A friend of mine just got out of boot camp today which got me thinking about boot camp.
Lets hear about your worst or funniest boot camp experience.
 

Bump for the day crew.

Off the top of my head its the three or four idiots who don't know their right from their left. I mean, how hard is it to freakin' "left face"? I never got into a fight during boot camp but I wanted to walk over and smash this MF in the mouth after having to to bends & thrusts and mountain climbers till I thought I was going to pass out!

Guy who bunked above me was sent to dental to have 4 wisdom teeth pulled the dentist Slipped and cut his tounge in Halfit looked horrible.....needless to say he had a rack-pass for a couple days...................

There was a draftee in my Basic Training company at Ft. Ord that decided he didn't want to do his two years of active duty, so he looked for a way out.  He did not make a wise choice.  

At one of our first live-fire range days with our M-16A1's, this moron tried to shoot off the tip of his right index finger (his trigger finger), hoping nobody would be looking, and that he could claim it was an accident.  He later confessed that he wanted to inflict a minor wound to himself that would get him out of the Army, but wouldn't be too serious.

He was part of a firing line practicing prone-supported, and when he moved his trigger finger to the muzzle of his M-16, a couple of trainees saw him, but nobody thought to call "Cease Fire."  When he pulled the trigger, the 5.56mm bullet did a lot more damage than he intended.  He ended up losing three fingers, and was told to expect a Dishonorable Discharge.    

Had a guy named Merris (SP?) who wigged out and went AWOL. They found him at the airport wearing only his sea bag with a neck and arm holes cut into it.

One of the female companies in my training group had a bunch of girls get caught pleasuring themselves with tubes of toothpaste.

Had a guy in our brother company try to cut his wrists.....with an electric razor!

A guy got some wisdom teeth removed (cut out) and they cut a nerve in his face somehow leaving him with a permanent sag. He started sleepwalking and got the boot.

.

We had a chronic late-night LOUD bayonet polisher in our platoon.

He got the boot.


I don't know how the hell he ever passed the eye test.

So we are practicing coming under artillery attack, which I suspect was just a way to rag us out, and they had us runing around then diving to the ground in the Georgia summer, "9 o'clock: 100 meters- GO!" "6 o'clock: 75 meters-GO!" and on and on.  We had already been in the field a day or two practicing being miserable.  
So are at it for an hour or so when, after diving to the ground, one of the guys screams in horor "Oh, OH GODDD! SHIIIT!!"  He staggers to his feet and his whole front is splattered in a copious amount of seriously foul extrement: BDU top, bottom and LBE.  He ran and dove into some joe's late night drop point, who I can only assume was terminally ill with volume of shit spread about the place.  Needless to say everyone fell out laughing their asses off and he ran around trying to give everyone a hug.

Those were the days.

When you first arrive at basic training in the Army, you end up at the reception center, where everything is oh, so cozy. The Drill sergeants are friendly & polite, etc etc. This is to lull you into a false sense of security. After you get your head shaved, the inprocessing paperwork done, and all your stuff issued, you get loaded (ie: crammed like sardines) into some buses for the trip to your training unit.

As the buses pulled into the unit parking lot (aka: the drill pad), we could see our Drill sergeants hovering like a school of sharks, eagerly awaiting the chance to pounce. Once the bus came to a stop, a Drill Sergeant would climb aboard and give the usual "You got 5 seconds to get off, and 4 are gone" BS you see in the movies, and so you have to grab up your duffle bag & 2 laundry bags, all of which are FULL of crap, and get the hell off the bus. Well, the Drill Sergeant doesn't see any point in getting out of the way, so you have to go around him AND those 2 freakin vertical bars at the front. Naturally, my stuff hung up on one of the bars, and when I jerked it free, my duffle bag hit the Drill Sergeant (SSG Zachary, I never will forget that dude). His eyes got as big as saucers, and a look of pure rage spread across his face as our eyes met. In a rare moment of clarity, I realized that my life depended on getting away from him, so out the door I went.

Now, when I got off the bus, I was greeted by a scene of total chaos. Guys were spread out all over the place, doing push-ups of course (with their duffle bags still on their backs, of course), with fanged demons dressed as Drill Sergeants standing over them, screaming some of the most imaginative profanity I had ever heard. My mind racing in a blind panic, I saw that on tyhe ground were lines of footprints, so in another moment of clarity, I figured that "hey...maybe I ought to go stand on a set of those footprints" and so I did, dropping my bags at my side, and standing at what I thought might be a decent approximation of "Attention". A DS passed in front of me and looked me up & down. I tried to keep my eyes focused past him, but I did manage to recognize the face of the DS that had been on my bus.
*side note: I later learned that "oh, shit" is the vocalization most used by people that realize their death is approaching*
Anyway, I must have done the correct thing, because he got this look on his face--I mean, he really did look like he wanted to rip my head off, but he left me alone. The rest of the day is a blur...




