Boot Camp Then and These Days?

[Mongoose]

Russ, I dont consider bootcamp training for combat fighting. We were dropped right in the middle of a war, with usually 4 to 6 weeks of actual training. We got our training on the job. And we were tougher because of it. We depended on each other as much as our training. And thats why were such a close brotherhood.

[DrZ]

Really boils down to the simple fact that current Marines have better equipment and probably are considerably smarter than those of us who are referred to as 'old salts.' I don't know if a DI doing a beat down helped toughen us up or not.... or if it was simply because many got dropped into a hot LZ not long after leaving boot and the instant obedience was needed to keep people alive.

The Marines are Marines. The ones who make it through boot camp and then turn into a piece of sh!t wasted their time and didn't learn the valuable lessons that are part of boot and ITR or SOI or whatever it is called these days. These are the ones who bad mouth the Corps and everything to do with the Marines.

We have always had out 10% and there is nothing that can be done about it. If a sh!tbird keeps his/her mouth shut....learns their lessons and graduates, they have earned the title. When they get to the fleet, if they keep the crap attitude, they typically will not get promoted and their impact will be minimized. The Marines, who are true hard core Marines, will get promoted and will continue doing the job that must be done, as well as training the future generations of Marines.

Old Marine or new Marines....we are all Marines. We do what must be done and do it very well. The talk about what/who was tougher or better trained is really a moot point since the job continues to be done and the Marines stand head and shoulders above the other branches.

[advanced]

Russ, I dont consider bootcamp training for combat fighting. We were dropped right in the middle of a war, with usually 4 to 6 weeks of actual training. We got our training on the job. And we were tougher because of it. We depended on each other as much as our training. And thats why were such a close brotherhood.

I totally agree Mongoose, there was no training that anyone could devise that could have prepared any of us for where we were placed.

I guess looking back I was one of the lucky ones because I became an old salt combat vet during my first month in country. Walked out of Hue without a scratch or at least nothing that you could see.

I don't have a dog in the fight about who was better, then or now. I'm just tired of hearing how the new guys are better trained than we were. And when I picked up Cpl in the Nam I experienced real fast how much was put on us being an NCO in keeping everyone straight.

[tracs1833]

Respect! It should all be about respect. Who cares what era had the 'tougher' boot camp? All eras of the Corps have had s***birds, that is nothing new. We will deal with it now, as we did then. I hate to hear older Marines (and I am one) talk down to newer Marines. They are the future and the inheritor of our Corps. I really hate to hear newer Marines disrespect older Marines. They are the legacy and the builders of todays Corps.
Hopefully to put all of this into proper perspective, I refer to the ultimate authority on all things Marine:
"Old breed? New breed? There's not a damn bit of difference so long as it's the Marine breed." Lt Gen Lewis Burwell "Chesty" Puller, USMC

[tripledog]

I spent 3 days at mcrd diego a couple of years ago, and honestly, I do not think the Marines of today, could keep up with the old Corps boots.

However, I also do not believe that the Marines of the old Corps could keep up with the current Marines in terms of tech, schooling, and leisure time. LOL.

[pnwhite]

Tripledog - Hey! you were in MCRD alsmost the exact same time as I was. I know Texas is a big place, but my bunkmate was Ferle Thomas and he was from Texas. This kid was 6" 2 or 3" and skinny as a rail. I was 5' 6" and of medium build. So guess who got the top bunk? the guy who could just turn around and sit up there? No - I got the top bunk and he got the bottom one. We were a real team. Remember how you had to make up your bunks? He and I would make up our bunks so tight that when the D.I. tried to pull off the top blanket, they had to reach clear across the other side and pull the blanket just to get enough to grab so that they could pull it off to show us terds that we didn't know how to make our beds. Of course, he would throw a half dollar on it to see if it would bounce. It always bounced on our bunks, but that was just a challenge to him, not an indication that our bunk was "tight". On more than one occassion, I saw the D.I. react with a twinge of a smile on his face, that Ferle and I had almost defeated his attempts. I think that was another reason we got through bootcamp without much trouble.
I was in Platoon 313, just down the street from you! ! Sorry to say, I don't know where Ferle went after ITR, but I'm sure that whoeever got him was fortunate - he was a real Marine. After Radar Training at MCRD, I spent my last 22 months at Beaufort MCAS in South Carolina.

