Got to thinking a couple decades ago in Fort Sill.

Mom sent me a care package with some pecan pralines in it.

Drill sergeant had me open the package, then denied me having the treats, "Because there weren't enough for everyone."

I was pissed.

In my next regular letter home I told Mom what had happened.

A week later, a BFB shows up. (That's BIG F'N BOX.)

I open it up, and in it are 5 dozen small bags of pralines, individually wrapped. Three separate bigger bags for each drill sergeant. One for the Top, and two more for the CQ guys that had to carry it down. (Mom was in the Army as well)

As I passed out the treats, and everyone was enjoying a taste of home, I finished and sat down to enjoy mine, at which point Drill Sergeant Johnston (the white one; Johnson was the black one) called me up and gave me the standard riot act for being one up'd by a WAC.

I put down a push up for nearly every praline in the box, before I was able to eat. Took almost an hour. My arms felt like jello, and were shaking like hell every delicious bite I took.

He later told me, in a moment of weakness I'm sure, that it was the best damned treat he's had in a long long time.

I remember one of our TI's carefully bending, feeling each and every letter for pictures before passing it out...
Racy GF pictures got forcibly passed around for all to enjoy

Tech school=Sheppard AFB: one of our guys was in the Civil Air Patrol for several years before enlisting in the AF. Tired of the 3.2 beer at the EM club, he had his mother send him his CAP uniform. With it, he enjoyed three evenings at the O club.

I remember all of us being punched in the back by ALL the D.I.'s in our series pretty much every other day for 4 months.
Our platoon even took the rifle range w/high scores, didn't matter at all.

Used to have my dad mail me the sports section in small snippets so they wouldn't know.

Air Force never has been too concerned with individual marksmanship. Lackland, 1958: We were supposed to have a day on the range to shoot the M1 Carbine, had a mini-typhoon that day, several inches of rain. We stayed in barracks, practiced stripping and reassembling the rifle a little more, called it a day. Never fired a shot in Basic.

I never fired a shot until on my second enlistment, got to qualify with the M1 (M2?) Carbine in 1963, AR15 (yes, AR15 by Armalite) in about January of 1964. Never fired another shot until 1966, qualified again with M16 this time with the grenade launcher under the barrel. Kicked like the devil. Shot the revolver a couple of times in 1970 or so. That was it.

Well, there was the time we had bayonet drill, which by then was more or less show and tell, and when we turned in weapons the count came up one bayonet short. We had one really nasty malcontent who was the obvious suspect, but no proof. Things were a little intense with the drill instructors for a couple days until they could get him general discharged out.

About the same here. Fired the carbine in basic in 1956, then once more in 1960. On Taiwan during the crisis of 1958-59 when invasion from mainland China was a real concern, we never handled or saw any weapons, although supposedly there were M2s. Don't know what plans the brass had for us, for evacuation or defense. It was a definite topic of concern and conversation among us enlisted airmen.

Paul

After Sunday morning religious service, a guy in the company above us took a nose dive off the stair well. He was flopping around on the stairs as we were ordered to formation. Never found out if he survived...they (the company above us) also had a guy called "the stroker".... he was caught wacking off one night so the company commander moved his rack to the middle of the barracks..supposedly, this didn't deter him...

Great story RWE!

My basic training was with the M-14. Carried that sucker everywhere, usually at Port Arms and at double time. It took a long time to realize that the M-14 was really a fine weapon. I also remember that when Basic was over, I was in probably the best physical condition of my life.

I tossed a cigarette butt on the ground once; DI made me dig a 6x6x6 foot hole and bury that butt. Field stripped em after that.

Back in 63 Parris Island about 2AM I was on fire watch and heard the toilet keep being flushed, walked in on a country boy from Arkansas, he just stood there flushing the john. I said "Lenard, what the F#%& are you doing?"
He looked me straight in the eye and said, "I've never lived in a place that had a flush toilet."
Later at Camp LeJeune, during ITR we were learning to toss hand grenades. Some kids just broke out in a sweat holding a live one with the pin pulled, when the instructor told him to toss it using the stiff arm throw he let the damn thing go on his upward movement, gernade went straight up over our heads and landed about 5' in front of the bunker, you never saw 80 Marines hit the deck so fast and get covered with dirt.
I don't know what ever happened to the kid but he was escorted off the range by the company LT>

During basic @ Ft Leonard Wood - after bivouac, we wound up 1 bayonet short. The company CO stood the entire company, in a freezing rainstorm, at attention for 4 hours - 2300 - 300. At roll call, 50+% were on sick call (upper respiratory distress) - the CO pitched a fit. Result - a bird Col (MD) put the ENTIRE company on sick call! The company CO was RIF'ed after our cycle.

