Some of the recruits were heavy set. That was an issue that would haunt them the whole time they would be in boot camp. I only weighed 122 pounds. I needed to put on some weight.
After we all had our hair cuts we were taken to another large building. There we had been told to strip down and put all of our belongings into a box. If you had any weapons, like guns, knives, blades or any kind of drugs, those items you should throw into the trash can provided. If you had any of these things and you threw them away you would be off the hook. If you proceeded to put them in the box with your personal belongings then you would be under arrest. The trash can was filled with a lot of stuff.
We were given some socks, and sweat cloths. Then we were marched to where we were going to live during our time at MCRD. We marched past some buildings that looked like living quarters. I thought to myself, not bad. We however kept marching a ways until we came to some buildings called quonset huts. This was going to be our homes for the next ten weeks.
We were assigned a hut and a bunk. We were told to get to sleep because in a little while we were going to be very busy with another full day. I had just fallen to sleep when all kinds of yelling started. It was one of the drill sergeants. he came in and kicked over a trash can, shaking all of the bunks and screaming to get dressed and get out side in formation.
In formation? What the hell was that? Well it didn’t take long to learn what they meant. Make four rows of equal lengths. Then you would stick out your right arm and touch the next mans shoulder for spacing.
It must be to be a Marine was to be able to yell at the top of your lungs. That’s all we heard and the way we answered back. Yes sir! No sir!
The day was filled with a lot of running to one location to another. We got a duffel bag and then we received our dungarees, olive green, socks, olive green, blouses (little rubber bands to hold our trousers up over our boots), olive green, covers (hats) olive green, skivvies (under wear) white.
Then we would get medical shots. In both sides of the butt, in the arm both sides, and after each shot we had to do push ups. We received shots with needles, and with something new a gun at one point we got the gun shot into each arm at the same time. That was scary. We were assured that we would be immune to just about everything.
Then it was picture time. We all lined up and when it was our turn we had a Blues uniform placed on us. I said placed because it was just the front and top half of a uniform. This picture would be our graduation picture, if we lived that long.
Sergeant Hernandez, was a short but very muscular, mean bastard. He was the lead Drill Sergeant. He would stand in front of you and then get to his tip toes to look in your eyes and to yell in your ear. He could bark out orders with the best of them. Surely he was what they made movies of drill sergeants from.
Sergeant Tagalari was another short framed man. His deal was that he liked to get you to smile and then you would get caught by Hernandez and he would come over to you and grab your throat and choke the hell out of you all the while yelling, what the fuck are you smiling at ass hole? Of course you couldn’t answer because you were passing out. Then he would let go just before you did.
