Boot Camp Part 10

August 16, 2009
Camp Lejeune
21:03

I've been doing a good amount of writing today, the most I've done since back in March and April, so here's a second entry for you.

T3 - Intro to MCMAP (Marine Corps Martial Arts Program aka A Joke)

I remember this day fairly well. It was too hot for training when we were actually supposed to be outside doing MCMAP (pronounced McMap). At the time we were wearing deserts, so for MCMAP we were switching over to greens, which I thought looked pretty badass. They're much more severe looking and with the sleeves rolled down, they just look cooler. At this point I believe we were also wearing our boots. Earlier in the week we were wearing desert cammies with tennis shoes...which obviously looks retarded. There's probably pictures you can find (or I can post) of recruits looking stupid like this.

Either way we were changed over and I was excited and then we had to change back to deserts! It was a "black flag" or something which means the USMC packs up and goes inside for the day. We sat around in one of the other platoon's squad bays as a MCMAP instructor demonstrated some of the Tan Belt moves we would be learning. He briefly mentioned body hardening, which I will get into later.

I became pretty disturbed at the time when we were shown the Eye Gouge move. You read that right, yes. We were shown how to gouge someone's eye out. Well, make that shown how to theoretically gouge an eye out. I doubt if anyone's every tried it with this form of martial arts in Iraq of Afghanitan. Normally we, you know, blow up the enemies with bombs or guns before we get that close. But you never know do you?

After the MCMAP we could have done any number of things. The first week at recruit training is very blurry to me, I can't lie about that. It was a shocking experience (not the first week, but just the whole transition).

Of course, we practiced more drill. See, Initial Drill was coming up in two or three weeks, and we had to look sharp for it, so practice for that is pretty continuous.

T4 - Marine Corps History

T4 was another classroom day.

I wake up, stand on line, get dressed in "300 seconds," go piss, brush my teeth, and get back online. Then I run downstairs in front of the barracks to my spot in the formation and we march to chow. Then we form it up outside and march to the classroom. Today is "History I." We are taught a brief period of history from the genesis of the Marine Corps through the Civil War if I'm not mistaken. Then we leave and do other things. More drill. Weapons maintenance. At some point in the week we learn how to totally disassemble our M16s and clean them, so basically the M16s are now a burden. It's a burden not lifted from our shoulders until November.

T5 - Sprints

This day is simply called "Sprints" on the matrix because that's what we did for PT (physical training). Sprints is a pointless Saturday activity. It's the same old sports exercise where you do high knees down to one end, jog back. Butt kicks and jog back. Sprint down and jog back. Kareoke and jog back. It probably takes three hours for follow series to complete this pointless exercise. This is when I realized that PT in Boot Camp was going to be easy, and I wasn't wrong at all.

Sunday

Another Sunday means another day with free time means another day I spend about an hour at church crying. It feels so strange everytime I go to church, because it's a total escape. I know that between this church service and the next service I'll be going through something awful during the weekdays. Living Boot Camp for me was living from meal to meal, church service to church service. The Drill Instructors will try and convince you that this is the unmotivated to live through the experience, but I guarantee it's the only way anyone makes it. Living meal to meal makes a day go by in the blink of an eye.

When I finish church (which I may have gone to with Pavlik) I power walk back to the squad bay. Every Sunday we have to re-mark everything. This means I have to have a 1 by 6 piece of a note card cut and stamped with my name from my marking kit (a stamp with my name on it which I still have). I need enough of these to mark my foot locker in two places, my rack, my rifle, my rifle rack, and I don't remember what else. This is the first time I've gotten free time all week. We haven't yet begun to get an hour in the evening like we will when our schedule levels out. We've still been showering by the numbers and such. Still playing Two Sheets & a Blanket (tearing the blankets and sheets off our racks and remaking them in a time limit or doing it all over again).

When free time is over we march to lunch. Then we practice drill.

P.S. Sorry for the tense change during the beginning. This isn't the most polished thing in case you haven't noticed. I'm just trying to get my ideas and memories down in a basic skeleton for something to polish later.