Little-Known Facts About Marine Boot Camp At Parris Island

HI first of all I want to Thank Each & Every Marine who got my fiance Forest Gaylord highland jr. also known as Rusty.The Plaque, I am very Greatful to each & everyone of you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. he also went to boot camp here.. & so did my nephew  Micheal Gary Booth jr.Godv Bless Each & everyone of you.

As a former Marine as there is no such thing as an ex-Marine, once a Marine, always a Marine, I can offer some closer insight into the grand scheme of boot camp and how they mentally break you down and build you back again as a fighting machine. The first phase, learning Marine Corps history and classroom type things is when they completely strip you of all identity, which in the end is not a bad thing at all. No pronouns are allowed in boot camp, you can’t say I, he, she, you, they, or any other pronoun. Everything is this recruit, these recruits, drill instructor whoever. Every recruit gets picked on for as long a time as the drill instructors see fit to see if you’re mentally able to become a Marine, for some it’s weeks, others like myself it’s only a few days and during that period of time, you can do no right, even if you do it perfectly. This is how they make you a clean slate to write soldiering onto. The second phase, the rifle range and the first of many “humps” you take is the time to build upon you the idea that you are part of a whole, not an individual. Humps are grueling 15 plus mile hikes carrying in my case 2/3 of your own body weight as I’m a small guy. The first one is about 15 miles, out to stay at the rifle range, and it took about 4 hours give or take for my platoon to arrive. Once we got there, we were in trouble for no particular reason, so the drill instructors had us put our foot lockers with all our gear on our bunks, a combined weight of around 400 pounds I estimate, then proceed to pick up our racks, one recruit on each end, and proceed to walk around the squad bay until we made a complete lap with no one touching the floor. Needless to say this never actually happened, so they continued this until they were satisfied that we’d had enough. Now by this time It had been at least 5 1/2 or 6 hours since we went to the bathroom, so they all went into the drill instructors office and had us doing something, leaving us to our own devices. Now I had to go, badly, so I went up to the office and banged on, well slapped on the side of the door, which is how a recruit get’s the drill instructors attention, they said what, and I said “Sir recruit Sturgill requests permission to make a head call” go to the bathroom for civilians. My reply was “Sturgill, aren’t you a squad leader?” the wheels started turning furiously and I understood that I should have asked for the whole platoon to make a head call, and not just myself. My reply almost instantly was “Not anymore sir”. I could tell that my self evaluation and self discipline impressed them as I did not get further reprimanded by letting everyone else go to the bathroom and making me pee my pants or some other form of mental discipline. Then phase 3, the crucible yes. It is very challenging and you put all the skills you’ve been learning for the past 8 weeks to use every day and night. When you come out the other side you are almost a Marine, but not quite. Our last night on the Island, one of our drill instructors, the heavy, which means the one responsible for the strictest discipline, stayed up well after lights out talking with us about actual life in the Corps. Then suddenly the door opened, and none of us were supposed to be out of our racks, I’ve never seen 50 people silently run up to 50 feet away so fast, because none of us wanted the drill instructor to get in any trouble. About all I can sum up boot camp with is the sense of pride I knew we all had, and how much I personally think every person in this country should have to go through that experience whether you want to or not.

Wish I had never signed the papers to let my son join the Marines……they are true to their saying “First battalion makes men, Second battalion makes Marines, 3rd battalion makes Machines”…..the stuff they tell the recruits prior to getting there about “they can’t hit you or hurt you….blah, blah, blah……they cover up the stuff they do wrong. Maybe they should investigate Commanding Officers that MAKE privates stand guard while they rape female soldiers, or recruits who die during boot camp at the hands of the D.I’s but that story is never told. I was so proud when I saw my son graduate, I thought wow, he’s become a man. I never realized the horrors of how that happened. PTSD…..it’s real, it horrible, and the CORP programs their robots, oops I mean recruits……I don’t have anything against the guys that join, I know they go into it for the right reasons. I understand having to train soldiers to survive, even being rough on them, but some things are just uncalled for. Just makes me sad that these fine men and women are joining with the high hopes of getting that EGA and instead get kicked in the back, punched, choked, starved,(even if they are supposed to be on extra rations because of being underweight…try no rations because being underweight means they are weak) Parris Island needs to spend more time observing 3rd Battalion, why do they think lots of these guys are committing suicide….