Boot Camp Part 4 - The Piss Test Nightmare

March 21, 2009
Camp Johnson
13:56

At some point on Thursday August 28th I believe, I wake up. It's dark in the squad bay and I'm on the bottom rack, eying the front hatch. I don't know what time it is, but the people on fire watch (which is nothing more than an excuse to deprive us of sleep) walk over to the hatch and stand there. My view is obstructed by other racks in between me and the door, so I can't see what's going on.

Everything is quiet.

Suddenly the lights come on and I'm blinded. The DI runs in.

"LIGHTS! LIGHTS! LIGHTS! GET UP! GET OUTTA THE RACK! LET'S GO!" and he starts counting down in that garbled way that DIs count down.

I jump out of my rack, wearing my green shirt and short green PT shorts and stand "on line" in front of my rack wearing my black flip flops, which we call shower shoes. We all count off and then get counted down to put on our desert cammie trousers. We get counted down to put on our running shoes.

Then we stand there ready to go outside. The DI walks up and down the isles checking shaves and making people dry shave if they have any stubble. I'm lucky to have blonde facial hair. Finally, he tells us to get outside and form it up. When I run out of the squadbay and along the catwalk on the 2nd deck, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and am instantly startled. It's the first time I've seen myself in well over 24 hours. I can't say I'm comfortable with what I see.

We march to the chow hall and eat breakfast all in a span of about 20 minutes. It's amazing how fast you eat when you're as nervous as you are. We're told to get up and leave as we finish instead of being dismissed altogether like we were yesterday. People start finishing their food and leaving and the guy at my table hastily gets up.

"Don't go yet, you have time," I say without looking up. He regains his composure and sits to eat about half of his apple before he leaves. I finish my apple and get up and leave.

When we get outside we're in a formation again. We make sure we're all there and whichever DI is with us starts drilling us and teaching us how to march and do column lefts and rights and halts and mark times. We did this a lot the previous day as well but it's hard for people to remember all the commands so we get yelled at when we screw up.

Eventually we go back to the large room with the four screens on the ceiling again. We're there to take pictures for our IDs and to take a piss test. We take our pictures. I think about how this is a terrible time to photograph us, and sure enough, check any Marine's military ID to see what I mean. At some point while we're sitting at the tables in the large room, a recruit named Mellies (who I begin to notice is totally incapable of rational thought) offers to take some canteens to fill them up in the "head." I give him mine, one of the dumbest things I could've done, but I was too afraid to go myself.

He returns without my canteen and I'm visibly annoyed. "Where's my frickin' canteen?" I ask him.

"Igaveittosomeoneelseandtheysaidthey'dbringitback," he spits out. He's from Oklahoma and I later find out he's some kind of bull rider. I think he broke his head being thrown off one time, really, that's what he told us. I heard he needed someone to tie his boots for him during this receiving week because he had previously only worn cowboy boots.

Now I'm without a source of hydration, a fact I conceal from the DIs for the rest of the day. It's not good to be dehydrated in Boot Camp. Despite this, I'm currently hydrated and it's time to take the piss tests.

The Piss Test Nightmare

We're in the room where we emptied our pockets a couple nights ago, with the red tables and their cubicles. I hate this room with a passion. There's a DI standing in the front of the room at some podium for some reason and he waits for us all to get in. There are more people than just my platoon. It's urinalysis time, baby!

This is one of the worst experiences in all of boot camp if you ask me. The DIs are getting really ticked off as we're each given a small clear bottle with a lid on it. We have to remember the order we took them out of a cardboard box so they all go back in. I'm pretty sure it was alphabetical. They take groups of about 15 recruits at a time who have to line up and hold their bottles above their heads straight up. And you can't bend your elbows or lower the bottle at all or you get yelled at.

Finally, my 15 gets called out to be in the pit. We wait for the next group to get back and we're rushed to the bathroom. We run down a hall, screamed at the whole time, and enter the Men's room. Already, there are at least two DIs in here and probably like seven or eight recruits with their pants and underwear down to their feet and they're holding their shirts up to their faces.

"God bless 'em!" I remember a DI laughing and saying to another DI.

We're standing in front of urinals.

"Drop your trousers and your shorts!" we're told "tactfully."

So now we're standing in the bathroom awkwardly in silence all with our dicks hanging out just trying to not lose our bearing. Some people don't know whether to laugh or cry. I think one recruit yelled a response in a way that the DI thought he wanted to fight, so he laughed and confronted him before we were told to fill the bottles. I don't have too much trouble. I just think about MEPS.

The bottle is full, I finish off in the urinal and flush, but I don't pull my pants up because I haven't been told to yet. We have to wait for everyone to finish and some people can't go. They get screamed at. DIs are losing their voices over this.

The ones that pissed are allowed to leave. We go back to the room and go through this ridiculously overcomplicated process of putting a red piece of tape over the lid of the bottle and writing our name in it before replacing it into the cardboard box.

Finally we get the hell out of there as people are still screaming and yelling and we're outside. We go back to the squad bay and DI Sgt. Hernandez (the shorter one) takes about thirty of us. We march in the blazing San Diego sun across the base to a supply warehouse. This is the first time I take in the surrounding San Diego area. There are rich houses and apartments on hills overlooking the whole base. It's one of the most depressing realizations of my life. Later I find that I can see the downtown skyline from my training platoon squad bay.

