50 yr. old recruits who never graduated from boot
by
, 09-03-10 at 10:04 AM (7954 Views)
In June of 1977, 10 days after graduating from high school, i was standing on those yellow foot prints at Parris Island. A buddy and i were suppose to have went in on the buddy plan, but he had a situation pop up (a baby boy). Well i found out what Marine Corps boot camp was all about. After making it through 1st, 2nd, and 3rd phase, i was only a few days from graduation. Platoon 2072 was sitting down to one of its last meals as a unit at 2nd battalion chow hall, when a new platoon stumbled through the hatches, a couple of us were sitting at a table, looked at each other, said "newbees on deck", well i glanced up and who did i see, a tall lanky dark green recruit, my old school buddy standing a--hole to belly button in chow line. In an instance i forgot were i was at, i stood up, hollered across the chow hall, "YO NEWT" (his nickname), he did an about face, eyeballed me, broke rank and came over to our table, i gave him some dap and a homeboy hug, introduced him to the boys at the table who never even looked up from their chow trays. He sat down, we shot the sh-t, laughed and joked for a few minutes like we were back on the block. All of a sudden "BAM" reallity kicks back in, were we f--king crazy, the side of my face began to burn, fear clutched at my heart, when i turned around every Drill Instructor sitting in the D.I. section had locked in on our LZ (laughing zone), man if looks could kill. I told my partner he should leave now, and if we made it through this day i would catch him back in Virginia, if we wasn't standing guard duty at the Pearly Gates tonight. I didn't see Brewer until years later, and we still laugh at that incident today. We should still be doing leg lifts wright now at the age of 50+, for that stunt we pulled in boot camp. I pictured two head stones in the back of 2nd battalion chow hall saying, "here lies 2 dumb a-- boots who forgot they were only recruits, in the Marines you play by the rules, or you'll wind up laying beside these two fools".