[pnwhite]

Dave2571 and others - I haven't read all the responses in this particular forum, but one thing "seems" to be apparent. Many of us old timers are complaining about how the boots are being handled today - no extreme physical punishment - everything has to be PC - the mothers of boots are interfering with the "effectiveness" of the training. I must have missed something! I came in just after some D.I had drowned one or two boots at Parris Island. I remember the talk was that D.I.'s couldn't touch a boot. I guess that today this would be PCness. But our D.I.s didn't need to touch us anyway to get the job done. The one thing I remember was how fast I went to sleep when the lights went out. It was because I was dog tired. Our D.I.s didn't waste one second of the whole day from 5 A.M.(?) till the lights went out at 10.P.M. (? - hey, it's been 50 years, how am I supposed to remember!) Any time during the day when there was more than a 10 second wait, we were doing pushups, side straddle hops, squat-thrusts, etc. There wasn't one second wasted during the whole 16 weeks in boot camp. As I saw it, the D.I.s were there to get us in shape physically and to prepare us mentally to take orders and be a good rifleman. (Remember that - your first MOS was as a rifleman?) The only physical encounters between a D.I. was when he'd kick your heel if you were marching out of step. They even took away the D.I.s swagger sticks. But for extreme punishment - I saw a poor boot one day make a mistake. I never did find out what he had done. Remember the wash racks out behind our quonset huts? The D.I. in charge that day made that poor boot do step-ups. He would do like 50 step ups and then the D.I. would talk to him for a few seconds. Then the boot would do some more step ups. This went on for what seemed like all afternoon. I don't remember how long he was at it, but it seemed like 2 or 3 hours. Fortunately this was in February and it was only about 80 degrees outside. That boot never broke, never slacked, never complained, did the whole thing. That was about the most punishing thing I ever saw in my platoon. I'm sure that it had the effect that the D.I.s wanted - on that boot and all the rest of the platoon too. And he never even touched that boot! So while I don't agree with extreme physical punishment, I think that most D.I.s could do their job without resorting to that, if they were turned loose to do what the Corps wanted them to do, and that is to make U.S. Marines.
I could say that the results indicate the training, but I have another problem with that aspect. (For another forum.)

[PFCWellsUSMC]

I just graduated MCRD San Diego boot camp and it was a joke.

[DrZ]

PFC Wells. You just joined LN and your first post is that MCRD is a joke? Fill out your profile please so all will know if you are really a Marine or a troll blowing smoke.

[SlingerDun]

It used to be double tough, but the change is not your fault. Welcome aboard Marine

[pnwhite]

Josephd and others - Bear with me, I'm just now reading through this forum. Here's where I come from. Back in the old days (and believe me - I won't say things were better - they were just different) when I came into the corps, there was still the draft. In my case, (this is just my case, but I'm sure that it applied to many others) I had gone to Purdue University for 3 semesters. To do that, I had to have a "deferment" (not many people remember what those were) Anyway, when I dropped out during semester break in December (1960) I was faced with one big ugly fact. I had just used up my deferment. That means that although you are already 1-A, your name is moved right up to the top of the list. I already had a brother who was a Captain in the Army and a Ranger to boot, and I was on the Purdue Drill Team (the best in the nation for 10 out of 11 years at that point) so what would a young fella do to top his brother who was a Ranger (This was before the Green Berets or "Recon") He becomes a United States Marine. Right? So I did. No major expectations, I just wanted to be one of the few, the proud!
Now, years after getting out of the Corps, every once in a while you would run into an "ex-Marine". It seemed like it was standard procedure to compare experiences at boot camp. (I had gotten out of the Corps just before Vietnam heated up, and although I became a war resister, it was more because of the way my fellow Marines were treated, than a belief in pacifism. So I wasn't in a position to talk about combat experiences.) Although I knew and so did the Marine (or other ex-serviceman)I was talking to that it was tough, we always stated that it was a piece of cake, we always did it with the smile on our face that indicated that you just didn't want to re-live those experiences. And,,, you didn't want to show that you were some kind of (how does Schwartzenegger say it?) girlly-guy! So you just said that it was a cake walk like you could do it all over again without breaking a sweat. That's what we brought away from our training. (The Proud!)
But what worries me is that you indicate that the Marines you talk to today might be saying that it is a piece of cake when they really mean that it is a piece of cake! There was a time when people would ask you if it was as tough in boot camp as everyone said it was. Just like the kids today, I would indicate that it was a "piece of cake" and then maybe give them a wink or a wry smile to let them know that I was one tough Marine, just for making it through boot camp. To add to that, we had older WWII soldiers that admired the Marines because thy had seen them in action in the war and the Korean War. I had an uncle who was in the U.S. Air Force (actually the Air Corps) during WWII and he fought in the south pacific. He even admired me for being an ex-Marine because he had seen the fighting in which the Marine Corps showed why we are the Marines. After Vietnam, we don't have that admiration, so it bothers me that the new Marines are claiming that it is a piece of cake and maybe even really meaning it. One of the things we have always had going for us was the eliteness of being a Marine. I hope that isn't gone.

