Boot Camp Part 7

May 11, 2009

Camp Lejeune

22:08

Sunday

The first Sunday marks exactly a week since I have seen my family at home. We wake possibly an hour later I believe, but it’s the same as it always is. Waking up during Boot Camp and getting online is my least favorite time of the day until the day I graduate. I just hate having to be rushed through so many things at once and get counted down to dress myself. Of course if someone doesn’t get their left sock on in “100 seconds” than we all have to take off our left socks in a certain time and start all over again. There are several times where we put our socks on, then trousers, and then someone is too slow getting their blouse on so we have to take everything off and start again. Don’t worry; we’re not naked when we start over again. We go to sleep in our green “skivvie” shirt and shorts and wake up wearing them 

Like yesterday, we follow the same basic routine and form up in a platoon formation outside. It’s a long march to the Chow Hall from our barracks, and Sgt. Virto marches us very slow. In theory, I guess you can’t march at a fast cadence if you can’t do it slow first, but it’s very irritating taking such slow steps.

“Left right…left…right…left…right” he calls out.

We eat breakfast and return to the squad bay. We make a head call and form up back outside and march to a large theater. Our whole company is sitting waiting, along with everyone else who is waiting for the Protestant service to start. I’m hoping I don’t have to sit through a generic non-denominational service. Luckily we start breaking off by religion.

“Lutherans!” I get up and run outside through a door. It’s kind of weird getting screamed at when you’re on your way to church. There are a handful of Lutherans. We march from the auditorium all the way across the entire parade deck and to the opposite side of the parking lot next to it. The Lutheran chapel is in the far corner of the Recruit Training Regiment area. The Drill Instructors tell us to be respectful and to not fall asleep. They’re not allowed inside the actual church though, and they wait outside menacingly, prowling around.

The inside of the chapel is nice. It reminds me of my church at home, simple and homey. It’s sort of small, but its enough room for the Lutherans. There’s an old woman answering some of our questions before church starts. She explains that it’s a generic Lutheran service, and the green hymnals in the pews support her statement.

I’m thinking about how Mellies raised his hand two separate times when Catholics were called to stand up yesterday and when Jews were asked to stand. Apparently he’s a Catholic Jew. We’ll pick that story up near the end of Second Phase.

The Chaplain is in the front walking around. He looks to be about in his forties. I later learn that he’s a Lieutenant Commander, which is the equivalent of a Major in the Marine Corps.

He tells us that he is a Lutheran Church Missouri Synod Chaplain, which sets my mind at ease when I think about taking communion. Now I know that it’s safe for me to do so. I start missing home. I’m sitting there in the pew next to these other brand new recruits and recruits who are way ahead of us in training surround us. They look bigger, tougher, and more confident. We look like kids.

Before the first hymn plays, the Chaplain asks the first row of people to stand up and face us. They’re wearing Service Charlies (a sort of dress uniform) and are brand new Marines. We clap for them and they sit down. When the music starts playing I start thinking of my family back home sitting in my church. My dad’s giving the sermon and my mom and sister are singing in choir. Everyone else I know is there, not a worry in the world compared to what’s going on in my mind.

 I can’t sing because my voice is almost totally gone from yelling. An unknown fact about me is that I actually enjoy singing in church, and this new development depresses me even more than I already am. My eyes start to fill with tears. One rolls down my cheek. I try and keep this hidden from others around me but I notice that most of them are crying too. Between no one knowing how to sing, no one’s voice being good enough to sing, and people crying, the hymn doesn’t really work, but the organist covers it up well.

I spend the rest of the service trying not to just burst into tears. When the sermon comes I do my best to stay awake. Others openly sleep. Some people have somehow snuck the sports sections of newspapers in and are reading them. I’m ashamed of the people who go to church to simply escape since I actually have gone to church almost every Sunday my entire life.

After the service is over and I calm down, there’s a five minute break and then we have about an hours worth of a Luther’s Catechism class type thing. After that we leave and it’s back into reality for me.

We get into our column of twos and march back to the theater. We rejoin people in our platoons and wait to go to lunch. We march to the chow hall, eat, and go back to the squad bay.

 

I don’t remember what we did back there, but I know we had our IT brief that day. We march back down the main road to a grassy area with a red PT table. The series Drill Instructors get in the table and recruits from a third phase platoon are called out. We learn about IT. IT stands for Incentive Training. It’s known more commonly as “getting slayed” or “going to the dirt.” It’s what happens when you get in trouble. It involves doing a few exercises at a fast pace in succession without stopping. It’s awful. The exercises include:

Pushups

Side Straddle Hops (Jumping Jacks)

Crunches

Steam Engines

Mountain Climbers

Other companies may have had different ones, but these are the main five that we had to do. Tomorrow, the first Monday, it was fair game for the DIs to IT anyone who screwed up, no matter how small the mistake they made.