The few, the proud

This is dedicated to the brave men and women of our armed forces and to the best of the best, the United States Marine Corps. Semper Fidelis.

March 13, 2006

I woke up this morning around 5:00am. I was nervous but I expected that. Three weeks ago I signed an eight year contract to the Marine Corps. I was happy, proud, and nervous as hell. Everyone knows they have the hardest basic training. Not only physical but psychological. My dad took me to the recruiting station. I don't think we spoke a word to each other on the way. We were too lost in our thoughts. Once we arrived we said goodbye and that was it. The last time I'd see my father for 3 months. My recruiter took me downtown to the place where we would ship out of. Once we got there it was around 6:00am. I waited there with all the other recruits for our plane tickets to arrive. Once they got there we took a cab to the airport. We still had a little bit of a wait before our flight and the rest of the guys started dipping. I didn't. One, I don't dip. Two, I wasn't about to start. We got on the plane. It was going to take us to Pheonix first then San Diego. We got on and all I could think about was that this was it. I was finally doing it. I was so nervous I couldn't even eat. To be completely honest I wasn't scared of being yelled at. I was scared of being with all those people. It was going to be completely different from what I was used to. That's what scared me the worst. We arrived in Pheonix. I think it was around 6:00pm at this time. We all ate something. It helped calm our nerves. We connected with our other flight and were on our way to San Diego. This time I was kind of calm. No entirely but I figured that I might as well face this the best way I can. We touched down and I remember the stewardess saying something about 13 recruits going to basic training and everyone started clapping. I was still in shock but I appreciated the intent. We got off the plane and headed to the USO. There were already a lot of people there waiting for the buses to arrive. I made a couple of phone calls home. It helped. The buses got there around 10:00pm. We were all herded outside and a number was written on our hands. It was a four-digit number but for the life of me I can't remember it. We were in one long line and Marines were walking up and down it talking to us and trying to make us scared. Trust me, they didn't have to do anything. Just looking at them made us scared. Then they shouted at us to get on the bus. We ran; cramming as many as we could on one bus. I was fortunate enough to get a seat the rest crammed on the floor. The driver shouted at us to put our heads between our knees. We did. No problem at all. A short while later we arrived. The door opened and a Drill Instructor popped his head in. I'll never forget his words. "You motherfuckers. I'll give 30 seconds, 30 goddamn seconds to get off my motherfucking bus.". Hey, he could have come in there and said, "Get off my bus.", and I still would have moved as fast as I did. We ran as fast as we could off that bus and other DI's were yelling at us to get on the yellow footprints. In case you don't know on the sidewalk there are yellow footprints painted on the cement. We stood as the DI's ran up and down our ranks. Making sure we were looking straight ahead. Once they were satisfied we were rushed inside where we gave up all our contraband and personal belongings. Bibles we were allowed to have. I was extremely glad to have mine. Once that ordeal was done with we were herded into a hall where we waited to get our haircuts. You ran to the chair got your hair cut so fast if you blinked you would have missed it. Ran into another room were you gave some asshole your social security number then ran into another room with all the others. This is were you got most of you gear. You were stripped down to your underwear and then you put on you military clothes. At the time it was underwear, PT shorts, PT shirt, Sweatshirt, Trousers, Tennis shoes. Once all that was done we went to our temporary barracks and made our racks. , or beds, then we ate breakfast. At this point I won't know the time for a couple of weeks. So far, I've eaten once in 12 hours, haven't slept for almost 24 hours and I won't sleep for another 18 at least. Welcome to Boot Camp