[R Landry]

Pnwhite,

Nice post. Arnold said 'Girly Men.' lol

I miss the good old days.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kU0XCVey_U

[KungFuAfroNinja]

I'm at PI right now. I guarantee you those recruits are just as stressed and scared of their DIs as ever. I'm not a DI but just going on the decks and seeing them nervous just to report their post to you as you walk by is enough.

There is still no wasted time. If a DI has a quiet deck, he's going to get corrected. Constantly moving recruits.

Seeing a recruit go to make a head call, then noticing there's about 10 DIs in between him and the head, then freezing in place because he's scared, then double timing away is enough. The DIs didn't even tell the kid he couldn't make a head call. He was just too scared to deal with being near them. Of course everyone gets done and says, "Oh yeah, piece of cake." Like someone else pointed out, you don't want to look weak by complaining about it. But first phase recruits are just...they're done inside hah.

There's less physical abuse yes, but that doesn't mean if a recruit kids gets smart and moves at a DI he's not going to get corrected.

Read 'With the Old Breed'. Eugene Sledge talks about how his DI never, ever got physical with them. If that Marine can do the things he did after not getting physically abused in boot camp, it might not be necessary after all. There's still the instant willing obedience to orders. Third phase recruits are locked on.

I'm not saying that my new Marines show up scared crapless of NCOs like I was. That's different yes, but I blame that not on boot camp but the NCOs they encounter between boot camp and the fleet. Even in the fleet, when I got back from deployment and became Platoon Sergeant, one of the biggest problems I had was getting Corporals and even sergeants in the mindset that they are NOT these Marines friends. That they should be constantly correcting them, leading them, showing them the way to maintain that standard and raise it. I had a new Marine show up without a haircut on Monday and the corporal dealt with it by basically saying to the Marine, "Well, we all make mistakes...I'm gonna give you a ride to get one now and it won't happen again." I went ballistic when I found that that corporal thought that was acceptable. You're on deployment and can't get a haircut? Well, good, that means you're working. You're too busy playing Xbox all day when you know what is expected of you? Unacceptable.

DIs hold the Eagle, Globe and Anchor with just as much honor and respect as those who have gone before and will never, ever give it away.

[Brianhipwell]

Yes, there was a 'different' Boot Camp tears ago. In 1965 we were given a 'pep talk' by our Senior Drill Instructor on pick up day. In short we were confronted with a decision to be trained 'by the book' or the 'Marine Corps way'!

He held up the SOP manual and asked what we wanted. We immediately responded "The Marine Corps way, Sir". (Or words to that affect). He replied with, "Good, lets start now ladies". He threw the manual in the s***can. The 'thumping' started shortly after. Not one of us ratted out the DI's for what they were doing. It was something we expected.

[tracs1833]

* If I get off tangent or start to ramble, forgive me... I'm on some strong medication and I'm reading and writing on this forum as a way to distract myself from some recent issues.

Scott,
Marine, if you start to ramble or get off tangent...don't sweat the small stuff. You've got buddies here and they will not be offended. H**l, I ramble enough without any excuse such as taking meds. You wanna post something, fire away.
Semper Fi, Marine