[ARCHIVED THREAD] - drill instructors (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 12/20/2004 6:18:36 AM EDT
c'mom jarheads, grunts ect. let's here about the meanest, toughest SOB of a drill sargeant you had in Basic Training. I was in the Air Force, so we had it pretty light  ...but I'm sure some of you Marines went through absolute hell....  |
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Not true. While I was at MCRD San Diego a friend was at Lackland. This was in 87. The training guys (whatever the Air Force called them) told the boots they could go to the patio area one night, and then made them refold their underwear for the evening instead. The promise of free time was a mind game. At the time my friend could have gotten out of most of air force training because he had gotten to a high rank in CAP, but he joined the air guard and they made him go to all of air force boot. |
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I graduated Navy boot camp December 3rd... My RDCs (recruit division commanders) were a mixed bag. EM1 Carpenter and CTT1 Dahlinghaus really changed my outlook on a lot of things. They also beat us mercilessly almost every night. I'm not complaining at all, it got me in shape. I might think of stories later but I'm on leave now so I don't want to think about it. 
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I went to Ft Leonardwood for basic in Aug of '87. I had a drill that was a drunken mean SOB. The first week of basic he dropped us in the barracks and made us push while he did a "White Tornado" tossing all of our effects into a pile. While pushing, he found some gum in a wall locker and kicked it owner in the arm and broke it with a loud snap. Called the guy a pussy for screaming and stormed out. Later, on the first live fire range, another PVT had a "pop-no-kick" round. Raised his hand for help. The same drill grabbed the rifle and threw it down range yelling "your a F-ing F-up Joe!" He then grabbed the chin strap of the PVT and shook him around in the fox hole and proceeded to yank him out of the hole. Broke his neck. Later that afternoon, at our after dinner formation, he proceeded to rip into a Korean guy who was a SGT in the ROK Army. This guy was a quiet bad-ass. His shit was always together. The drill called him out of formation and threatened to kick his ass in front of everyone. All of the other drills knew this korean was a small but deadly package. The other DI's turned around as the drill took off his brown round and proceeded to instigate a fight. They knew what was happening. As soon as the brown round came off and the fist went back, the Korean laid waste to the DI and it was over. The ambulance was called. The next morning, the drill was collecting our bed linens, the following week he was in the arms room, sans rank and then he disappeared. Rumor was that he was courtmartialled and kicked out.
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The mean ones don't stand out as much to me as the "nice" one does. Poor guy, E-5, just finished DS school and was our asst. DS. The guy still hadn't learned to be "mean" yet. He used to talk to us like any other soldier and not like recruits.  That's untill some of the senior DS's had a talking to him. As basic progressed so did his "meanness level". 
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Really,Tell us more.  |
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Not on the "mean" scale, but funny. Scrubbing shitters one day when the DI's called a smoke break. A few minutes later I thought there was a fire becasue there was so much smoke drifting into the head. Took a look outside to see what was up, and all the smokers had 5 cancer sticks each stuffed in their mouths, and they were all various shades of green. "Inhale, hold it, exhale!" Glad I did not smoke in boot camp! Another, after a long hard day. DI called a smoke break, took the smokers outside. Had then hold the smokes over their heads and had them break it. Smoke break! Followed by a little thrashing if I recall. I can't recall them ever being "mean", just tough, professional grade hardasses, and they were good at it, too. Semper Fi Matthew |
| I did basic at Ft.Dix in 82. My DI's hadn't trained a company of all females before. Lets just say it was interesting. At that point they had gone back to segrated basic training. I actually felt sorry for some of the guys that had female DI's,some of them were real bitches,oh my God. It was as if they were out to prove something. What I wasn't sure other than how much of a bitch they were. |
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Ft. Sill, OK: Aug 95-Oct 95..... i remember one instance after morning PT, we were not allowed to walk on the grass....so coming in from the parking lot..there was a small strip of grass between the parking lot and sidewalk...i jumped over it onto the sidewalk...i didnt touch the grass...but this was unacceptable in the eyes of one crazy mofo drill we had, Drill Sgt. Vega. he was tabbed out, ranger, SF, pathfinder, airborne, air assault, etc. etc. etc...this fugger was nuts..you could see it in his eyes...anyway....he chases me down..takes me back out into the parking lot and makes me low crawl in my pt shorts and shirt across the parking lot...up the sidewalk, up the stairs (3rd floor) and over to my wall locker.....where i rush to get changed for the day, as i'm changing, he comes back over and asks why the private was bleeding and what i had done to myself, he then proceeded to smoke me for close to an hour for hurting myself....what a bastard, LOL. that was just one instance, this guy was nuts...saw him throw a guy AND his bunk across the bay because the guy didnt want to get out of bed. 
