We were now into our third week and things were not getting any better. We were running further and drilling was getting more intense. It seems that there was at least two or three constant screw ups in our platoon. The drill instructors started getting more pissed off at the same two or three people. The platoon was getting more upset at these same individuals. We all started warning them of the consequences that could happen to them if the didn’t straighten out. Well I guess that it was just too much for two of them. The next morning when Hernandez came into the hut where they stayed he found both of them in bed together. The dummies fell asleep together.
All hell was about to break loose. Hernandez made me go get Tagalari. We were called out to formation, then the two men were called to the front. Hernandez ordered them to their knees. He asked them if they were queer, and they both said yes. I don’t think that the drill instructors believed them. Tagalari came around the platoon and stood before the men, unzipped his fly, pulled his dick out and told them to suck it. Of course they did not do so and it made most of us laugh which cause us all some pain.
The two were escorted to the Commanding officers office. The rest of us got to do 50 push ups. We never saw the two men again. One way I guess to get kicked out of the Marines is to do something like that.
In the next couple of weeks we had two more men try something to get out of boot camp. Both tried to make it across the San Diego air strip that was almost right next to the quonset huts. Jet liners land and take off every 6 minutes, the possibility of making it across was doubtful was told to us when we first got to boot camp by the drill instructors. The only other way to go A.W.O.L. (Absent with out leave), was to try to cross the freeway, and that was harder then crossing the airstrip. Obviously the best way was to finish and graduate from boot camp.
You know that when you are given a choice between staying at the huts and squaring things away or running five miles and as a group you choose the latter every time, then you know that there was brain washing happening to you. We would get this choice a couple times a week and we always chose to run.
Letters home and receiving them could be a chore in boot camp. I say a chore because it was demanded that you write home every week. Receiving letters (mail call), could be fun, or it could lead to push ups. Letters usually from girl friends with the S.W.A.K. on the backside of the envelope would mean push ups and you needed to kiss the envelope however many times the Drill instructors said. If there was a picture of your honey sent along then you had to open it up and show everyone in the platoon. It was then placed on the Hog Board.
I couldn’t wait for boot camp to be over with. The ten weeks sure did not go by fast, the clock seemed to slow down. Every time you saw a jet take off you wished you were on it. The one company of jets was called PSA, and on each jet there was a line painted toward the nose and under the cockpit that looked like a smile. So that would piss me off. My imagination would let me think that every one on those jets was smiling at me and waving goodbye. I wanted it to be my turn.
