thedrifter
08-25-08, 09:21 AM
August 24, 2008
Ex-Marine back at boot camp after 50 years
By Alvin Benn
abenn@gannett.com
PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. -- We were sound asleep when our bus rumbled across a bridge and pulled into a parking space in the dead of night after a long, tiring trip.
Seconds later, loud screams and an ear-splitting sound caused by somebody pounding on a large metal trash can jarred us awake.
"Out, out, maggots, welcome to Parris Island," he shouted. "Get out on the blacktop and don't say a word!"
Maggots are among nature's lowest life forms, while "blacktop" is the ground we would pound for more miles than any of us could ever count.
The noise woke us from whatever sweet dreams we might have been enjoying. It was about 5 a.m. and we didn't know what in the world was going on.
We would soon learn on that muggy early August morning in 1958. We had arrived at the U.S. Marine Corps Recruit Depot in South Carolina and were in for a three-month-long survival test.
As we hurried off the bus and placed our shoes into yellow footprints painted on the pavement, it was still pitch black. By the time the sun came up, we had warmed up by doing some wind sprints with locker boxes in our arms.
It wasn't then and still isn't an accident that the buses arrive in the middle of the night. It's a way of showing recruits they are entering an unknown world -- a kind of military twilight zone where challenges abound. The Marine Corps won't admit it, but former recruits believe darkness is a good way to keep anybody on the bus from mapping out an escape route.
Of course, trying to get away is all but impossible. Most of the island's 8,000 acres are choked with thick, muddy marshes inhabited by poisonous snakes and other creepy-crawly things. Even those who grow up in the area don't get far when they try to leave without permission.
Parris Island is located in the extreme southeast corner of South Carolina in the shadow of the Atlantic Ocean. It is about 40 miles north of Savannah, Ga. and not far from Hilton Head, S.C., which offers luxurious vacation spots quite unlike boot camp accommodations.
The screaming and the trash can banging that greeted us came from a drill instructor -- someone who, for the next three months, would inform us that he was our father, mother, brother, sister and worst nightmare.
Marine Corps basic training is intended to turn boys into men. Many don't make it. How I did is a mystery, but it remains my greatest physical achievement.
It's been 50 years since my memorable arrival at Parris Island, and I thought it would be appropriate to go back for a look at how things have or have not changed since that time.
I'm happy to report the U.S. Marine Corps is as strong and as important as ever and has "the situation well in hand"--whatever the situation might be.
It's an old expression and as true today as it was more than two centuries ago when the Corps was founded in a Philadelphia saloon where free beer drew the first recruits.
There have been significant changes in the half century since my arrival, but the bottom line remains the same -- training raw recruits to become aggressive, highly-disciplined troops.
In between arrivals and departures, young men and women are tested to their physical and mental limits. Not all are up to the task.
The Marine Corps is the smallest of the country's four major military branches, with just more than 200,000 troops. The Army is five times bigger. It's always been that way, and those who successfully complete basic training at Parris Island or at San Diego, Calif., know they are part of something pretty special.
At times, there have been efforts to disband the Marine Corps, especially by those in power who feel it has outlived its usefulness and is no longer needed.
President Truman, an Army artillery officer who saw plenty of combat in France during World War I, used to call the Marines the Navy's "police force."
Claims of drill instructor brutality have hounded the Corps in the past. The worst incident occurred in 1956, when a DI marched his "maggots" into Ribbon Creek. They all wore heavy packs. Six recruits drowned in a particularly treacherous, swampy area of the island.
That event led to radical changes in the way recruits are trained. This was never more evident than during my four-day visit. Political correctness has invaded the Marine Corps and appears to have established a solid beachhead.
Today's drill instructors are ordered to keep their distance from recruits when disciplining them. That means no punching, gouging, elbowing, kneeing or slapping -- DI "wakeup calls" familiar to recruits who went through boot camp years ago.
Marines-in-the-making no longer are called "maggots" by their DIs. They even refer to themselves in the third person, as in "This recruit is happy to be here, sir" in a loud, almost convincing shout-out.
The Marine Corps is trying to cope in an age of "gentle persuasion" and appears to be doing a pretty good job, especially in the area of recruit safety.