This is a second-hand story. I did not serve. This came to me from my brother in law who served in the Marines aboard the U.S.S. America loading ordinance on F-4's.

He told me when the buss pulled in at Paris Island, the Marine in charge hopped on the bus and yelled, "YOU'VE GOT 30 SECONDS TO GET OFF THIS BUS AND 25 OF THEM ARE GONE!"

Welcome to the U.S.M.C.

My favorite story from SOI at Camp Pendleton: There was a real goofball in my platoon (I mean really dense)and was a favorite volunteer by the instructors because there was no telling what he was going to say or do that would bring a laugh. We were in an unofficial class waiting for the real one on claymores to begin (that's where I really learned the meaning of hurry up and wait!). The unofficial class involved setting trip mines with grenades. They've told us about a thousand times that we are only using dummy grenades until the next week. One instructor pops clip, pulls pin and rolls it toward a few of the instructors talking a few feet away (they enjoyed a good prank like the rest of us). Goof ball proceeds to scream GRENADE and throw himself on top of this dummy grenade, essentially giving his life for all of ours like all of the stories we were told in boot camp. The instructors took an MRE carton and made a crude Medal of Honor and forced him to wear it for the next week or so. Best laugh I had all of SOI!!

SOI is also where I learned the blue surprise. An instructor took one of those dummy grenades and dropped it down the ventilation pipe of one of the billion or so porta-pissers on that base. We had just watched an instructor enter immediately after it had been cleaned (they would wait for hours if necessary to avoid going into one that we peons had defiled). That blue water must have hit that guys @$$ at about 100 mph. He came running out of that thing with his boxers on, his cammie pants still at his boots cussing and screaming the name of the instructor that was apparently getting him back for something. We all crapped with extreme caution anytime we did exercises with dummy grenades!! Somehow we were allowed to laugh because the instructors had all of his attention. They were all on the ground rolling!

One of our wise-ass DIs did something like that with CS grenades (AKA funkbomb). Funny as hell except for the guys in the crappers.

when we got off the bus at Lackland AFB about 0100 14 Feb 1981, a bunch of TI's descended on us and started the in-your-face, up and down, bag drop, BS. One of the TI's punched one of the trainees in the stomach and dropped him and we were seriously thinking WTF. a few days before we graduated, one of our TI's introduced us to another TI and asked if we recognized him. we obviously didn't. It was the "trainee" who got fake punched in the gut. our TI also told us a little about himself and the fact that he was 25 years old. we couldn't believe it. he seemed 40. they all seemed 40. i doubt if any of them were over 30 or so.

My favorite story from boot camp involved one of my DI's. He was a small guy about 5'6" and maybe 150 lbs but he was solid. Two blackbelts. Thickest Filipino accent I've ever heard! He would walk up to one of us southerners and spout off something. DI speak is hard enough to understand but his accent made it almost impossible. I would just look at him like a deer in the headlights. He would really flip out. I could only respond with my best recruit speak. Sir this recruit can't understand the drill instructor's accent. Next thing I know it sounds like King of the Hill. "I don't have an accent. You have the accent you &@?!ing redneck!"

Other translations:
After hygiene time- What did you shabe wit recwoot a debit cawrd?!?
Or What did you shabe wit a $&@?ing bwick?!?

But if I was in hand to hand I would definitely want him in my corner. Awesome DI and NCO!

MCRD, San Diego. In the classroom for mail call one evening. Goofy kid from provo Utah had f**ked up doing something. I mean this kid was spastic!! DI yelled at him "why the hell did you joins my Marine Corps!!! Why didn't you join the army?!?!"

Kid answered deadpan like "sir, the army recruiter took the private to meet the marine recruiter!"

DI went ballastic.

