Just Graduated from MCRDPI

[JamesMShaw]

April 10th, 2009
MCRDPI
PLT 3026

Feels amazing to have finally done it, pretty surreal to be home though. If any poolees have any questions about boot, fire away. I know I really appreciated the answers when I was a poolee.

[DWG]

Congratulations MARINE! :marine:

[Pandza03]

Congratulations Marine

[JWG]

Congrats MARINE! Welcome back. What advice has most weight on your mind? I'd just like to hear some of the stories and anything that sticks out you'd like to share to help prepare us.

Other than that, enjoy your leave!

[2ndGenDevil]

The physical aspect of boot camp is easy, depending on what kind of shape your in. But in the end, youll be in shape, and you dont die. Its when you go back to your squad bay and there is nothing on the schedule for a few hours that you hate life, because the "games" suck haha. But what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, so just keep in mind, time can't stop, eventually you get out of there, as a member of the most feared organization in the world!! That was my mindset whenever I felt I was starting to feel down. When I got home, the first thing I wanted to do was field day my bedroom! Yea right haha

[thedrifter]

Congratulations Marine!

Ellie

[JWG]

Thanks, Private. I keep hearing just stay in decent shape and it's almost fully mental and endurance. Good to go. Just curious, what were you doing in the IST before you shipped?

[Hendrix]

Congratulations, Marine. What were your favorite and least favorite parts of Boot Camp?

[FieldsNAZ]

Congratulations man. We graduated the same day on different sides of the country. Coooool

[GavinL91]

Did you get yelled at as soon as you got off the bus and when you had to give up your civilian items

[2ndGenDevil]

You get yelled at from the moment that Drill Instructor enters your bus, basically until the moment you hear your SDI give you "DISMISSED!" at the very end of graduation.

[GavinL91]

well,id better get use to having no emotions then.

[JonH]

how hard is Swim Qual?

[BigGunz90]

Is the mental aspect or the physical aspect of boot harder?

[Rocky C]

Congratulations Marine!

Parris Island 1977

Semper Fi,
Rocky

[JamesMShaw]

My IST was 6 pull ups, 75 crunches, and I ran the 1.5 mile in 12:05 (much worse than before I left, you're pretty sleepy by the time you do the IST). My pull ups dropped off horribly at boot because of being sick. I'd honestly suggest to everyone to make sure you're doing at least 10 before you ship.

Swim Qual is easy, until you get to Swim Qual 2 and they start getting really picky about how you swim and will fail almost everyone. But you only need Swim Qual 4 and it's unbelievably easy.

The mental aspect is infinitely harder. Even with being sick the whole time, the physical part wasn't that hard. However you're going to miss everyone from home so much, gonna want to talk to them and be with them. If you have a girlfriend it will be even worse. It was killing me not seeing my girl. But you'll make it through, it's all about keeping a positive mental attitude.

[GavinL91]

I hope to be at PI after hs,what goes on at processing there?

[benw2200]

I hope to be at PI after hs,what goes on at processing there?

"Hurry up and wait" you will start getting used to this at recruit training, and you will probably experience it most of your marine corps carreer.. you will be rushed to do something or be somewhere, only to wait.. sometimes a pretty long time.. on someone or something else. Get used to standing in line heel to toe and not fidgeting. Get used to following simple instructions (the most important thing, in my opinion). A lot of paperwork.. just pay attention. They will literally break it down to you "barney-style" with most of the paperwork "write THIS on THAT line".. it's really not hard. One thing to keep in mind as far as the processing.. make sure your information is correct. You might get yelled at for saying something, but don't be afraid. You'll say "Sir, this recruit's last name/ssn/whatever is wrong sir!!" and your receiving DI will either fix it, or tell you to shut the f**k up. Either way, try to fix mistakes as early as possible. Pretty embarassing to have your name spelled wrong on your cammies. Same thing with your initial issue. During the whole process, you will be "encouraged" to move as fast as possible, but make sure your trash fits. Like I said, you might get an ass chewing, but you don't want to be the one who tells his DI's 2 weeks in that he needs new boots a size smaller, or even worse, tries to be the hardcore tough guy, sucks it up, and ends up with a freaking foot infection or some s**t.

[chrizzle17]

So there is a Marine week at the end of boot camp now? Just curious, how does that work?

[2ndGenDevil]

Marine week sucks. Its just turning crap in and out-processing and grad practice. There is no training, and no I.T. so time goes by so slow. I would much rather train that last week.

[JWG]

Appreciate all the answers and advice, Marines!

[MarinesFTW]

Yeah I just noticed that Marine week and that the crucible got moved back a week...

[chrizzle17]

Thanks for the info.

[Convulsive]

Everyone always talks about Boot Camp and it seems a lot of people seem to forget about MCT. I hear MCT is sometimes worse than Boot Camp but i never hear stories or anything else about it. Even though you're a Marine now, aren't you a little anxious about MCT?

[2ndGenDevil]

At MCT and ITB you are expected to act as what you are, a United States Marine. It might be more training for us who are fresh out of boot camp, but we are still expected to uphold the same standards as all Marines before us. Ill be leaving for ITB tonight. Upsetting leaving the gf and family again, but I CANT WAIT to start training again. I feel lazy and disgusting sitting around here doing nothing all week haha.

[JWG]

Good luck, Marine. You sound like you're good to go, so I have faith you'll do just fine. Don't worry your family got your back and will miss you the same, but I know they're proud and rest assure you're doing what you enjoy and are called to do.

Let us know how it goes, safe travels.