At the "Confidence Course" as it's known, a large net now catches those who might fall from a rope leading downward from a tower to the completion point. The net is just above a large, rectangular pond. Recruits grab a rope, balance their body in the middle of it and slowly work downward in hand-over-hand fashion.
At the midway point, they do a 180 -- turning their body over with face eyeing the sky, then proceeding to the end of the course.
In 1958, we didn't have a net. Those who fell made quite a splash, depending on how far the fall was. Some were hurt. I was among many who got wet, but from a fall a lot closer to the water.
A few feet away, recruits worn out from the obstacle they had just completed climbed an even higher tower and reached out for a dangling rope that would get them down to the ground.
One young man, obviously afraid of heights, began to softly pound on his chest in the vicinity of his heart. It had to be beating a mile a minute. He was petrified and his DI knew it.
"You're not coming down the way you went up," he yelled to the frightened recruit who, after several attempts, reached the rope and slowly worked his way to the ground.
Another recruit made it most of the way down before he lost his grip on the rope. His fall was softened by an air-inflated mat or something like it.
During my visit, I drove by a large brick building where about a dozen young men on crutches waited outside for admission and treatment. Marine Corps basic training is a Spartan-inspired period, with days that begin before sunup and end long after it sets. Each minute is devoted to something militarily related.
Much of today's training is aimed at protecting recruits from possible danger. In 1958, when our platoon struggled under barbed wire obstacles, live rounds flew over our heads. Simulated firing is used today.
During my basic training, the Corps had four special platoons dealing with recruits who were overweight, underweight, recovering from injuries or lacking in the proper "motivation."
I wound up in "Fat Man's Platoon." I was the lightest member at 198 pounds. A New York lawyer topped 300 pounds and he spent a long time in a platoon that had an elephant as its flag icon instead of a platoon number.
Eleven pounds lighter after 11 days, I was reassigned to a regular platoon and finished my training in late 1958. I lost another 25 pounds during infantry training in North Carolina.
The Corps has strict rules about easing up on exercise when the heat and humidity become unbearable. A black flag is raised at that point. It means "Stop."
When I was there, our DI marched our platoon to the flagpole and worked us out under a red flag that ostensibly meant the same thing the black one does today. He had a smirk on his face, as I recall. When I got back home, I had a deep tan, weighed 165 pounds and some of my high school buddies didn't recognize me at first.
The Corps still has a special training unit, but no longer calls it "Fat Man's Platoon" -- chalk up another one for political correctness. Perhaps the biggest change in recruit training today is something called the "Crucible"-- a 54-hour endurance test with only a few hours' sleep and plenty to do for weary recruits.
Back in the "Old Corps," as those of us long in the tooth refer to each other, we had our own "Crucible." It was called daily training. The Marine Corps is a cohesive unit in which officers and enlisted personnel share a mutual respect. It's always been that way between those who lead and those who follow.
During a run around part of the island a day before eight platoons graduated Aug. 8, the newest Marines were led by Brig. Gen. James Laster, who is Parris Island's commander. He's 30-plus years older than the recruits, but didn't show it.
Women Marines comprised two of the platoons. They go through most of the same requirements as their male counterparts, but one thing they don't get is a haircut that's really more of a shave. Bald domes abound among male recruits.
Women are expected to qualify with M-16 rifles, complete obstacle and confidence courses and learn judo as well as close order drill. They may not be assigned to infantry units, but can handle most all other military occupational specialties.
Many of the new Marines will wind up in Iraq or Afghanistan during America's continuing war against terrorism. Some will die. Some will be badly wounded.
According to statistics provided by the U.S. Department of Defense, 995 Marines, including seven women, have been killed or died in non-hostile incidents during Operation Iraqi Freedom between March 19, 2003, and Aug. 2, 2008.
It's a price the Marine Corps has paid since its creation, and those who successfully complete boot camp know they may be called on one day to step up to the plate.
I may not be as lean as I was the day my platoon marched in review on that big parade ground 50 years ago, but being a Marine never loses its meaning.
Our motto is "Semper Fidelis." It's Latin for "Always Faithful"-- two words that say it all.
