Back From The Island... Without The Title

[TrevorWozny]

I enlisted into the DEP back in the summer of '08 when I was 17. I have wanted to be a Marine since I was 12 and it is the only thing I have ever wanted to achieve with my life. I was scheduled to ship out on June 29 '09 but got pushed back until July 13 for whatever reason.

When I got off that bus onto the yellow footprints it all became real to me that I was actually going to do something awesome. I've never been really strong, fast and I've always had a tendency to give up on myself, but that is why I joined the Marine Corps. I knew however ****ed up I might be they could fix it. I stayed motivated, although extremely tired, all the way through receiving. I am very tall, 6 foot 6 inches, and was singled out very early by the receiving Drill Instructor for being so tall. I already got to know a few guys who would be in my platoon on the 6 hour bus ride to the Island and we were all buddies by the time we got there. We were 3d Bn India Co. Platoon 3081 Senior Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Williams.

Pick Up day was crazy, the Heavy Hat made me get on my knees so I wouldn't be taller than him. Forming wasn't too bad. Just do what they tell you and if you **** up they can only really blame you for being ignorant, not stupid or belligerent. I sounded off loud and lost my voice by forming day 2. I was really a very average recruit and would probably never would be singled out except I am just so tall that it's inevitable. Training day 1 came soon enough and I felt ready to start the real thing. The PT was rough sometimes but I never fell out or quit, Drill sucked at first just because we looked like crap, bouncing up and down like the ocean. I got quarterdecked a lot, almost always for my rack mate, or the recruit across from me on line. Every day I would hear the Heavy Hat calling my name and I did my time and got back on line. I was hanging in there and was eager just to get another day closer to being a second phase recruit and get name tapes on my uniforms.

On about TD 8 I started feeling like crap but I didn't complain to other recruits or think it was too big of a deal. I just figured a lot of recruits felt just as bad. I started having really bad diarrhea, which wasn't fun. During one of the Senior Drill Instructors discussions he asked if anyone had questions or anything they needed to talk about. As long as you said things the correct way he was okay with just about any question. I asked him if I needed to go to sick call if I was having chronic diarrhea and he just said I to keep training and I would get over it. I took him at his word and did just that. In the next few days I started getting fevers every night and sometimes would get the chills during the day. Remember it's July in SC and about 90-100 degrees and I would be shivering. I was throwing up and having really bad shortness of breath even when doing the smallest bit of running. I just kept telling myself that all other 61 recruits in the platoon felt just as bad and I kept pushing myself to not quit. On about TD 11 I was really close to telling the Sen. DI that I wanted to go home but a few recruits who realized I was doing really bad just kept me from quiting or doing something stupid. On TD 12 I woke up and just thought I was going to pass out. I had a terrible fever and was sweating bullets. I broke and finally requested to go to sick call. The Sen. DI just said "ok...if you want to play that game I'll let you do that. Go to your little sick call and get some ***** ass medicine." I felt like such a ***** but I knew if I tried to train like I was I was going to be ever worse than the last few days I did train. I felt lost mentally and felt like I was going to die physically. I thought I just had a cough and needed light duty for a day to recharge and get back to training. As soon as the doctor took my vital signs and listened to my breathing he said I had bilateral pneumonia and was going to be dropped out of my platoon into EHP (the platoon where sick recruits go). I was floored, almost relieved, that there was actually something wrong with me. At least it meant there was a reason for why I was doing so bad for the last few days especially. I was terrified though of getting dropped out of my platoon, my family. In that moment everything got turned upside down for me. After being put on an IV for a few hours my DI came to pick me up from medical so I could collect my gear from the squad bay and get ready to be dropped the next day. Back in the squad bay the Sen. DI sat me down in his "house" and gave me a cold gatorade out of his fridge. He said "How do you feel?" and I broke down and said "This recruit wants to go home, sir." That was a mistake. He asked me why I didn't want to be a Marine anymore and I told him that I still wanted the title of United States Marine but I just felt like I let my whole platoon down and ****ed everything up. He told me that he wasn't going to send me home, that I was going to go to EHP, get better and graduate. I said aye sir and ended it there.

EHP is a terrible place. Drill Instructors there don't yell or freak out. It seemed like a joke after being in training but it is an okay place to be if you're sick. I still was really nervous about the prospect of going back into training, even after I got healthy because the last few days were just hell and I was quiting on myself. I was put on bed rest and had weekly appointments at sick call to get meds and chest x-rays. I didn't realize how sick I really was until medical weighed me a few days after I was dropped and I saw that I had dropped over 20 pounds in just 3 weeks. I was already just barely over my minimum weight for my height (160 lbs.) and before I left for the Island I weighed 175ish. I now weighed 145 and looked like I was starving. I was put on double rations and was told to eat as much as I could hold.

