A jarhead friend and I were comparing
basic training experiences (telling lies) which prompted a trip down memory
lane.
In 1963 I was about to enter the Army. A
friend in a nearby town had just completed his AIT (Advanced Individual
Training) and shared some fresh intel with me. A stand up guy, he didn’t try to
set me up.
One point he made was that recruits were
always being hustled for money. He said any individual demanding money for
anything was a hustler.
Fast forward to the first day out of
recruit center and in the C/1/1 Basic Training Company. A PFC entered the
barracks with a large box of metal coat hangers, the cheap ones you get from
the dry cleaners. He informed us we needed to give him $2 for enough hangers
for our uniforms. Yeah, right. Having already formed some friendships on the
train ride from Denver and the days at the recruit center, I gut punched the PFC
and threw his ass out the back door and down the steps. My buddies promptly
distributed the hangers. Turns out the PFC was, among other duties, the mail
clerk. This will make sense a little later.
When he went whining to the Corporal who
was our Platoon Leader, he was asked to describe who punched him. Question? Is there
a more anonymous group than Army recruits, shaven heads, new uniforms and no
name tags? How much more can a Corporal fuck with recruits to get answers than
is already built into the program? Did the Corporal even care?
Towards the end of Basic, said PFC gave
us a lecture as to how we were required to give everyone our forwarding address
because he was, “Too damn busy to forward your fucking mail”. I had spotted an
ad in some old magazine gathering dust in the “Day Room” offering to put your
name on 1,000 mailing lists for a dollar. Talked eight or nine guys into
subscribing. Two years later I was still getting mail that had been forwarded
from unit to unit.
This PFC loved to fuck with recruits. Not
that smart. Several of us were sent for AIT about two miles away to the Combat
Engineer School. After two or three weeks we got PX and beer garden privileges.
Guess who we saw at the beer garden? We surely weren’t the first cycle to have “issues”
with him.
My jarhead friend’s description of Marine
Basic sounded tougher that the Army. That said, anyone who thinks circa early
1960’s Army Basic was a walk in the park has their head up their ass.
2 comments:
I think, at the time, all basic and AIT were difficult on us. It was so foreign to what we were use to. I admit, some was much more physical than others, but, still, we had to adjust. That being said, my boot in the Navy was so damn easy. My high school football practice was more physical than boot camp. The Navy built lovers, not fighters.
Physically I had no troubles but I was a ranch kid, a high school wrestler, and was slinging beef in a packing plant just before I went in. They kept us tired. Four to six hours sleep. Other than meals in the mess hall and receiving instruction we never got to sit down.
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