Photos
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=DS&Dato=20080823&Kategori=NEWS&Lopenr=808230805&Ref=PH
Ellie
Ex-Marine back at boot camp after 50 years
By Alvin Benn
abenn@gannett.com
PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. -- We were sound asleep when our bus rumbled across a bridge and pulled into a parking space in the dead of night after a long, tiring trip.
Seconds later, loud screams and an ear-splitting sound caused by somebody pounding on a large metal trash can jarred us awake.
"Out, out, maggots, welcome to Parris Island," he shouted. "Get out on the blacktop and don't say a word!"
Maggots are among nature's lowest life forms, while "blacktop" is the ground we would pound for more miles than any of us could ever count.
The noise woke us from whatever sweet dreams we might have been enjoying. It was about 5 a.m. and we didn't know what in the world was going on.
We would soon learn on that muggy early August morning in 1958. We had arrived at the U.S. Marine Corps Recruit Depot in South Carolina and were in for a three-month-long survival test.
As we hurried off the bus and placed our shoes into yellow footprints painted on the pavement, it was still pitch black. By the time the sun came up, we had warmed up by doing some wind sprints with locker boxes in our arms.
It wasn't then and still isn't an accident that the buses arrive in the middle of the night. It's a way of showing recruits they are entering an unknown world -- a kind of military twilight zone where challenges abound. The Marine Corps won't admit it, but former recruits believe darkness is a good way to keep anybody on the bus from mapping out an escape route.
Of course, trying to get away is all but impossible. Most of the island's 8,000 acres are choked with thick, muddy marshes inhabited by poisonous snakes and other creepy-crawly things. Even those who grow up in the area don't get far when they try to leave without permission.
Parris Island is located in the extreme southeast corner of South Carolina in the shadow of the Atlantic Ocean. It is about 40 miles north of Savannah, Ga. and not far from Hilton Head, S.C., which offers luxurious vacation spots quite unlike boot camp accommodations.
The screaming and the trash can banging that greeted us came from a drill instructor -- someone who, for the next three months, would inform us that he was our father, mother, brother, sister and worst nightmare.
Marine Corps basic training is intended to turn boys into men. Many don't make it. How I did is a mystery, but it remains my greatest physical achievement.
It's been 50 years since my memorable arrival at Parris Island, and I thought it would be appropriate to go back for a look at how things have or have not changed since that time.
I'm happy to report the U.S. Marine Corps is as strong and as important as ever and has "the situation well in hand"--whatever the situation might be.
It's an old expression and as true today as it was more than two centuries ago when the Corps was founded in a Philadelphia saloon where free beer drew the first recruits.
There have been significant changes in the half century since my arrival, but the bottom line remains the same -- training raw recruits to become aggressive, highly-disciplined troops.
In between arrivals and departures, young men and women are tested to their physical and mental limits. Not all are up to the task.
The Marine Corps is the smallest of the country's four major military branches, with just more than 200,000 troops. The Army is five times bigger. It's always been that way, and those who successfully complete basic training at Parris Island or at San Diego, Calif., know they are part of something pretty special.
At times, there have been efforts to disband the Marine Corps, especially by those in power who feel it has outlived its usefulness and is no longer needed.
President Truman, an Army artillery officer who saw plenty of combat in France during World War I, used to call the Marines the Navy's "police force."
Claims of drill instructor brutality have hounded the Corps in the past. The worst incident occurred in 1956, when a DI marched his "maggots" into Ribbon Creek. They all wore heavy packs. Six recruits drowned in a particularly treacherous, swampy area of the island.
That event led to radical changes in the way recruits are trained. This was never more evident than during my four-day visit. Political correctness has invaded the Marine Corps and appears to have established a solid beachhead.
Today's drill instructors are ordered to keep their distance from recruits when disciplining them. That means no punching, gouging, elbowing, kneeing or slapping -- DI "wakeup calls" familiar to recruits who went through boot camp years ago.
Marines-in-the-making no longer are called "maggots" by their DIs. They even refer to themselves in the third person, as in "This recruit is happy to be here, sir" in a loud, almost convincing shout-out.
The Marine Corps is trying to cope in an age of "gentle persuasion" and appears to be doing a pretty good job, especially in the area of recruit safety.
