thedrifter
08-09-07, 07:28 AM
Published August 09, 2007 01:17 am - Marine recruits spend a few weeks at Camp Pendleton where they learn marksmanship and how to survive in simulated combat.
Boot camp: Rifles and running at Camp Pendleton
Steve Dick
Editor's note: Assistant Managing Editor Stephen Dick is in San Diego Aug. 6-10 as part of a Marine Corps Educator Workshop, paid for the Marines. His stories will appear on the Web site and in the pages of The Herald Bulletin in days to come.
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - "This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine...." This Marine slogan was made famous in the film "Full Metal Jacket," but Staff Sgt. Jason Gallantine confirmed that Marines do say this. It wasn't made up for the movie.
Gallantine, originally from Idaho, organized the Marine Corps Educator Workshop from the recruiting station in Indianapolis. In the Marines for nine years, he will be getting out on Aug. 17 because he has custody of his children and doesn't want to risk losing them if he was deployed.
He's behind the wheel of the van taking media types around Camp Pendleton, a sprawling Marine base 35 miles north of San Diego where the desert meets the Pacific Ocean.The recruits, dressed in fatigues with full gear and grease paint all over their faces are in no mood to enjoy their surroundings.
They're carrying their M16s, the Marines' weapon of choice. Some are in the prone position, shooting live ammunition at targets 500 yards away that look to be the size of a paperback book. The Marines, the workshop personnel are told, is the only branch of the service that shoots at targets that far away. It's a confidence booster is the reason given by the Weapon and Field Training Battalion.
All recruits have to shoot and meet the minimum requirements of the Marines to graduate boot camp. Dylan Cyr, 20, North Liberty, Ind., was on the firing range and said "I'm OK," when asked how he was shooting. He said he had a shooting range in his backyard in Indiana and hunted deer and small game. But a 12-gauge shotgun is a little different from the M16, he admitted,
On another part of the base, Capt. Mike McDowell, who said he is good friends with Pat Knight and worked with the legendary Bobby Knight at an Indiana University basketball camp in the 1990s, explains the drill coming up. Recruits will dodge steady machine gun fire and mortar shells (no live ammunition is used) as they work their fire teams to advance. Fire teams consist of four people, two moving forward and two covering them through a maze of obstacles.
Adam Selvey, 18, Muncie, graduated from Delta High School this year and looks a little tired at the end of the course. He'd tripped on some barbed wire.
"The war inspired me to join," he said. "I have friends at home who complain about how the country is going. I may as well do something about it."
What he'll do, as most Marine drill instructors and officers note, is be in Iraq within a year. Around 95 percent of the DIs have combat experience.
While at Camp Pendleton, recruits are given increasingly long hikes that culminate with a 54-hour survival training called Crucible. It's the point when they prove their worth. Right now it comes eight weeks into training. Beginning in October, Crucible is moved to the last week so as to be the culmination of boot camp, not just the end of the Camp Pendelton phase.
The Marines like to quote Thucydides who, when writing the history of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, said, "We must remember that one man is much the same as another, and that in battle he is best who is trained in the severest school."
Coming up: A visit to the Marine air base at Miramar, an Anderson Marine, what the educators learned and more. Follow the boot camp stories at www.theheraldbulletin.com and later in the pages of The Herald Bulletin.
Ellie
Boot camp: Rifles and running at Camp Pendleton
Steve Dick
Editor's note: Assistant Managing Editor Stephen Dick is in San Diego Aug. 6-10 as part of a Marine Corps Educator Workshop, paid for the Marines. His stories will appear on the Web site and in the pages of The Herald Bulletin in days to come.
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - "This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine...." This Marine slogan was made famous in the film "Full Metal Jacket," but Staff Sgt. Jason Gallantine confirmed that Marines do say this. It wasn't made up for the movie.
Gallantine, originally from Idaho, organized the Marine Corps Educator Workshop from the recruiting station in Indianapolis. In the Marines for nine years, he will be getting out on Aug. 17 because he has custody of his children and doesn't want to risk losing them if he was deployed.
He's behind the wheel of the van taking media types around Camp Pendleton, a sprawling Marine base 35 miles north of San Diego where the desert meets the Pacific Ocean.The recruits, dressed in fatigues with full gear and grease paint all over their faces are in no mood to enjoy their surroundings.
They're carrying their M16s, the Marines' weapon of choice. Some are in the prone position, shooting live ammunition at targets 500 yards away that look to be the size of a paperback book. The Marines, the workshop personnel are told, is the only branch of the service that shoots at targets that far away. It's a confidence booster is the reason given by the Weapon and Field Training Battalion.
All recruits have to shoot and meet the minimum requirements of the Marines to graduate boot camp. Dylan Cyr, 20, North Liberty, Ind., was on the firing range and said "I'm OK," when asked how he was shooting. He said he had a shooting range in his backyard in Indiana and hunted deer and small game. But a 12-gauge shotgun is a little different from the M16, he admitted,
On another part of the base, Capt. Mike McDowell, who said he is good friends with Pat Knight and worked with the legendary Bobby Knight at an Indiana University basketball camp in the 1990s, explains the drill coming up. Recruits will dodge steady machine gun fire and mortar shells (no live ammunition is used) as they work their fire teams to advance. Fire teams consist of four people, two moving forward and two covering them through a maze of obstacles.
Adam Selvey, 18, Muncie, graduated from Delta High School this year and looks a little tired at the end of the course. He'd tripped on some barbed wire.
"The war inspired me to join," he said. "I have friends at home who complain about how the country is going. I may as well do something about it."
What he'll do, as most Marine drill instructors and officers note, is be in Iraq within a year. Around 95 percent of the DIs have combat experience.
While at Camp Pendleton, recruits are given increasingly long hikes that culminate with a 54-hour survival training called Crucible. It's the point when they prove their worth. Right now it comes eight weeks into training. Beginning in October, Crucible is moved to the last week so as to be the culmination of boot camp, not just the end of the Camp Pendelton phase.
The Marines like to quote Thucydides who, when writing the history of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, said, "We must remember that one man is much the same as another, and that in battle he is best who is trained in the severest school."
Coming up: A visit to the Marine air base at Miramar, an Anderson Marine, what the educators learned and more. Follow the boot camp stories at www.theheraldbulletin.com and later in the pages of The Herald Bulletin.
Ellie