We stop at the warehouse and some male and female Sergeants are already yelling at us. I'm pissed because I'm getting sweaty and thirsty and Mellies lost my canteen. I'm afraid I'll faint out of dehydration.

When you faint a corpsman puts a rectal thermometer up your anus. It's referred to infamously as "The Silver Bullet" everywhere I've been.

We have to fill seabags with all the crap that was in them the other night when we got to MCRD. We line up in rows of four and get all the gear, put it in a seabag, close it, and put them all in a pile. We do this for probably about two hours in the sun before loading them onto a truck. I take a couple drinks from another guy's canteen.

Afterwards we sit around a while and the DI discovers Santos, a 30 year old Philipino college graduate who has a family. Santos remains in my platoon for the remainder of boot camp. The DI asks him why he's there. I wonder too.

We return to the squadbay. Sgt. Gonzales (the taller one) has us sit down and eat lunch, the sandwiches and juice boxes and apples and animal crackers we had yesterday. I'm in platoon 1063, and there are six other platoons in Delta Company. The amount of recruits in the platoons is unbalanced so some of us have to leave. Sgt. Gonzales reads off a list of names which includes mine who are going to 1067. I'm honestly depressed because I just fear certain changes in general. I met a few people in this platoon and I don't want to have to get to know all new people. Our DIs here are pretty cool and laid back for the most part.

While we're sitting around waiting Sgt. Gonzales starts talking. "You need to motivate yourself. Think about something that gets you through the day. Me, I'm thinkin' about the stripper I'm gonna get with tonight."

We laugh. He's not really wearing a uniform right now so he's pretty informal. The ones moving have to pack up our gear and go outside. I roll up my blankets and pack the seabag and war bag and wait outside.

At some point, I think Oh yeah, I'm John Milas. I have a family and friends and I'm from Illinois. That's not a joke. I'd literally reminded myself of my identity because I'd had no time for it anymore.

We're taken into the next door squadbay, which is platoon 1067. There are only 18 recruits in this platoon before about 50 of us from 63 move to it.

Earlier in the day, we'd gone to "clothing" and had been fitted for our cammie blouses and boots. We're given three sets of woodland cammies and two sets of deserts. They measure my feet a size too small and I take the boots anyway because they feel ok.

When we're at 1067, a guy named Fletcher is the first guy I meet. He shows me how to lace the boots properly (we have two pairs) and he shows me how to roll the sleeves on my desert blouse which we don't have much time to do. I'm instantly depressed by the heavy handed nature of this platoon's DIs. The 18 recruits referred to as the "super squad" seem depressed and look like they're been beaten into submission.

I remember meeting Fletcher and Weaver. Another guy comes in and seems like he's about to have a heart attack. Wick is his name. I try to calm him down and show him what we need to prepare. We need to make skivvie rolls, which means we need to roll up a shirt, underwear, and socks. I suck at it at first but I manage.

There's a recruit named Boyle who's referred to only as "Number 1" by DI Sgt. Garza, who cracks me up for the rest of the time I'm in receiving. Boyle is a big tall goofy guy from the Chicago area. Another recruit named Crump is referred to as "Einstein" by him. Crump's from...Arkansas, yeah that's it. He has a country accent and is given a hard time for this. Mellies somehow becomes Boyle's number two, but he's not called "Number 2" he's called "Number 1's Assistant" by Sgt. Garza.

Basically, he just helped with some roster stuff. A monkey could've done it.

We get more of our crap ready for tomorrow as more recruits from other platoons are switched to 67. Not many more because we only have 89 total at that point I believe, maybe a few more. A recruit named Patterson has lost his voice and sounds like a DI when he talks, so he talks just to hear himself talk and it's pretty annoying. He's one of the most immature people that I end up training with for the rest of the time.

The entire time, Sgt. Garza gives a hard time to a recruit named Tran, who I don't even see until the next morning. The reason being is probably that he's tiny. I could hear Sgt. Garza yelling at Tran for the rest of the day, but could never pinpoint the location of this recruit.

We go to evening chow. Same deal as always. About 30 seconds to eat an entire meal and leave. We go back to the squad bay and we take an inventory of the crap we have and the crap we're SUPPOSED to have, but that people have lost. Tomorrow is Black Friday, and we need all of our gear to pick up with our training platoons.

Sgt. Garza yells at Tran for missing things.

Night comes and I have to be on fire watch at one point. I remember meeting Reher, who's name was often mispronounced as "ree-her" or "rear" but is pronounced "rare." He seemed like a good guy. He ended up being pretty cool. He's a Mormon who went to recon, so basically he's one of the baddest SOB's who walks the earth now.

Fire watch consisted of us being awake for an hour in the middle of the night in uniform with our covers on and wearing our geek straps (glow belts) and walking around the squad bay cleaning and whatnot. It was never really defined during the receiving week. I mopped a little bit and swept before I went to sleep.

Tomorrow is Black Friday or pick-up day. That is the day when we meet our actual Drill Instructors for the rest of the cycle. Think beginning of Full Metal Jacket when GySgt. Hartmann introduces himself to his platoon at the beginning of the movie and proceeds to ridicule and mock every one of them while chocking them out and physically beating them. The physical beating thing isn't allowed anymore, but I think that's what we all had in our minds as what would happen the next day.