Orlando FL

Summer of 1970

Good times

Snake

Ft Leonard Wood, 1970. We were still in the reception center and knew absolutely nothing about how the army works. Several of us were sitting around talking about nothing when a guy in a funny hat came up and joined us. Pretty soon he asked if any of us liked horses. Several of us dummies said yes...and we spent the next 2 days mucking out stalls at the post riding academy.

Army lesson #1: NEVER speak unless directly spoken to.
lesson #2: ALWAYS stay in the middle of every line. All details will be chosen from 1 end or the other.

Basic for me was at lackland afb the summer of 93. I learned quick that if I kept a low profile and stayed out of the instructors crosshairs I'd be ok. Last week of basic and the instructor didn't even know my name.....perfect.
I cannot remember the name of the room we met in in the barracks. It's where we were given our mail and got instruction from our DI. One of the guys in my flight farted the most vile stench I've ever encountered. The instructors were gagging. The farter was told to go [bleep] and not to come back until it was all out of him. Wouldn't ya know, that stinky bastid ended up being my roomie at Shepard until he got kicked out. His boots stunk worse than his ass when he took them off.

1965 Paris Island, on the march to our first over nite at Elliot's Beach one of the recruits screwed up. He spent the night sitting in a tree yelling "cheep cheep I am A [bleep] bird", fire watch had to go by every round and make sure he was still cheeping.

Aaah... Basic.

Remember with nostalgia the looks on the DI's faces at the shooting range after they tell the recruits to clear their weapons, stand, aim downrange and pull the trigger.

And then you hear the "Boom".

Bet that wasn't all you heard.

We had a bulletin board on the quarterdeck, all GF pictures were posted on it.
Affectionately known as the "HOGBOARD"

During basic we had 2 instances of serious theft, both in my company but neither in my platoon. The 1st was a guy who decided to steal an M16 piece at a time and mail them home. He got caught with the 1st piece when it went through an xray at the base post office.
The other was a live grenade stolen from the grenade range. At 2am the next morning the MP's did a barracks shakedown and found it in a guy's locker.

Nether of these gentlemen was ever seen again.

I had a birthday party in the squad bay in June of 1990. MCRD

My mom had sent me a package..... sigh..

Anything larger than a letter had to be opened in front of the DI's, and as with most things in USMC boot cam, there was no time for carefully opening a package. Everything you did in USMC boot camp was done with a sense of raging urgency. I swear to god gentlemen... Brushing your teeth, raging urgency, you could actually injure yourself brushing your teeth. Pissing, raging sense of urgency. When it was time for USMC recruits to piss, 78 men would accomplish the violently horrifying 58 gallon expulsion of crystal clear urine into 6 urinals and 4 toilets in 4.5 seconds.

So, naturally, when it was time to open a package at mail call in the squad bay, it was done with raging urgency by yours truly.

"Faster Shaw! Open it now Shaw! Now! fivefourthreetwo-one..!!!!!"

Yeah, I gutted that jumbo sized padded manila envelope like 2 starving timber wolves fighting over a snow shoe hair. The envelope was reduced to two halves in a fraction of a second. One half in each hand spread outwardly above my shoulders... Time stopped as I stood there with little birthday party hats, glitter, confetti and party horns raining down from above my head. (step dad was a Marine, I knew right away this was his idea)



3 USMC drill instructors stood before me, lightly sprinkled with glitter and confetti pieces.

It was the stuff that drill instructors dream of at night, a gift from god himself, given to his beloved USMC DI's.

I believe I was accused, tried and charged with attempted murder by sparkly party paraphernalia assault..... This all took about 25 seconds if I recall correctly, and it involved a lot of screaming, vein popping, spit sprinkling screaming.

I was the 3rd squad leader, I had grown accustomed to "pushing" for my squad member's pfuk ups. I was in plenty good shape, and I got to pick 20 fellow recruits to join me in my birthday party thrashing.

There was so much yelling and screaming, you couldn't make sense of any of it, it was just a buzzing blur of rage and fury.... I picked out all the slackers, all the a-holes and all of the "invisible men". You know the invisible men, those are the ones you see at graduation day and think to yourself "who the pfuk are you?" because they are so good at conforming and blending in that they NEVER draw attention to themselves.