[chrizzle17]

Have fun at ITB. I for one cant wait until i reach that part of my journey. I will be blowing stuff up on my birthday! Not many people can say that.

[GavinL91]

Man,i just hope i dont do something stupid at processing or smile or start laughing,i have a problem with that.Always smiling.

[jinelson]

Carrry on young patriots your motivation to fill our boots and grab the torch astounds me.

OUTSTNDING!

Jim

[GavinL91]

Hey your the guy who gave me the frog,hey dont run ,come here!

[wil086]

gavin youll either be too scared ,tired, or just blah too be laughing. when you get there you are up for about 36 hours .

[benw2200]

Everyone always talks about Boot Camp and it seems a lot of people seem to forget about MCT. I hear MCT is sometimes worse than Boot Camp but i never hear stories or anything else about it. Even though you're a Marine now, aren't you a little anxious about MCT?

I went to MCT, so I can't say too much about ITB, so I'll give you my MCT prospective. MCT sucks.. everyone there calls it phase 4 of boot camp. You get more freedom, but not too much more. You do a lot more actual training there, in terms of learning about the various weapons systems and fire team and squad-based tactics. What instructors you have and the behavior of your platoon will usually dictate how much you get f**ked with.

If you thought you didn't get a lot of sleep at boot camp, MCT will kill you. Lights is at 0400 on the weekdays and your instructors will most likely tell you to wake up 30 minutes prior so you can get dressed and whatnot and be ready to roll out at 0400. Lights out at night is usually anywhere from 2100 to 2200, and you probably won't end up going to sleep till 22 anyway. Firewatch shifts are an automatic 2 hours long, and when you're in the field you'll have gate watch, armory watch, and various middle-of-the-night working parties. And that's just the regularly scheduled firewatch, not counting the mass firewatch that will inevitably happen when "that one" in your platoon screws up. Yes, you hated mass punishment in boot camp, and you will hate it at MCT. You thought an hour firewatch a few times a week at boot was bad? Try 15 minutes on 15 minutes off for four hours. The instructors find ways to screw your life up if you make them mad.

For the 9 or so days you'll stay mainside, the chow hall (for east coast, at least) is excellent and you usually actually have time to eat and taste your food. The rest of the time, you'll eat nothing but MRE's, 3 meals a day for 3 weeks straight. Believe it or not, they are actually pretty good. And after a few weeks, you'll have all the meal numbers memorized and know exactly what comes in each one (the cheese and vegetable omlette one is nasty unless you heat it up, but it comes with a pop tart and skittles). Marines will make insane deals for food- a kid in my platoon paid someone $20 for a pack of M&Ms. It's nothing like the crucible, a single MRC is plenty filling and you get 3 a day, and they always seemed to give us a few extra and you usually didn't have time to eat a lot in the morning, so I always had extra food to snack on. Hint: field strip your MREs as soon as you get them and organize them by main courses and snacks- always have something in your cargo pocket to snack on, you never know when you'll get down time. Just know when to eat and when not to.. a few weeks in you can tell when you're about to move out, don't be the one that's not ready cause you were busy jamming crackers and cheese in your fatass mouth.

The weapons systems you learn are really cool, it was my favorite part. You'll learn to disassemble, reassemble, function check, load, perform immediate action, unload, and most importantly.. shoot.. the 249 SAW and it's 7.62 mm friend, the 240 golf. You'll also play with the AT-4 antiarmor weapon system (think the rocket launcher in Halo), the M203 grenade launcher attachment to the M16, and you'll even throw a live hand grenade. Fun stuff. Just pay attention and don't screw around and you'll do fine on the weapons prac app and firing, don't be the one who shows up and doesn't know how to properly load a 203 because you were screwing off with your friends or daydreaming when the class was taught.

You'll shoot your M16 more, a lot more than you did in boot camp. Think table 2, times 10. You'll mess with some NVGs and put various laser mounts on your rifle for NVG night firing.. very fun. You'll also learn basic tactics and go on little "patrols" with your squad, where you will ambush or be ambushed by other squads. They'll give you a few magazines worth of blanks and maybe a few bluebody dummy grenades. It actually was pretty neat, just take it seriously. Try to use what the instructors teach you, don't gaff it off just because you're shooting blanks. You'll go through MOUT town a few times practicing urban combat- once with blanks and then again with paintball rounds in your M16.. with instructors shooting at you from the windows. This sucks- your cheap plastic mag will inevitably jam and you'll be a sitting duck for your instructors to light up like the 4th of July. Paintball or not, the rounds will make you bleed and swell up like a mofo if they hit exposed skin, especially if you go in the winter like I did. Keep moving and apply what they teach you, and you won't get tagged too bad.

MCT was a blur for me.. it will definitely suck but you will also do some pretty awesome stuff, so soak it all in. Any more questions let me know.. I didn't mean to write a freakin novel, once I got started it just started to bring back some memories :P

Good luck.

[GavinL91]

gavin youll either be too scared ,tired, or just blah too be laughing. when you get there you are up for about 36 hours .yeah i probably will be,ima spend most of my time sleeping on the bus ride there.:thumbup:

[benw2200]

yeah i probably will be,ima spend most of my time sleeping on the bus ride there.:thumbup:

good luck. i mean it. you'll probably be too jittery to sleep.. I remember it was all jokes and cracking up with the other guys on the bus for most of the trip.. then when you see that sign that says Marine Corps Recruit Depot, next right.. you'll shut up and think "oh s**t, why did I do this" over and over again.