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My scariest DI, of the 3, was Sgt Kirkendall. A short, muscled angry little man with a tatto of a skull w/ a topknot on his arm. He basically scared the fuck out of me for the whole 3 months. One of our DIs hit a recruit in the head with an iron. Yes an ironing iron. He was quickly transferred to another platoon.
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| i also got in trouble a few times for laughing....but i couldnt help it....some of the shit they come up w/ is classic material...we had this guy in our platoon, his last name was one of those long ones that ended in "ski" it was like Kovolaski or something like that.....the drill was calling role the first morning of basic, and goes "pvt. kov....kovol....PRIVATE ALPHABET, MOVE YOUR ASS!!!" and i lost it....needless to say i was doing pushups and running for awhile after that. |
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Sgt. Vihill was just plain fucked up. He reminds me (looks wise) of George McFly with coke bottle glasses. He tried his best to be a badass DI. The guttural voice, but about five octaves to high. He would pack the whole platoon into the classroom (about 20'x20') and make us hold our heads back and make us start spinning around. About the puke level of dizziness, he would say, "Flop". We'd all hit the deck prone. He then would yell, "Flip", flop, flip, flop," etc......Meaning you had to flip over to you back, then to belly and so on. You had no choice but to get kicked in the face and your fingers crunched, but you did the same to your fellow recruit. He like to call this game, "Fish." His other favorite was "Snake." One recruit versus another. You would be on your belly, hands behind your back about 10 feet away from your opponent. Sgt. Vihill would would shout, "Slither," and the objective was, whoever could get by the other via biting, headbutting, spitting, whatever way you could think of, but not using your hands, would win. About halfway through second phase, we never saw him again. |
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When I was at Parris Island, our "heavy" DI, Sgt. Walters, was a huge 6' something bald, black guy with a 6" long and 1/2" wide scar on the back of his head. Apparently he saw me smile at the chow hall one day. Next thing I knew he had picked me up out of my chair by my neck. He's holding me in the air, with my toes dangling above the floor. I was choking a bit. He was screaming "What the fuck do you have to smile about?". For fun he'd give us the gas chamber when we scuzzed the deck. He'd fill a trash can with so many different cleaning chemical that it created a noxious cloud in the closed up building. He also like to take recruits into the "Big Gear Locker" in the squad bay, and give them some remedial training, aka an ass kicking. If I ran into him today, I would still fear him. Semper Fi |
| Air Force...Had a T.I. get pissed over a dirty latrine. Took everyone in there and proceded to dig his fingers under the rim of every bowl, the backside of every urinel and the drians in the shower. His fingers were full of the nastiest shit I ever saw. He takes them and scrubs his gums with his nasty fingers and licks his lips and says "the next time its like this YOU GUYS will be the ones to eat it!". Also did a two mile run in black flag conditions (temperature over 110 degrees in Texas summer) wearing our field jackets. We had one quarter of our guys actaully fall out and a few of them passed unconscious. The guys that passed out got sent to the medical unit to either get kicked out or get, what we called, "recycled". Recycling is where you get held back a grade, like school, which some guys would have rather been kicked out than repeat basic. We never saw our T.I. after that day. We got a "nicer" one. |
I went to Sill for basic as well... was there in 94. I remember Vega however he was not one of my Drill Sergeants. the craziest bastard we had was SSG Castillo. That guy would ride me up one side and down the other!! |
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nope Charlie |
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Senior Drill Instructor Ssgt. Hakala climbed the ropes, one in each hand "donkey kong" style, then did a bunch of pull ups on the top beam, then hauls himself up on the top beam to "motivate" us. This was the first time up the ropes. Motivating as hell! He was/is a kick ass Marine!