We wore the party hats with the little rubber bands that went under our chins, we tossed the glitter in the air, made it rain... We tooted the party horns as we flipped and flopped like a live fish in a hot fry pan...

And like I say, I did it every day..... So I didn't mind one bit. I really enjoyed watching the first timers flop spastically, trying to keep up with the DI's intentionally confusing commands.

Good times.... Good times.

Half the pictures were supplied by recruit's sisters or cousins, so it looked like they had a girlfriend.

lmao!

day room

I had a few experiences in boot camp that shaped my life. MCRD San Diego, July 1972. Receiving Platoon in boot camp. We were dressed in our unstarched utilities, top button fastened, black high top Converse tennis shoes, standing at attention in formation, along with several hundred other recruits, surrounding the mess hall at zero dark thirty. DI's were prowling up and down the formations screaming and yelling, and looking for any poor recruit they could abuse. All of a sudden, their was a loud scream, then the sound of breaking glass and as a body flew from the third story window of one of the surrounding barracks, landing with a loud thump on the concrete below, illuminated only by the glow from the street lamp. I thought to myself, what in the *#&@ was I doing here?

Poor kid at the rifle range decided he was going to shoot his toe and get out of boot camp. He miscalculated the energy created by 51,000 psi driving a 7.62x51mm, 150 grain ball projectile out the barrel of his M-14. He blew off his foot and was a bloody mess. BTW, he got his discharge papers out of boot camp.

the week before we graduated basic, we were getting back from another road march, and just like normal, the cattle car doors opened, and drill sergeants started the yelling to move-move-move.

One guy lost his footing and landed both knees on the concrete curb, breaking them both.

That had to suck.

Similar thing happened at Parris Island in 1968 as related by my "brother". Guy decided to shoot off his finger with an M-14 but took off most of his hand instead.


I am very happy to report that I had a most uneventful 8 weeks of Basic Training at Ft. Jackson, SC, followed by an equally uneventful but very interesting 8 weeks of Infantry AIT.

I was in boot camp during Christmas. Our CC had everyone tie a block sock on the end of our bunks on Christmas eve and he put treats in each sock for us.

From 1600 on Christmas eve till 1600 on Christmas day we were 'off the clock'. We went to a movie (on post, since we couldn't leave) and watched Raiders of the Lost Ark.

When a few of us returned to the squad bay it was 1605 and the CC was there. The first words out his mouth were 'GET DOWN'

Well it was past 1600 and we were ready to start cranking again. He let us stay in the position for 30 seconds and then said 'Merry Christmas, now get up'

Didn't see him the rest of the day.

I remember basic training on tank hill at ft. Jackson at this time of year back in 1970.

all kidding aside, the e-6 drill sergeant kept telling us in the mess hall to "eat up and get out; eat up and get out."

and that's exactly what we did.

at night the barracks were stifling hot, especially for us lowly e-1's who lived on the top bunks.

I later realized there were about five trng companies going through mess, and it was organized like clock-work. well, at least as good as the military could organize anything.

How about the ex-girlfriend from hell vs drill sergeant story.

Day before I left for boot, the girl I was dating invited me over to a "party" - hell I figured it was a going away event for yours truly.

Turns out, it was a high school graduation party with her friends - she went to a different HS than me.

While there, I talked to her dad, a Sgt Major at the local reserve unit. He told me we needed to talk, but I didn't get the chance.

The gf wrangled me and in what was one of the most odd situations, she introduced me to her new boyfriend.

I said, "That's great. Hopes it work out." Then asked for my class ring back, and she said it was in her room, she would get it later.

I wasn't waiting. Don't know what happened or what game she was playing, but she left with her new guy back to the party. I went upstairs and found her door locked, for the moment. A little 10 wide pursuasion, and I got my ring back and left.

Her Dad just sat there in the chair and said he was sorry and that he would take care of the door.

Apparently, she-bitch had a change of heart while I was in basic, and would call for me repeatedly at the CQ office, sometimes a couple times a week. It was getting old, and quite frankly, it was drawing too much attention to me, when I had enough to deal with.

Each time, I would get to the phone and administer a Travisesque "GFY" and return to whatever I was doing.

One time, when I was actually on CQ duty she called and I gave her the usual. The senior drill sergeant was on duty as well, and of course he was a little curious, so I gave him the story.