At the "Confidence Course" as it's known, a large net now catches those who might fall from a rope leading downward from a tower to the completion point. The net is just above a large, rectangular pond. Recruits grab a rope, balance their body in the middle of it and slowly work downward in hand-over-hand fashion.
At the midway point, they do a 180 -- turning their body over with face eyeing the sky, then proceeding to the end of the course.
In 1958, we didn't have a net. Those who fell made quite a splash, depending on how far the fall was. Some were hurt. I was among many who got wet, but from a fall a lot closer to the water.
A few feet away, recruits worn out from the obstacle they had just completed climbed an even higher tower and reached out for a dangling rope that would get them down to the ground.
One young man, obviously afraid of heights, began to softly pound on his chest in the vicinity of his heart. It had to be beating a mile a minute. He was petrified and his DI knew it.
"You're not coming down the way you went up," he yelled to the frightened recruit who, after several attempts, reached the rope and slowly worked his way to the ground.
Another recruit made it most of the way down before he lost his grip on the rope. His fall was softened by an air-inflated mat or something like it.
During my visit, I drove by a large brick building where about a dozen young men on crutches waited outside for admission and treatment. Marine Corps basic training is a Spartan-inspired period, with days that begin before sunup and end long after it sets. Each minute is devoted to something militarily related.
Much of today's training is aimed at protecting recruits from possible danger. In 1958, when our platoon struggled under barbed wire obstacles, live rounds flew over our heads. Simulated firing is used today.
During my basic training, the Corps had four special platoons dealing with recruits who were overweight, underweight, recovering from injuries or lacking in the proper "motivation."
I wound up in "Fat Man's Platoon." I was the lightest member at 198 pounds. A New York lawyer topped 300 pounds and he spent a long time in a platoon that had an elephant as its flag icon instead of a platoon number.
Eleven pounds lighter after 11 days, I was reassigned to a regular platoon and finished my training in late 1958. I lost another 25 pounds during infantry training in North Carolina.
The Corps has strict rules about easing up on exercise when the heat and humidity become unbearable. A black flag is raised at that point. It means "Stop."
When I was there, our DI marched our platoon to the flagpole and worked us out under a red flag that ostensibly meant the same thing the black one does today. He had a smirk on his face, as I recall. When I got back home, I had a deep tan, weighed 165 pounds and some of my high school buddies didn't recognize me at first.
The Corps still has a special training unit, but no longer calls it "Fat Man's Platoon" -- chalk up another one for political correctness. Perhaps the biggest change in recruit training today is something called the "Crucible"-- a 54-hour endurance test with only a few hours' sleep and plenty to do for weary recruits.
Back in the "Old Corps," as those of us long in the tooth refer to each other, we had our own "Crucible." It was called daily training. The Marine Corps is a cohesive unit in which officers and enlisted personnel share a mutual respect. It's always been that way between those who lead and those who follow.
During a run around part of the island a day before eight platoons graduated Aug. 8, the newest Marines were led by Brig. Gen. James Laster, who is Parris Island's commander. He's 30-plus years older than the recruits, but didn't show it.
Women Marines comprised two of the platoons. They go through most of the same requirements as their male counterparts, but one thing they don't get is a haircut that's really more of a shave. Bald domes abound among male recruits.
Women are expected to qualify with M-16 rifles, complete obstacle and confidence courses and learn judo as well as close order drill. They may not be assigned to infantry units, but can handle most all other military occupational specialties.
Many of the new Marines will wind up in Iraq or Afghanistan during America's continuing war against terrorism. Some will die. Some will be badly wounded.
According to statistics provided by the U.S. Department of Defense, 995 Marines, including seven women, have been killed or died in non-hostile incidents during Operation Iraqi Freedom between March 19, 2003, and Aug. 2, 2008.
It's a price the Marine Corps has paid since its creation, and those who successfully complete boot camp know they may be called on one day to step up to the plate.
I may not be as lean as I was the day my platoon marched in review on that big parade ground 50 years ago, but being a Marine never loses its meaning.
Our motto is "Semper Fidelis." It's Latin for "Always Faithful"-- two words that say it all.
Photos
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=DS&Dato=20080823&Kategori=NEWS&Lopenr=808230805&Ref=PH
Ellie