During one of my first doctor appointments after I got dropped one of the doctors pulled me aside and started asking questions about my height. This is nothing strange for people to ask a lot about my height but he was really interested. He then told me he thought I had a genetic disorder called Marfans Syndrome. One of the symptoms is being really tall, skinny and having long arms. He measured my armspan and it, apparently, is just a little bit longer than I am tall. I had heard about this disorder before when my older brother got checked when he was about my age. He is an inch taller than me at 6' 7" but the doctor said that even though he portrays some of the physical characteristics of the disorder he would have to have a lot more wrong with him than just being tall to get diagnosed with it. In order to get diagnosed with this disorder a person need to have either heart problems (murmur etc.) or eye problems (specifically dislocated lense), and can't be diagnosed just for showing some physical characteristics of it like being tall and lanky. The Corpsman who looked at me said he wanted to check my heart and eyes to make sure I didn't have Marfans Syndrome, but he assured me that I probably didn't have it and not to worry too much about it. I had an in depth eye check at the medical clinic and the eye doctor said my eyes are healthy, normal and there is nothing at all wrong with them. In order to get my heart checked out I had to wait a few weeks in order to get an off base appointment with a cardiologist. By the time I had this appointment a few weeks later I was feeling a lot better and had gained back a lot of weight. I was excited to get back into training and was just waiting to get cleared of not having this genetic disorder. The doctor said my pneumonia was almost gone and I would get cleared of that in another week. I had an ultrasound and some other checks of my heart and there was nothing wrong whatsoever with my heart. The cardiologist said that even though I was really tall he didn't think I had Marfans Syndrome. I was excited and thought that I would be good to go back and go into training again. My doctor on Parris Island on the other hand didn't want to let the genetic disorder thing drop. He was convinced that I had it for some reason and said he wanted to run a blood test. My understanding is that it isn't really a positive/negative kind of test but the results can be used in conjuntion with the other tests I had already received to come to an educated diagnosis. I said go ahead, lets run these tests so I can go back and graduate. The only problem is, my doctor said, was that the tests would take 12 weeks to run. At this point I had been in EHP for 7 weeks and was healthy enough otherwise to go back into training but the doctor said he couldn't just keep me sitting around in EHP long enough to receive the results. So I got discharged. For being too tall that there must be something wrong with me even though they haven't found a single thing yet.

The whole time I was in EHP every time I would see one of my DIs from my old platoon I would be called a quiter and was told that my platoon was still "hungry for blood" while my "ass is still rotting away in EHP". I just used that to motivate me to prove that I wouldn't quit again and that I would graduate but they wouldn't let me. One of the DIs in EHP, Drill Instructor Sgt. Scales, made me his "pet project" and helped me gain weight and really motivated me and inspired me to go back and finish training. He was ****ed when I told him what I was being sent home for and went to medical to fight for me to stay but the doctor wouldn't have it. Now I'm a civilian again and back to square one. I haven't heard anything yet about my test results but I'm expecting to be cleared if they couldn't find anything wrong with me through all the tests they already did. Civilian life sucks and I don't even know where I fit in now. Not fully civilian but not close to being a real Marine. My recruiter told me when I get cleared I can re enlist 3 months from when I got discharged. Until then I just gotta play civilian. This blows.

[Capital M]

Wow man, that totally blows. I'm sorry you had to go through all of that. Thanks for sharing that with us and I wish you the best of luck.

[JCampbell]

Wow....just wow. While I've been browsing this board, I've seen a few stories like this, and they make me feel sick...that someone would put out as you have and be sent home for something so stupid.

Best of luck for getting another shot at the island.

[joshpike4]

good luck on the re-enlist bro. i know it must be hard but it sounds like you have got the determination to see it through

[Jensen139]

Thats sucks, but come on check your signature you didn't serve anything and on training day 12 of 90 you were sent to the docs. You know more of being a civilian than anything else.

Best of luck to you. Next time though don't quit on yourself and asked to be sent home, no matter what happens.

[TrevorWozny]

My DI always told us that even though we were disgusting recruits we were still serving our country, specifically by doing firewatch every night and keeping the other recruits safe.

Also as a note to future recruits, only go to sick call if you think you're about to die. Even if you're falling behind in training the DIs hate it when you go to sick call for a little cough and you can get dropped into EHP for the smallest thing sometimes. Getting dropped is the last thing you want to do even though it means you get to chill out for a while. For the first few weeks I was in EHP we even got movie time on the weekends, but that was taken away after the Battalion Sergeant Major came on deck and saw all the recruits watching "Never Back Down". Our DI got chewed out by Sergeant Major and was ****ed off at him because he took the babysitter away. Then it was just "Marine Corps Knowledge Time" all the time. I don't know how many times I've read the 'Guidebook For Marines' but I know it backwards and forwards.

Thanks for the encouragement Poolees.

[sbombard15]

That sucks. Marfans Syndrome is nothing to take too lightly though. When I was in 8th grade one of my best friends died from it. One minute he was in lunch joking around with us and later that day he was gone.

You must be able to go back without a problem if they find out they have nothing wrong with you though, right?

[TrevorWozny]

If I don't have Marfans there shouldn't be a problem to get back in and the Staff Sgt. in charge of my recruiting center told me that I could probably get a much closer ship date than a lot of other first time enlistees because of the circumstances.

Yeah if I actually turn out to have Marfans, which I doubt because every test they have done so far has come out negative, it would suck. One of my buddies from my platoon got diagnosed, legitimately, with Marfans at bootcamp but he was all screwed up with major heart problems and stuff like that. At least if I go back to Parris Island it will feel like home sweet home. During my last two weeks there, in the Recruit Separation Platoon (RSP), I lived in one of the squad bays in the receiving building. I woke up every morning and saw the yellow footprints outside the portholes.

When you get in the receiving building and see all those metal desks... I cleaned and polished those desks three times a day for two weeks. It's gonna be weird going back.

[Mledford]

That sucks. Good luck with your re-enlistment. At least now you know what to prepare for!

[thekevo]

Holy ****. Really sucks to read a story like this man, I really hope you can get back there and finish what you started and what you've wanted so bad for so long. Keep us posted.

[Gerken]

Good luck on your re-enlistment, you'll get another chance at earning that title.

[Outback206]

Sucks bro.
Good luck and stay motivated.

-Clark

[ksilvia]

Sorry man that sucks just focus on renlisting and i'm sure you'll graduate the next time through.

[iljw]

Well it sounds like you dont have it. Stay motivated, keep working out, and dont lose sight of that EGA pinned on your collar!

[sparkie]

Bullshet,,,,,,,,,,,,,