When she called back a few minutes later, he answered the phone.

I thought the stuff he yelled at us recruits was scary; but the line he gave her was so foul, vile, and just downright subhuman, that I didn't know whether to laugh or ask for forgiveness from God for even hearing it.

When he was done, he hung up the phone, and said, "You'll never hear from her again."

And that was that.

Great stories. The 'MoH' winner tale is my fav' so far.

Thanks for sharing, and to you all for serving.

it was better to serve than tuck my tail and flee to Canada. but, as it turned out, ol Jimmah Carter would have made it right.

Trickey Dick got us out of Vietnam, and now the Vietnamese quality TV's are some of the best products out there.

by 1970, the dedicated LIFERS I served under knew the gig was up. and it was sad. things should have been different.

but, life goes on.

One day, while in basic or AIT, we were called to attention in our barracks beside our bunks. Two MPs escorted a recruit down each row and he looked intently at each face. They left and went to the next barracks and on and on. Seems this recruit was on guard duty one night, and was relived by a "fellow" recruit who had no M16. He handed over his M16 to his relief recruit and went back to the barracks and went to sleep.The Officer in charge of the guard detail discovered no one at this post. Someone in a uniform walked off with an M16. This recruit was facing a court marshall and was trying to ID who he turned his M16 over to. Never heard anymore.

Brings to mind. At Tech school we had these guys called "student leaders" taking the place of TIs. They wore braded "ropes" of various colors designating their rank.

One Monday one of the green ropes didn't show up for formation. Never heard anymore about it until four months later at my permanent station when I had a visit from the FBI.
Seems when they opened the base swimming pool, they found his body in the bottom of the pool.

The 1966 "infiltration course" at Ft Polk ( ) had culverts buried vertically with charges of dynamite or the equivalent, Barbed wire to crawl under, and a fixed elevation .30 caliber gun (or two) hosing tracers above the trainees.

I mostly had FUN in Basic, loved the food, and have always loved a challenge,...this course was no exception, ...every red blooded American Kids dream come true,...playing G.I. Joe and getting PAID to do so,....

...until I crawled into that big nest of fire ants,...

Those dynamite charges had em' RILED, too.

Some of the lads were really spooked by crawling that course, IIRC.

GTC

Loved the food? You should have been at Dix. They were training cooks at Dix and we ended up with the most unbelievable crap. Getting to the point where you were allowed to buy a burger at the PX was major, ambrosia compared to the dining facility. All the live fire and explosions were gone by the time I got there, kinda missed that. We had simulators, trip flares and all kinds of CS but not the same. Safety you know, injure a trainee and massive crap rolled downhill.

What a great scam. Reminds me of some the scams guys tried to steal a T-28 in flight school.

It seems I was to keep "my" rifle to myself.

Here's one that may get a few chuckles. As a young lieutenant that could speak a bit of Spanish I was ordered to assist a basic training company composed of Puerto-Rican kids drafted into the Army. Any resemblance between kids that wanted to be soldier's & this group of street urchins was purely coincidental. One evening a training sergeant checking after lights out caught a kid taking care of himself in his rack. The next morning the training sergeants gave a stern lecture on masturbation being against Army rules & if recruits were caught could possibly lead to a dishonorable discharge. I interpreted as best I could while laughing to myself. The next night 60 recruits were whacking off in the barracks.

Our food in basic was actually pretty good. It was a company level chow hall and the head cook would know exactly when were coming in from training so the food would be ready just as we got there.

Of course, you couldn't enjoy it. If both hands weren't going full time shoving food down your throat as fast as possible, you were "finished eating" and had to leave.

That old E6 cook was the meanest old son of a bitch on the cadre. The Drill Sergeants were tough but you knew that was their job, he seemed to have a personal hatred of everyone that had the misfortune to get within 50 yards of him - which was all of us at chow time. I went to sleep many nights with fantasies of shoving an M-16 into his mouth and emptying it on full auto.

The day I finally had KP he got me to scrubbing the floor on my hands and knees trying to remove stains that had been on that linoleum since WWII. When he saw that I just got to it without complaining and did my best (for the next four hours), he let up on me for the rest of my time there.

