Boot Camp Part 3

March 18, 2009
Camp Johnson
18:00

We all look the same and we all now have everything shoved into our war bags. Again, war bags are nothing more than small digitally camouflaged duffel bags. They refer to them differently at Parris Island.

We are all told to stand up (again, with the odd sounds playing over our heads) and start filing through a door. We end up in an enormous room. This room is big, very big. In the middle, hanging from the ceiling, is one of those things that they have in the middle of in door stadium type places that usually is a scoreboard. I know people who've been to the U of I assembly hall know what I'm talking about. This one has four large screens on it, one for each side of the room, which is a large square with red walls and a large brass Eagle, Globe, and Anchor hanging from one of the walls. There are approximately three long rows of tables and chairs against each wall. Under the large screens is a computer enclosed in a sort of cubicle and some tables near it on the carpeted floor.

We are herded into this room and all stand behind a chair. I'm pretty sure a few people sit down and are subsequently told "WHO TOLD YOU TO SIT DOWN?" "OH, SOMEONE MUST'VE TOLD YOU TO SIT DOWN, RIGHT?" and they stand up, looking scared.

We are finally told to sit down and are given pens, or "ink sticks." This is "The Moment of Truth" which I did a mock version of at mini boot camp, though that had real no resemblance to this one. The moment of truth in boot camp consists of about two hours worth of paperwork I'd say. And keep in mind, I've been up since around 3 AM and it's probably going on 11:30 PM at this point when we START. We initial a lot of things and a lot of people mess up 0n their paperwork and get screamed at because they need another copy of a form to fill out again and this is a problem, or at least it's presented to us as a problem. Some more screaming and yelling (though this part of my day is relatively quiet) and we're told that we're going to be in deep crap if we don't come out with the fact that we've done drugs, or if we lie about something we don't disclose. I say nothing, I think a couple people may have, but we eventually leave the room.

I can't exactly remember how, but we each grab a Sea Bag (large, long, green bag with one side that opens with four flaps) and run outside. I think we grabbed them from a pile inside.

We take them outside and run into another formation and kneel down in grass. It's early enough now that the sprinklers are going off and we get damp. People closer to them get more wet. The Sergeant who's yelling at us during this time makes no mention of the sprinklers and I think he himself even gets a little wet.

He tells us to open the sea bags. They open by releasing a clip and sliding three loops off of a pin that sticks out. There are four flaps and it opens kind of like the petals on a flower. One by one, we remove a poncho, two canteens, a war belt (a thick green belt that SUCKS), two canteen pouches (to be attached to the war belt), and a canteen cup. I think that's what was all in the sea bag. Oh, and another sea bag. These items were with me until the week before November 21st. The two sea bags are still with me to this day and probably always will be.

When it is verified that everyone has all of this stuff, we put it back in the sea bag. The Sergeant uses an analogy to show us the order of which flaps to put over the pin in what order. "You've got your dick," he says holding up the pin, "And you've got your bitches." He holds up the other side with the other three flaps that have rings in them. "You f*ck the one in the front," he slides the opposite flap over, "The one on the left," he closes the left flap, "And the one on the right," he closes the right flap and clips the bag shut. We do the same.

This whole time, recruits have been pretty pissed off. Someone's always screwing up at something and we're getting bitched at constantly. It's the whole point, but still I can hear people muttering behind me "f*cking retard" "dumb ass bitch" "stupid people" and other frustrations. At this point in time, everyone wants to fight. I almost turn around and slap someone in the face while we're checking the items in our sea bags, I'm not even joking. Not one bit.

The first week of boot camp destroys you. It fights you for your own soul and you have to fight back hard to keep it. People at the end of the cycle (cycle is a way to represent each graduating company) talk about how Receiving Week wasn't that hard and they'd do it again. I consider it to be the worst week of my life. And technically, it was only about three days.

When we have our sea bags, we're told to carry them (probably bear hug again) and get into a formation. We file off on a sidewalk amidst a bunch of buildings (it's still dark) and I'm pretty disoriented. I don't know my sense of direction and I've got no idea where I am. Again, this is the whole point. Nothing is supposed to be comfortable or comforting.

We end up going up some stairs with our war bag and sea bag and enter a squad bay. This is a receiving squad bay and there are four rows of bunk bed racks instead of just two in a normal training platoon squad bay. The lights are on and everything seems sterile and fake. A drill instructor (either DI Sgt. Gonzales or Sgt. Hernandez, yeah I even remember their names) enters and starts yelling at us to get in alphabetical order by a rack and we count off. We scream the number that comes after what the person screams to our left, or right. I don't remember which direction the count off started. I think I'm 68. I remember I was in the 60's in terms of my alphabetical order.