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holy cow mine wasn't nearly as bad... My platoon DS's were like angels compared to some of your guys. However, some other PLT's had dicks. One time, these 2-3 kids confessed to chewing in BT, and their DS's made them take all their mattresses down the stairs, pile them up in the CTA/Company area, and then back upstairs and all bunks had to be made within 15mins. Needless to say, they were out there from 3pm to 2am doing that while the rest of us did training that day.
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Every morning in boot you get 5 minutes to "shit, shower and shave". Well I had the runs one morning and went a little over my 5 minutes. The drill instructor comes in and stares at me since the stalls have no doors. He begins to yell at me and it goes something like this: " pinch it off", "no sir", "PINCH IT OFFFFFFFFFF", "no sir", "PINCH IT OFF NOWWWWWWW", "NOOO SIRRR". Eventually he left and I finished one of the most uncomfortable shits I've ever taken.
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There I am at MCRD San Diego, and things are moving along like you might expect. We get through first phase (back in 87 you ended first phase, got to blouse your pant legs over your boots, and then left for the rifle range at Edson on the bus, not sure what they do now. Back then phase one was for getting yelled at and doing lots of PT and such). We got yelled at and minor head games and bend and thrust exercises and all that, but nothing too bad for what you would figure MCRD to be. All of the sudden our senior is gone, and about a week later the other two drills say goodbye and we get a whole new set, one odd looking sgt as the senior, one boot DI right out of the school, and this older black dude who has been through a few cycles and is an MP in the fleet. Word comes down in rumor form that our old senior had gone after his daughter's BF with a shotgun, and the Jrs were relieved for trying to cover for him. Turns out our new senior was some rising star, but he ends up having been promoted too fast. About three weeks into his tenure he starts hurting people, I mean punching and slapping people for no good reason, making us 'thrash' (exercise) and STOMPING on people's hands and arms. He ends up hurting some people, broken wrists/arms, black eyes, bad sprains, pushes a guy down the backside of mount mutherfucker breaking his leg. He makes the same deal with each 'Keep your mouth shut and you graduate with the platoon'. We end up with two guys on perm bay watch (leg injuries) and a few more on perm light duty marching with us (arms). The boot DI didn't know any better, but the MP, who was supposed to be the heavy and was the heavy the first two weeks (making us PT a lot, making us clean the floor by running back and forth pushing a hand towel on the floor, swearing and threatening with all the skill of his police experience) shuts up other then to give legit orders and is never present at the same time as the senior. It finally happens. Someone is not cleaning fast enough, so the senior orders the guide to assist him in moving the recruit, which they do by picking him up and throwing him sideways into a rack, dislocating his hip. At about that point it started to come apart. They got to graduate us, but they really had to chill out, and shortly afterwards some punishment was handed out, the injuried now Marines who were on medical hold got to testify. (Found out it is much better to be on med hold as a graduate Marine then a recruit BTW, when I spoke to one of the guys later on in korea) |
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Drill Instructor Sergeant Washam. I have since heard from someone who served in Force Recon with him that he's a great guy, but he was a prick to us. He called us "bitches" and in Third Phase would not call cadence or allow one of us to, instead making us "slime" everywhere --walking out of step like a disorganized mob. Our platoon won the lion's share of the interplatoon competitive events in our company, so it wasn't like we were AFU, but Washam was a prick. He's the only Drill Instructor against whom I ever seriously considered doing violence. |
jesus christ... :thumbdown: |