Ah, KP. I found out quick the way to not be bothered was to grab a clean mop and bucket, find a clean spot and mop away. Nobody bothered you if you were "working".

Eatin duck!

Only had KP once during Basic.

During AIT we had detail day once per week - the usual stuff, unloading trucks, cleaning the company area, whatever. But any solder who performed the best at close order drill or what not at formation that day was assigned "Colonel's Orderly", which was basically a holiday since you could go to the movies, the PX or just fart around all day. Well, I learned the Manual of Arms for the M-16 backwards and forwards and snapped out the moves pretty as you please so I got to be the "CO". This pissed off our appointed squad leader who figured he should have been Colonel's Orderly that day, so the petty little m-f'ing SOB assigned me to KP every week after that. You had to get up about 04:30 to report for that so there was no chance that I could ever be Colonel's orderly again.

That was one of my first lessons in the Army about the vast gulf that could exist between "leaders" and actual leadership.

Sixteen weeks of keep your mouth shut, do what you were told, stay in step, stand in line, gas house, smoke house, gradate, then get on with life.

It was A school that changed my life. I was not interested in high school and graduated near the bottom. Never took a book home and seldom did any homework. First day of A school in south Philly we learned we were to eat our lunches at the brig as it was the closest chow hall. It was one of the last red line brigs, not a pleasant place.

Anyway they assigned us about a hundred pages of reading the first night. I thought it was like high school where I could listen in class and pass all the tests. The second morning first thing was a test covering what we were supposed to read the night before. Needless to say I failed. The they told us that if we failed three tests it was two weeks in the brig and start over. Suddenly I found the motivation to study. I graduated first in my class. I kept on studying and made E-5 in under two years. I have never had a problem studying since nor have I ever failed any test since.

Just thought I'd let you know that coffee burns when it comes out of your nose! Funniest thing I've read in a while!!

had KP a few times in basic. one job you didn't want in KP was to be manning "The Clipper". that was the hole in the wall where the recruits threw their trays on the way out and you had to sort the dirty dishes for the dishwasher. the clipper dude was the one person in basic who was lower on the totem pole than the average recruit and it seemed acceptable to try and throw your tray at him in such a way that it would splash him with stuff. guess who had the clipper? there was a reason why the clipper guy wore a large rubber apron.

I never worked Pots and Pans while on KP but after seeing the hands of the guys who did, I made sure I didn't. Never worked the clipper either.

After four hours of pots and pans their hands were red and skin splitting from all the scalding hot water.

I can't remember it all, but the day we did the pugil sticks on the little bridge over water in USMC boot camp started out well for me. I had a martial arts background and destroyed the first guy they paired me with.

The second guy was big and just went down harder with a bigger splash.

The DIs had a little talk, and, from what I am told, they had to drag my ass out of the water so I wouldn't drown after the third guy and I tangled.

Apparently the little dude they sent across third was some kind of freaking ninja or something. He knocked me senseless despite the football helmet they made you wear.

Was just thinking about trying to sleep in the open bays...

azzholes would come in, middle of every night, metal taps on their boots clomping like a damn Clydesdale, shining a flashlight in your face as you lay in the bunk. I learned real quick how to play possum, no eye opening, controlled breathing - because if you gave any indication of waking up, you were in for an inquisition. Fun times

ah yes the taps. i forgot about those. click click click, here comes the .....

Northern Dave has the best story. I was laughing until tears were running down my face. PT till you puke with birthday hats and horns sounds like fun, fun, fun.

Perry

Think goodness I didn't have to watch the clean up detail.

Okay, so statute of limitations has to be up by now, so here goes....

During Basic Training at Ft jackson, SC, home of the Drill Instructors School, the year is 1982.

Had a jackazz in our platoon that thought he was exceptional.....and after he was selected to be a Squad Leader it became even worse. Azzwipe didn't understand the concept of teamwork and constantly rode one of the trainee's. This only made things worse and we spent more time Pushing until SSG Taylor got tired than anyone else did.

Fast forward to the last week of training...we graduate in two days with all of our family present. By this time I had been promoted to Squad Leader and then Platoon leader, and even selected as Trainee Leader of the cycle. So, this gave me a little extra freedom....