We put our sea bags and war bags on the racks by hanging them from posts and then run back out of the squad bay outside. It's pretty early. I feel like I'm skipping something because It must have been around...at least 4 in the morning. The night I arrived there is especially a blur because of how fast everything happened, but things did take a long time.

We get into a formation and the DI calls cadence and marches us to the chow hall (local eatery). A lot of other recruits are marching around and at first I think they're Marines. I don't really know what's going on right now. I'm in a pretty bad mental state. They are all recruits though. You can definitely tell the difference between first phase and 3rd phase recruits (2nd phase recruits are exclusive to Camp Pendleton, we'll get there). The discipline level and outward appearance is conspicuous.

The chow hall is blaring loud with commotion. DI's are screaming left and right and recruits are screaming back in the hundreds all over the place, marching and halting, waiting for the platoon in front to get inside, eat, and get out so they too can eat breakfast (or morning chow). The chow hall has four seperate entrances and "decks" to eat at and we line up in front of one door. It's dark outside but the inside of the building is brightly lit and I can see inside through the large windows. Finally, we start going in one by one.

When you go into the recruit chow hall you first grab a metal tray. You get silverware. Then comes the salad bar. Usually there's salad, except for the mornings. There're apples and oranges. I get neither at this point, at least I don't think. There are small packets of peanut butter. I didn't get any yet. I forget what else is there during the day. Cottage cheese. I think they had that for breakfast. I get some. There's some other loose fruit that I spoon onto my tray. The main line is next which is actually served by humans, or..sub humans. Every chow hall employee was an ex-con according to my Kill Hat, Sgt. Saldana.

You hold your tray underneath the glass and they put "scrambled eggs" and bacon or sausage and maybe a hashbrown and pancakes, waffles, or small pieces of french toast. The french toast is the best. You can grab packets of syrup. There's a small desert section that in the mornings either has cinnamon rolls or apple turnovers. We all put our trays on a table (with four seats) and stand and wait to be seated. When the whole platoon of 110+ recruits is at a table, we are told to seat and eat.

In receiving, you don't get yelled at while eating as much, but you still don't talk or look around or chew with your mouth open or have more than one hand over the table at all times or carry more than one thing at a time. I eat fast, but I don't have that much food, especially compared to what I would normally get later. We're told we're done and we get up and put our trays on a conveyor belt and get outside into a formation. The time, even looking back, is lost on me at this point. I know it's before 6 because it's dark. We all have to march to medical, which I didn't know at the time was medical.

We sit outside a building in metal benches under an overhang. At this point, I start second guessing my decision. I didn't have time before now. When you've been awake for over 24 hours and you sit down, your eyelids tend to get heavy. DI's occasionally enter the area and make everyone stand up and sit down and stand up and sit down to wake us up. And they scream and yell and we all sit up straight and put our right hand on our right knee and our left hand on our left knee and get away from the back of the bench and sit on the edge. But the area is mostly populated by Navy personnel. Navy Corpsmen to be precise.

Navy Corpsmen are pretty laid back. They don't scream and yell at us, though they do get impatient and give us a hard time, especially the females. Male corpsmen are pretty easy going, but the females are monsters not to be trifled with. We sit and wait and fill out some paperwork which is hard because we have nothing to write on but each others' backs. The teamwork starts now!

I hate signing papers on someone else's back, especially when he hasn't showered for a while. We all smell terrible and are itchy with our own hair all over us from the haircuts. No, they didn't put blankets over our shoulders when they shaved our heads.

Eventually, we found out we were getting shots. This entails getting a shot in each shoulder, a shot in the left fore arm, and a shot in the ass. We wait a very long time for this. A very very long time. People fall asleep and we get yelled at. We start lining up for shots.

We enter the building finally (at least I do, there are still people waiting behind me). There are a lot of Navy doctors and corpsmen inside. We are told to roll our sleevs up to reveal our shoulders and to undo our belts. It's an assembly line. We first give blood actually, just a little bit. After that I get a shot in my left forearm. Next I step between two people who just stabbed a guy in each shoulder. They pick up new needles and I take a breath. They jam the needles into my shoulders and push the fluid in. It feels like an instant bruise has just materialized on my right shoulder. Ouch. I see blood come out when they remove the needles. I move to a curtain. When it's my turn I accidentally say "yes, ma'am. i mean uh yes, sir" to a corsman who asks me "did you just call me ma'am?" right before I put my arms against a wall and get a shot in the ass. This one hurts too, like a bruise is being injected into me. It instantly feels like someone punches me in the butt. I bleed from there. I buckle my belt and limp out.

