Recruits are showing up, getting assigned to receiving platoons, filling out paperwork, and the like. There are Drill Instructors (DI) here, but these guys are not the platoon's eventual DIs. These guys are just making sure that you are getting where you need to go. They still could be somewhat intimidating, though. Not much, just enough to confirm that you hadn't entered the Peace Corps.

This is where you first got to know the guys in your platoon. Most of the sentiment was somewhat an excited 'can't believe we are here!' rather than the moaning of several days later 'can't believe we are here!'. After a few days, you get 'dropped' to your DIs, and that is where the fun (for them) begins. Looking back, much of it was hilarious, but at the time...

The first thing that I noticed was the variation of the people that came. Of course there was different races and ages, but there were also variations in professions and educations that surprised me. Roughly half the platoon had some sort of college education, somewhat normal I hear for a summer boot camp platoon, due to the number of reservists that entered the Corps at that time. There were also a number of college graduates, people that had really great jobs, but were just not happy with their life and wanted a sense of accomplishment. Some had been cops, some teachers, and one guy ran his own computer business.

Murphy made his first appearance to me early in boot camp. Due to the (I gather high) level of test score, I was withdrawn from my platoon to do some additional testing. There were about 2 days of additional tests, with questions like If 'toujs' means apple, 'slodv' means market, and Androv is a name, then what could the following sentence be translated as (provide 3 different possibilities.)? Androv fui slodv, guidmn toujs.

What the hell?

After a while, one of the instructors came to the front of the class after a period of testing, and announced that we were going to be going into a different military occupational specialty (MOS) than what we had expected. We were to go into some sort of military intelligence field.

What the hell?

Not really sure how it happened, perhaps I tanked on a few tests after that, but I was soon after unceremoniously kicked back to my platoon. The DI who I met greeted me and in no uncertain terms let me know that 1) my continued existence offended him 2) if I was smart enough for additional testing, I was smart enough to be the 'prac recruit', and 3) my continued existence still offended him. He threw me (actually threw AT me) the recruit book of knowledge, and I was on my way.

Great.

Two days into boot camp, and I had already broken a couple of rules.

1. Never volunteer for anything.
I know I didn't volunteer, I was 'voluntold', but the fact of the matter was I now had additional duties. The prac recruit was the guy who had to stand in front of the platoon and teach them anything and everything related to memorized information that the platoon would be tested on.

2. Don't let the DIs notice you, stay in the middle of the pack.
I suppose that this was a 'good' way to be noticed, but never fear, I would have plenty of brain farts to challenge any presumption of a modicum of intelligence.

to be continued...