Time for payback....two nights before graduation, I gave one of my guys the night off of Fire Watch and pulled his duty for him. Around 0200 hrs I located the shampoo bottle from numbnutz locker and replaced half the contents with the bottle of Nair I had purchased earlier that day on a PX run.

By the time our Graduation ceremony rolled around, this bald azz monkey was in tears that his hair was gone in patches off his noggin.....and he had to face his family like that.......

I still break into a smile when I think of that episode...

They still used them in basic training in '72.

There is always one in every platoon. When I was in Basic Training in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, 1959, there was a coonazz from out of the swamps of south Louisiana, who was a total screwup.

One day we were running the course (can't remember what it was called) where you crawled under barbed wire for a distance with the water cooled Browning .30 Machine Guns shooting over your head. This guy was crawling along as were a bunch of other guys in various lanes. (If I recall there were four machine guns firing.)

He had told some other soldiers previously that they were not using live ammo, shooting over us as we crawled along, hugging the ground.

He crawled about half way through the course, the machine guns chattering away, when he turned over and said to a guy in the next lane, "Hell, that ain't live ammo. I'll prove it."

He tossed his steel helmet up in the air. CLANG CLANG CLANG!! That helmet went scooting along with three .30 bullet holes in it. Of course, there was an immediate "Cease Fire!," and the sergeants went running out to the screwup, dragging him off the course. He spent the next two weeks pulling KP and about anything else the sergeants could come up with.

His pay was also docked for the price of his helmet. He never again questioned anything about "live ammo" courses.

L.W.

I had two beers while still in 2nd recruit training Bn. at Parris Island S.C. on Sunday Nov. 2nd, 1969. Honest to God... Here's how it happened: We graduated Mon. Nov. 3rd and the day before if you had family coming down to see your graduation they could sign you out for a couple hours on Sun. afternoon for some on base liberty. Buddy of mine was stationed up at Camp LeJuene N.C. and had his own car and that Sunday he came down to see me and had no trouble getting on base because he was an active duty Marine and got me signed out by telling them he was my step-brother. We drove around a little on the island and he had a cooler in the back seat with beer. I couldn't resist... had two of 'em... Don't even recall what kind of beer it was but it seemed like beer had never tasted so good. But it was terrifying to have to go back to our barracks. Thank God the D.I. on duty that afternoon didn't smell anything on me or else I would have been dead meat for sure.

Good thing some teacher taught you how to read in school.

That is a bit of a story all by itself. I was taught an experimental reading system that turned out to be a complete failure. I think it only lasted two years but the damage was done. I have been told none of my classmates can read. I have taken three collage placement tests and all three times the tester look at my background and told me I could neither read of spell. They have been shocked when they gave me a reading comprehension test. I can read and I love to read. Spelling is another story.

Spelling is another story



So we've noticed

My boot camp stint happened 46 yrs ago this month.....either the 5th or the 8th of Aug 1968. I had a few occurances at NTC San Diego but the one that really stuck out was qualification day at Camp Elliott. Three or four companies were loaded in to cattle cars for the trip. My company got split up and the bus i was on overheated and just plodded along.
When we finally arrived at the hangar the Marine Range Officers were not happy campers. And there were not enough M1 Garands set out. I knew about the Garand and the "thumb" but had never touched one. So we finally were sitting cross-legged on the floor with our
weapon and two stripper clips (i think). We were instructed not to
touch anything until screamed at.
I knew the Garand was chambered in 30/06 but the cartridges in the
clips were way to short. I had an '06 and a 243 back home. Stupidly a
finger grew a mind of its own and moved a clip so i could better look
at the ammo. Hell then erupted around and over me.....along with a
severely polished shoe crunching my right hand (and the brain-dead
trigger finger).
After a bunch of pushups and ear damage the Marine demanded why
i had touched the ammo. I squeaked something back about the
ammo looked wrong. WRONG ANSWER from a squirrel.
As my luck had it the same RO was my hovering RO at the range.
After not crunching my thumb loading the first clip i wrapped myself
into the sling,positioned my body as best as i could remember the
proper prone position and tried to still my heart.....impossible. The
RO then knelt next to me and decently asked if i knew something about shooting.
I proceeded to miss my target with every shot.....and i was stunned. Of course,derision then rained upon me loudly from my buddy RO. Loading the second clip i was determined.....no marks on my target. With three or four rounds left i lowered my front sight and was rewarded with a cloud of dust at the top of the berm. My last rounds went into the black.
After the cease fire and leaving my Garand on the concrete and stepping back,my RO picked it up,yelled "line hot" and loaded it. He missed my target on the first shot....he asked where i ended up holding and i replied bottom of the frame. All black-offhand-til the "ting".
He turned and said,"you probably would have qualified if the Navy armorers hadn't [bleep] up."
"And you are correct on the ammunition."
It was many years later that i figured out i had shot a modified Garand Mod 0 or Mod1......in 7.62x51.