One of the recruits is white in the face and almost faints after the shots. I'm just sore. It gets to the point where I can't even move my right arm, the shoulder locks up almost totally. I have maybe 55% mobility and can barely raise it. This sucks; I'm right handed. I didn't realize it was the shot at first and kind of freak out, but I deal with it.

When we finish our shots, we march all the way across MCRD (i'll have to draw a map of the base; it's pretty small but i didn't know that yet) to dental. There's a civilian dentist who keeps saying "ears" and "eyeballs" to get our attention, which annoys me and probably the DI who's with us. We have to sign and date a card.

The dental building is a portable office. Ghetto. Also typical of the Marine Corps. We have no money.

We line up in an ENORMOUS line that snakes around like waiting for a ride at Six Flags. On this ride, you get one side of your mouth x-rayed, and another side x-rayed. You get an exam by some dental technician, or maybe an actual dentist to make sure everything's in place. The whole time there's a young woman bitching at me when I'm confused at the directions she gives me. "Yeah, I must not know what I'm doing because I don't do this every freaking day!" she yells at me. I doubt she's ever gone through this, but I have a feeling these civilians are told to be short with us. Very few people are nice at boot camp.

While we're at dental we sit down and eat "bag nasties." That means that we are given a sandwich, animal crackers, peanut butter crackers (the orange looking kind), an apple or orange, a milk carton with grape drink in it, and maybe a bag of chips. The ground outside of dental is so dry that it's basically dust that just blows around. We put sun lotion on earlier and I sweat and some gets in my eye. A stinging pain like I've never felt hit me in the eye and I can't keep it open. I think it was a combination of dust and sun lotion. It happened about three times during receiving and maybe six or seven times throughout boot camp. It ended by me just tearing up pretty bad and rinsing out my eyes from whatever it was. When we finish eating I can't remember what we do. I think they take our vitals here, our blood pressure. I don't remember why, but I remember it happening. Dental is the first place I noticed the verbal greeting as well.

This is the verbal greeting:

You walk by a Drill Instructor.
You: "Good afternoon, sir!"
DI: "What?"
You: "GOOD AFTERNOON, SIR!"
DI: "SCREAM!"
You: "GOOD AFTERNOON, SIR!"
DI: "SCREAM IT!"
You: "GOOD AFTERNOON, SIR!"
DI: "SO, I GUESS IT'S AFTERNOON NOW, RIGHT?"
You: "GOOD MORNING, SIR!"
DI: "SO WHAT, IT'S MORNING NOW?"
You: "YES SIR!"

I can't imagine what a civilian would think just walking through MCRD San Diego. You'd hear people screaming "GOOD AFTERNOON" "GOOD EVENING" at the top of their lungs and people screaming in agony and pain from inside the barracks. How absurd. Freaking concentration camp.

We eventually leave dental and go back to the large red room with the screens. At some point during the day I spill sun lotion in here when I try to put it in some retard's hand and he retracts his arm before I'm done. It gets all over the table. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

While in the large red room, we do another moment of truth type thing. One guy starts asking us if we have anything we want to tell him. It doesn't matter. We all line up outside of his office and I enquire about the $5,000 bonus I'm supposed to get along with the contract PFC I'm supposed to be given. He says it's good to go.

I wait in line a VERY VERY LONG TIME to talk to him for about 30 seconds in his office. After this I run into the phone room from the night before to get a pair of go-fasters (running shoes). After that I run to my squad bay to find something going on.

At this point, I don't remember what all else we did that day. I remember that when I got back to the squad bay, gear was arranged in a very specific way and I had to catch up with what already happened while I was waiting in line to talk to the joker at the administration building.

We eventually had to "hygiene." We all stripped down naked and tried to cram into a tiny shower room. I'm not sure if I even got wet. I know I didn't have soap. I think I just rinsed off. I dry shaved by my rack without any water as well.

We were finally put to sleep sometime around 8PM or 9PM. There were people that were on fire watch, but I didn't have to do it that night.

End of Day 1. Slash Day 2. Two days in one.

Next:
The Piss Test Nightmare