Post Boot Camp Mindset

[Whitey]

How the heck do I get used to not being in boot camp? Tonight my family and their friends are over and are excited to see me but every little thing out of organization and order is making me mad beyond belief. Everytime I go in public I end up returning home just ****ed off.

how do I snap back into reality?

[Wyoming]

How the heck do I get used to not being in boot camp? Tonight my family and their friends are over and are excited to see me but every little thing out of organization and order is making me mad beyond belief. Everytime I go in public I end up returning home just ****ed off.

how do I snap back into reality?

Back to reality? When??

As soon as your leave ends!!!


When I got back from the RVN, the family and friends were having a BBQ in the backyard. A car backfired in the front of the house (they prolly don't do that anymore).

Anyway, I rolled out of the lawnchair and hit the deck. Most thought it was funny. Not my Dad or Uncles, WWII Vets all. They understood.

I didn't stay home for the entire time.

[Whitey]

well about 10 minutes ago i was eating again and doing it how i was used to in boot camp and my mom went to brush something off my face and i just got royally peeved and came up to my room. i feel horrible but stupid little things like that **** me off.

[jahhead88]

Just remember they don't understand what you've been through. I was the same way when I graduated from Parris Island in 1988, and thought everyone in my hometown was wallking cluster*&&^%.

A former Marine took me aside and reminded me that these people don't understand. Also keep in mind, your mom just can't turn a switch off and stop being your mom. Heck my mother used to say embarrassing things about me when I was in my blues. I finally had to just chalk it up as she meant well, and we were able to work something out.

[semperfi170]

Seriously, don't let the little stuff annoy you. Remember civilians live in a different world than you, and their habits won't change because you have. Remember she is your mother and is the one who cleaned your dirty as* and held you when you hurt. Don't do anything to hurt her! After all she raised a boy whom became a Marine!

[yellowwing]

My Mom and Sister came to Graduation. On the drive back home we stopped at Shoney's to eat. I was done eating and I looked up and saw that they were still only on their salads. It took awhile before I realized that I had more than 4 minutes to eat chow.

[Whitey]

haha yellowwing thats really wierd cause it was the same place i first ate in front of my family. we all got the buffet and i was done with my 3rd plate when they were barely into their 1st

[Covey_Rider]

Hey it's something that you'll get used to. I still despise walking through the malls and being around nothing but civilians. You'll always have to hear the petty things that they'll have to complain about and you'll learn to nod your head in agreement without showing how much it bugs you. Give it time. You'll adapt. But you will always look at everything differently.

[LeonardLawrence]

Lifelong problem.

Try to ignore it as best you can and when in Rome....let the Romans be Romans. Good luck.

[Korzeniewski]

The Lance Corporal who is a Rec Aid in RSS Syracuse said to me one day "It may get frustrating, but you cannot hate civilians and the poolees for how they act. They never have lived any other way."

[Covey_Rider]

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

-Aristotle

[gutinstinct]

Let me just say this about snapping back to reality after boot camp. It's going to take some time. I graduated boot camp in 1982. Till this day when ever someone puts the lights on while am sleeping I jump out of the rack. My family thinks it's funny. I don't. Just be patient. They have no idea what we went thru.

[Whitey]

my uncle is a gysgt at cherry point and i stayed at his house the night after graduation. my brother thought it would be funny to yell "lights lights lights" where i was sleeping. my uncle also got online as well haha.

[Achped]

I graduated in September...totally still get disgusted when I'm around civilians, and I'm in a place where its bad to act "boot-ish", you'll see when you get to the fleet/a big Marine Corps area, Marines actually try to act like civilians because they...well I don't know why, but they do.

But a Marine acting like a civilian is still a Marine, it shows.

[249gunner]

Didnt your Drill Instructors tell you that no one else will ever understand you but your Marine brothers?

Oh and the thing about "war stories", they'll never understand or how much it sucked. The only people that care about what you go through are Marines around you and poolees that will go through it some day.