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I am a southpaw shooter. After qualifying expert on the M16, a drill, SGT Lepkowski called me out and ripped me for being what he called "Top Shot" in the company. He made me "requalify" as he called it only this time right handed. Growing up, I was the only kid in the neigborhood that was a lefty. Playing guns or army, I would get picked on by the other kids. So I learned to shoot righty too so I wouldn't get picked on and beat up any more. I became deady with my crossman airgun!!! Needless to say, I shot expert again, righty...36 out of 40. This pissed him off to no-end. I did grass drills the rest of the day. When I got back to the barracks, he had me disassemble and clean my weapon one piece at a time. Then I had to low-crawl to his office on the other end of the barracks for inspection. This made for a long night. I had to clean the chamber 4 times alone!!! After that, he was cool with me. My parents couldn't make graduation. We hung out in the Senior Drill office drinking beer and watching the world series. He told me I got the worst he had given out yet. The Senior Drill had bet him I wouldn't last! |
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Parris Island, Dec 1999 Drill Instructor SSgt Stringert was one of the the meanest little red-haired sonofabitches I ever met in the Marines, and he smoked us constantly, but he didn't compare to our senior. Everybody explained to us that we had a "heavy" and our Senior was supposed to look after us, but that's bullshit. I saw some of his commendations, and it turns the guys nickname is "Short Fuse". We spent a whole afternoon polishing our boots, then run down to the pit and smoke OURSELVES while he watched from above, all the time threatening that if we didn't do it right, he would come do it for us. He never actually hurt any of us, but halfway through, we got a new DI fresh from training, and he bumped one guy on purpose but he was too close to the stairs and he fell/rolled down to the next landing and got has ass sent off as a medical. ETA: One of the heavies in another platoon in our company got in some shit for making his guys do side straddle hops on their knees in full battle gear. Had to hate that! |
Drop and give me 100! MOVE!!!!
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Sgt. Blankenship Bravo Co. 1/38th Infantry "Rock of the Marne" Ft. Benning Georgia 1990-1991 I look back and actually feel sorry for the guy. I know we thought he was crazy, (hell, everyone thinks their Drill is crazy) HE ACTUALLY WAS SENT TO A PSYCH WARD around our 14th week. Looking back at the things he said and did, It was a wonder a few of us weren't really killed or hurt badly. The guy brought a loaded .357 everywhere tucked inside his waistband under his BDU top. |
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Parris Island '86. Senior drill instructor SSGT Hedlund. Now that was a mean SOB. Was an extra in the "Great Santini" and was always showing us a pic of himself and Robert Duval. If you ever got a pic in the mail with any female relative, his favorite line was "does she suck D!@k?" As in ...."So this is your mom, huh? ....... Does she suck D!@k? I bet she does!" LOL! At seventeen a bit imposing but, almost 20 years later, DAMN FUNNY! SGT Garcia. A little chichuaha of a man. YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP! Man, I've got some stories! AH, memories........ |
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Drill Sgt. Leon, Ft. Jackson, SC, 1996. One of the best summers ever. I thought I would do alot of pushing and sit-up cause I was fat(15% bodyfat was fat to my drill) but I was wrong. I did alot of pushing, sit-ups, running, and my favorite, the dying cocroach, because I was stupid and I laughed at everthing the drill said. I mean this guy was funny, he had a very dry sense of humor and I really think that he should have persued stand up. The only problem was he didn't think that I should think that he was funny.fuggin a
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Sgt Ed White, 21 years old , seven months 1st ID RVN, four purple hearts, two bronze stars w/v device, silver star, Mississippi draftee, soft slow talking one on one, screaming maniac with a platoon, would clear out the mess hall by running down the tables kicking trays and privates indiscriminately, could jump flat footed into the back of a pick up truck, would flip bunk beds over with you in them if you were too slow, would tie boots together and throw them in the top of a pine tree, had no conception of day or night, his favorite punishment was low crawling for ungodly distances and time periods, I saw him grab a trainee's m16 when three deer ran on a range and hit all of them with one burst. This was at Fort Benning, Harmony Church, 1969 rk |
OH MY GOODNESS!!! That is GREAT!!! 
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