I have tried to keep it a secrete.

Last day of basic Training, my granparents drove up from Florida for the ceremony.
Grandpa was a WWII Veteran so he knew the deal.....after graduation they allowed us a couple hours of "Family" time in our company area. My grandparents had a picnic lunch packed for us, and Grandpa had a thermos filled with cold "Koolaid" that tasted remarkably like Budweiser!

But it leaked out.

A heck of a lot more than once.

Your French is pretty good, Scott!

Ah, Basic Training during April, May and June 1966 at Fort Jackson.

First thing I remember was hearing Sgt Stowers say, "In the next eight weeks I'm going to get to know 20 percent of you really well!!! That's the bottom ten percent and the top ten percent. The rest of you just do what you are told and I won't even know your name!!" You can bet this cowboy made dang sure he was in the middle 80 percent ALL the time.

I also agree that I was in the best physical condition of my life at the time and actually enjoyed PT. Being 21 years old I was a little more mature than some and seemingly could cope with many situations better than some others could.

I also came to really like the M-14 as a weapon. Mine was very accurate and wish I could own it today. One of the last things I can remember about basic was crawling the Infiltration Course twice in one night. It was raining and one of my platoon sergeants came along and said they were short a few people in the last wave and did anyone want to crawl it again? I took a chance at volunteering as I knew he was a pretty straight shooter and I was just getting wetter standing around. True to his word there were no strings attached and when the wave finished we all gathered up in formation and marched back to our company barracks. The barracks was quite a sight with everyone stripped to their shorts while cleaning their rifle. It was a fighting end to the week of Bivouac in the field.

I recently revisited Fort Jackson and was amazed at all the changes. I couldn't find the area where our barracks were and the only thing I did recognize was Headquarters. Of course it has been a little time since I was there.

98 ft sill I think we were in our 6th week of basic training. Bam their they were sticking out like sore thumbs day 1 privates just shipped over from reception holy [bleep] these kids were so [bleep] rattled I still remember it like yesterday one of them just threw up all over his food. You could spot them a mile out due to their brand new bdu's.

I remember it from the other end. Going through processing, getting our brand new uniforms and just learning how to march in formation, we'd pass guys in their 7th or 8th week of Basic and look in awe at the "seasoned vets".

We had a guy like that. Jacked his meat while sound asleep. They discharged him (no pun) sleep jacking is like sleep walking I guess.

While in basic, during swim quals/week they have the SWIC/EOD/SEAL guys come in and give the big recruitment speech. It's the ONLY time you could ever get out of your enlistment contract and change rates to a feeder rate for those duties but you had to decide then.

I decided I wanted to do it. Passed the PT test/swim etc. Then it was noticed that I was blue/green and red/orange color deficient. No go.

"But Chief, underwater, colors go away, red being the first in as little as 10 feet"

"Seaman Recruit Teal - how do you know that?"

"I scuba dive"

No good. later I'm in language school and they're doing the big air crew linguist recruitment thing. Sounds cool - sign me up.

"Teal - you're color blind you can't go"

"Chief, why not? What does that have to do with my language skills?"

"Teal - you're an observer on that acft too. If there are other acft in the air, you have to recognize navigation lights to monitor what they're doing/where they're going"

I sat down and thought about it.

"Chief - if the plane's getting bigger, it's chasing us, if it's getting smaller it's going away and if it stays the same size, it's just there. Even at night I'd be able to tell by the distance between the lights. Doesn't matter a damn what color they are."

You could tell he had never thought of this before and you could tell that pissed him off.

"Teal - sit down, shut up and color. You're not going air crew!"

"aye aye chief"

Busted by genetics.