thedrifter
03-02-07, 07:03 PM
New Castle woman gets taste of Marine training
By Angie Tabor
Her assignment was simple enough; head to Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island and follow a local school teacher going through classes designed for teachers to get a taste of what Marine life in basic training is like so they can take the experience back to their students.
H. Sonny Hutson of New Castle drove to South Carolina for training Jan. 23-26. The problem? When Hutson arrived at the Marine boot camp late that Tuesday evening, the teacher she was supposed to follow had backed out of the trip and she found herself without a story, or so she thought.
She decided to observe women undergoing basic training. Women in the Marines were a curiosity for Hutson and she managed to see first hand what the experience was like.
“Women go through everything the men do, and I do mean everything, from the time they get off the bus until the time they graduate. It’s no less difficult. Everything is just as rigorous. And because they are instructed by female drill instructors they are cut no slack. If anything a female drill instructor is harder on them then someone of the opposite sex would be,” she said.
Hutson spent her time by getting acquainted with some of the Marine officers and sergeants as well as some of the new recruits who arrived the first night she was there. From the moment the recruits arrived, Hutson was able to observe the protocol of Marine life in boot camp, as well as record these experiences in writing and photography.
“They step off the bus onto yellow footprints painted on the ground,” she explained. “The yellow feet are there to help them get in a straight line and from there their adventure begins for the next 13 weeks.”
She followed the new recruits to check-in. Each recruit was taken into the barracks where they filled out paper work, and then lined up behind a row of telephones. They were allowed one phone call to a person allowed on a list posted by the Marines, explaining who they can call and what they can and cannot receive while in basic training. Recruits were not allowed to say anything else other than what was on the list.
Hutson followed the recruits to to the barber shop where they got their heads shaved. She watched recruits who are afraid of water and are poor swimmers receive aquatic training.
One of the things Huston found most intriguing, she said, was the final testing ground before graduation called The Crucible where recruits, dressed in full military gear and war paint, spent three days in loud, war-simulated sound effects. They crawled on the ground, under barbed wire carrying rifles, swung from ropes, and climbed large walls to get the feel of what war is like and to prepare for it.
“There is an amazing difference between what a recruit is like as a kid coming in and 13 weeks later,” Hutson said. “They’re completely changed; they’re whole different human beings when they come out of basic, but in a good way. They have self-confidence; they’re self-assured, honorable, and respectable. Respect is a big big part of the Marines. The pride and belief in themselves was the most awesome thing I saw while I was down there,” she added.
The endurance and stamina that female recruits must learn in basic training inspired Hutson. She was impressed by what she saw and it has inspired her to write several articles and stories to be published about females in the Marines, what life is like for them in the military, what long-term skills they carry from their experience, and how they adjust back to civilian life when and if they decide to leave the Marines.
While men who enter the Marines tend to do so in their teens right out of high school or early 20s, women who enter the Marines for the first time tend to be in their mid-20, she pointed out. Only 8 percent of Marines are women. And what Hutson found out was that it wasn’t because the Marines didn’t try to encourage women to join or not want to recruit them. It is because women often don’t see themselves as Marine material or receive misinformation from the media and movies.
“I really don’t think women understand that this is an option for them,” she said. “The Marines are elite. They expect the soldier to expect more of themselves, which is more valuable than any amount of education will ever be, because that is something you learn to such an extent that it’s embedded in the rest of your life. You expect more of yourself than you might otherwise.
“We are given the media and military movies such as ‘G.I. Jane,’ for instance, and they are just not realistic. We are given a very unrealistic few of Marine life and military life of women. I think women need to be better educated as to what the Marines have to offer because it is so much more than just hard work,” Huston said.
She believes women should check out the Marines as a possible career option.
“I would encourage them to check it out thoroughly, to look at what they have to offer, to look within themselves and to know that they are capable of doing this and that it would be, in most cases, a tremendous opportunity for a woman to advance herself on a physical and mental level, in a way that would take so much longer out in a civilian world,” she said.
Hutson would have joined the Marines on the spot while on location in South Carolina but the age requirement prevented her from doing so.
“If I were six years younger I wouldn’t have come back,” said Hutson, who is 35. “I would have been signed up in the next group,” she laughed.
She wishes she would have had the opportunity to have had the Parris Island experience earlier in life because if she had she would have become a Marine and proudly gone through the trials of basic training.
Hutson and her husband, Jack Tawney, have two teenage daughters, Sabrina Dalton, 16, and Kayla Dalton, 14, who attend Craig County High School. She said that she would definitely encourage both her girls to join.
“For everything I saw, I would say that it is positive. I’m not saying it is easy. It’s challenging, demanding and stressful but well worth it. It really is rewarding,” she added, “a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
Hutson, who also has two stepsons, is a senior at Hollins University through the Horizon Program, majoring in English and creative writing with a minor in photography.
The daughter of Penny and Patricia Hutson of Newport, Hutson is a freelance writer and is currently working on several novels that she hopes to have published soon.
