Marine Corps Boot Camp

MMOMEQ-55

Semper Fi

Part 1

http://www.navy.mil/swf/mmu/mmplyr.asp?id=14033

Part 2

http://www.navy.mil/swf/mmu/mmplyr.asp?id=14034

Ah the memories. I just wish we had had it this easy.

cce1302

If you wanted easy, you should have been an officer. Quantico is like summer camp. [}:)]

MMOMEQ-55

quote:Originally posted by cce1302
If you wanted easy, you should have been an officer. Quantico is like summer camp. [}:)]



Don't know about Quantico, never made it there. Never had any desire to go there.[:D]

bigboy12

I was at PI in 1985. Even after all these years, I still remember all my DI's names.

cce1302

can't say I blame you.

MMOMEQ-55

I was there in 1970. Platoon 314. My senior DI had been riddled from head to toe from a claymore and lived to become a DI. Meanest SOB in the world. But I have never respected any man more that I grew to respect this man. I ran into him in the PX maybe 4 years later. I was a E-5 then and had my jump wings and scuba badge. You would think he just had a baby with the way he was acting. Never seen anyone more proud of me than he was that day. He had to introduce me to his wife. Invited me over for dinner and we ended up life long friends. We still visit each other from time to time.

cer

was also there in 1970 Platoon 357

wittynbear

That brings back memories.

restoreguy

I was at P.I. in summer 1953. From a close friend who was there with me and returned to visit about ten years ago, our old company area is now gone. It was the Qounset hut area just in side the main gate. Needless to say, the only similarity between this film clip and my "stay " at P.I. was the physical contact administered by the DI's on me and my fellow recruits and that that occurs now. Although I was yelled at about the same as todays recruits. I was discharged about two months after the recruit drownings in 1956. And, yes, my platoon went into that same creek.....!!!!

storm6490

wow! i thought jar heads had it harder than the army. That looks like a cake walk compared to the training I had at Ft. Benning and H.Church. Our drill Sgt's would knock you on your * and kick you in the head if you messed up. Sure wish we had nice grass fields like the Marines.

what a beautiful place to train!

RtWngExtrmst

The Marines have all the best PR and cameramen. The Army does all the heavy lifting.

Sting

Parris Island, Platoon 340, S/Sgt Decature, June 1965.

WWllVet

MCRD San Diego Cal. 1950. Drilling was in SAND and parade was on ASPHALT. And if you screwed up the drilling in sand was at a DUCK WALK with your hands straight out in front of you and you M1 resting on your finger tips. And yes I do remember my D.I.'s names. S/Sgt. Smith and Cpl. McGlaughin.

For GOD and COUNTRY

Not as Lean[:D][:D]Not as Mean[:(!][:(!]But STILL a MARINE[}:)][}:)]

vet

kimi

My Hollywood DI's were Green, Wright, and Dobbs - 1960-61. SSgt Green was the Senior DI, and Sgt's. Wright and Dobbs were the Junior DI's. All three were Korean War vets who were married.

Green was not a thumper, Dobbs did not have his heart into thumping, however, he would give you a light tap on occasion as if it were required by the SOP. Wright would wallop you in a heartbeat for a breach of discipline of the serious kind such as moving in formation. The men of the Corps in this day and time lived their iron clad, rock hard discipline image.

Emotions ran high on our bus the day after graduation as it pulled away from the curb headed for Camp Pendleton. Our DI's stood in an open field that was infamous for bucket-drill, and watched us leave. Then, one by one, Wright being the last to do so, they lifted their hand to seal the bond between us. Most all of the Marines on the bus with me that morning would never see any of these men again, but my path would cross with all three of them at least one more time.

A twist of circumstances brought Green, Wright, and I together on mainland Japan during the summer of '64. Green and I were stationed there and Wright came to see his old buddy while on R&R from Vietnam where he served as an advisor. They were both Staff Sergeants and I was a Corporal still waiting to get my twenty-nine months in grade to take the promotion exam for Sergeant. Our meeting was brief and lots of fun...Wright, the proverbial DI, would not have it any other way.

I was surprised to see Wright as a Staff Sergeant since he had been busted to Lance Corporal on a maltreatment and cruelty charge not long after I graduated from boot camp. What happened is that the wrong officer witnessed this incident on the parade field so he had his day in court.

The commanding general of MCRD San Diego at this time was MajGen Victor Krulak. As I recall, about one year after Sgt. Wright left San Diego on the downhill side of a twenty year career, Victor Krulak reinstated him to Sergeant. This seems to be a clear cut case of the Marines taking care of their own, for real.

A little over four years later I had picked up staff sergeant and was a senior DI at San Diego, and this is where I visited with Master Sergeant Dobbs one day over a cup of coffee in his office. Dobbs was running Sea School along with his OIC. We spoke of good times and bad. The bad had to do with Staff Sergeant Wright stepping on a bouncing betty in the NAM, and dying of his wounds in a naval hospital on mainland Japan. I'm pretty sure, too, that Wright was promoted to Gunnery Sergeant shortly before he died.

I saw and spoke with Jerry Green once more, too, while we were filling up our gas tanks at a base gas station on CamPen(?), and his car was just ahead of mine. He was getting ready to retire at this point in time. Jerry, like his buds Dobbs and Wright, were all fun loving, hard charging Marines. oorah