Ellie
By Angie Tabor
Her assignment was simple enough; head to Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island and follow a local school teacher going through classes designed for teachers to get a taste of what Marine life in basic training is like so they can take the experience back to their students.
H. Sonny Hutson of New Castle drove to South Carolina for training Jan. 23-26. The problem? When Hutson arrived at the Marine boot camp late that Tuesday evening, the teacher she was supposed to follow had backed out of the trip and she found herself without a story, or so she thought.
She decided to observe women undergoing basic training. Women in the Marines were a curiosity for Hutson and she managed to see first hand what the experience was like.
“Women go through everything the men do, and I do mean everything, from the time they get off the bus until the time they graduate. It’s no less difficult. Everything is just as rigorous. And because they are instructed by female drill instructors they are cut no slack. If anything a female drill instructor is harder on them then someone of the opposite sex would be,” she said.
Hutson spent her time by getting acquainted with some of the Marine officers and sergeants as well as some of the new recruits who arrived the first night she was there. From the moment the recruits arrived, Hutson was able to observe the protocol of Marine life in boot camp, as well as record these experiences in writing and photography.
“They step off the bus onto yellow footprints painted on the ground,” she explained. “The yellow feet are there to help them get in a straight line and from there their adventure begins for the next 13 weeks.”
She followed the new recruits to check-in. Each recruit was taken into the barracks where they filled out paper work, and then lined up behind a row of telephones. They were allowed one phone call to a person allowed on a list posted by the Marines, explaining who they can call and what they can and cannot receive while in basic training. Recruits were not allowed to say anything else other than what was on the list.
Hutson followed the recruits to to the barber shop where they got their heads shaved. She watched recruits who are afraid of water and are poor swimmers receive aquatic training.
One of the things Huston found most intriguing, she said, was the final testing ground before graduation called The Crucible where recruits, dressed in full military gear and war paint, spent three days in loud, war-simulated sound effects. They crawled on the ground, under barbed wire carrying rifles, swung from ropes, and climbed large walls to get the feel of what war is like and to prepare for it.
“There is an amazing difference between what a recruit is like as a kid coming in and 13 weeks later,” Hutson said. “They’re completely changed; they’re whole different human beings when they come out of basic, but in a good way. They have self-confidence; they’re self-assured, honorable, and respectable. Respect is a big big part of the Marines. The pride and belief in themselves was the most awesome thing I saw while I was down there,” she added.
The endurance and stamina that female recruits must learn in basic training inspired Hutson. She was impressed by what she saw and it has inspired her to write several articles and stories to be published about females in the Marines, what life is like for them in the military, what long-term skills they carry from their experience, and how they adjust back to civilian life when and if they decide to leave the Marines.
While men who enter the Marines tend to do so in their teens right out of high school or early 20s, women who enter the Marines for the first time tend to be in their mid-20, she pointed out. Only 8 percent of Marines are women. And what Hutson found out was that it wasn’t because the Marines didn’t try to encourage women to join or not want to recruit them. It is because women often don’t see themselves as Marine material or receive misinformation from the media and movies.
“I really don’t think women understand that this is an option for them,” she said. “The Marines are elite. They expect the soldier to expect more of themselves, which is more valuable than any amount of education will ever be, because that is something you learn to such an extent that it’s embedded in the rest of your life. You expect more of yourself than you might otherwise.
“We are given the media and military movies such as ‘G.I. Jane,’ for instance, and they are just not realistic. We are given a very unrealistic few of Marine life and military life of women. I think women need to be better educated as to what the Marines have to offer because it is so much more than just hard work,” Huston said.
She believes women should check out the Marines as a possible career option.
“I would encourage them to check it out thoroughly, to look at what they have to offer, to look within themselves and to know that they are capable of doing this and that it would be, in most cases, a tremendous opportunity for a woman to advance herself on a physical and mental level, in a way that would take so much longer out in a civilian world,” she said.
Hutson would have joined the Marines on the spot while on location in South Carolina but the age requirement prevented her from doing so.
“If I were six years younger I wouldn’t have come back,” said Hutson, who is 35. “I would have been signed up in the next group,” she laughed.
She wishes she would have had the opportunity to have had the Parris Island experience earlier in life because if she had she would have become a Marine and proudly gone through the trials of basic training.
Hutson and her husband, Jack Tawney, have two teenage daughters, Sabrina Dalton, 16, and Kayla Dalton, 14, who attend Craig County High School. She said that she would definitely encourage both her girls to join.
“For everything I saw, I would say that it is positive. I’m not saying it is easy. It’s challenging, demanding and stressful but well worth it. It really is rewarding,” she added, “a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
Hutson, who also has two stepsons, is a senior at Hollins University through the Horizon Program, majoring in English and creative writing with a minor in photography.
The daughter of Penny and Patricia Hutson of Newport, Hutson is a freelance writer and is currently working on several novels that she hopes to have published soon.
Ellie