We had an inspection by our Senior Drill Sergeant, and when he got to me, I did the inspection arms thing, and while he was looking my weapon over, he asked me to recite my first general order. I did so, but as I did, my voice got lower in volume for some reason. He then asked me to continue, and recite the second. Same thing, and by the time I got to the end of it, my voice was just barely audible, and he had to lean in close just to hear it. The whole time, I'm wondering "wtf is the deal with my voice?" So he tells me to go on with the third, and since my voice had by now all but disappeared, he kept leaning in. Determined not to sound like a mouse this time, I drew a deep breath, and overcompensated by booming it out as loud as I could without actually screaming. LOL, he jerked back with a look of total surprise, and looked at me, I guess trying to decide wether or not I was fucking with him. I am assuming that it was the look of terror on my face that saved me, because he simply stepped on to the next guy.

First day downrange at the Benning School for Wayward Boys, I called the Senior DS "sir". SFC Marrero made the next few hours a hell I will never forget.


Then we had this smartmouth Yankee fro NYC who was also shooting his mouth off about us Southern Boys and the South in gerneral. So, one day we are all tired after humping around in the July Georgia heat  and smartass yankee was looking for a nice comfortable seat in the shade of a Pine tree. We pointed out a big mound of red dirt and told him that was the sofest place to sit. Needless to say I guess he had never seen a fire ant mound before. Hillarity insued and I have never seen so much screaming and cryin nor the shucking of a set of BDU'S in my life. All the time the DS's are wondering wtf is going on! He wasn't such a smart mouth yankee after that.

I called the Senior DS "sir". SFC Marrero made the next few hours a hell I will never forget.

How are you supposed to address them?

Quoted: I called the Senior DS "sir". SFC Marrero made the next few hours a hell I will never forget. How are you supposed to address them?

In the Army, it's 'Drill Sergeant' (during BCT/AIT), then 'Sergeant' there-forward for E-5 to E-8 unless said NCO is serving as 1SG...

Sir is for officers...

Oh, and don't 'Sir Sandwitch' an O, he'll quickly remind you that 'You didn't join the Marine Corps, and he's not a Jarhead' or something similar....

Quoted: I called the Senior DS "sir". SFC Marrero made the next few hours a hell I will never forget. How are you supposed to address them?

you mean the guys who work for a living?

Heh....oh boy....


One day we're doing PT on the football field size field we did PT on.  We are in formation and the DS tells us to do something different today and to spread out.  I was like, "What the fuck are we doing?" to my battle buddy.  Of course, the DS was right behind me and heard me.
"What the fuck we are doing PVT Gibbs is...."  I was like, "Oh man I'm so screwed..."  But nothing ended up happening and I got a laugh out of it.



Another time, we were doing group runs.  A,B,C and D, A being fastest.  Well me and my battle buddy didnt give a crap and ran in C group.  After about a mile, one kid fell out and puked so he needed a battle buddy so I went with him.  If you fall out of a run, you have to do flutterkicks and get smoked until one of the officers came back and picked up stragglers.  So I'm standing there jogging in place while others are getting smoked because they fell out.  Our 2nd LT was like, "What the fuck?  What the fuck are you doing?!"  I look around and realize he's talking to me....."I'm running, sir?"  
"Why arent you doing flutterkicks?!"  
"Because I didnt fall out sir"  
"Then what are you doing here?!"  
"This guy fell out and needed a battle buddy!"  
"So you fell out too?"  
"No....I'm his battle buddy!"
"So....you fell out too!"
"Are you fuckin kidding me sir?!"
"Nope, get down too..."
"Aw man, what the fuck....I'm never being anyones battle buddy again, screw this!"



So then we start running again and we're going slow.....I mean like 9min mile slow.  And people are still having problems.  So me and the LT are running and people are 20-30m behind us.  Every few minutes we'd run backwards and he'd yell at them to tighten up.

It was just pretty cool to be out running with this 2nd LT who got a Silver Star in Afghanistan for lobbing some M203 rounds over some boulders and helping stop an advance of insurgents towards him and his mens' position.  
As well as a purple heart for taking an AK round to the neck.



Heh...my parents sent me a lot of crap in the mail.  Toiletries mostly.  We had inspection one day and I had 3/4 of a duffel bag full of stuff.  The DS goes through my locker and dumps the bag on the floor and walks back to the middle area of the barracks right in front of me like he just saw Casper fucking Bambi.  He's like, "PVT GIBBS?!??!???????  What da fuck?!  How much shit do you need?!???"  I and everyone else start laughing and I'm like, "What can I say DS, my moms crazy"  
He says, "I fuckin guess!     Privates, we are no longer going to have weekly trips to the PX.  Private Gibbs here has his own fuckin General Store where you will get what you need!"



Then another time we were on a bivouac and its early in the morning and we are changing socks/underwear before sunrise.  One of the NG guys we got that was splitop was wearing white boxers which is a huge nono.  One of the meanest and most dickheadish DS is walking by, then stops....then he backs up.  He says, "What the fuck, private??"
The kid just wearing boxes goes to parade rest and says, "Yes DS?"
The DS walks up to him and asks him whats going on..the kid produces a piece of paper from his ruck thats a doctors note that says he can wear boxers because he had some kind of operation down there and cant wear underwear because it is constricting.
The DS looks at the piece of paper, throws it up in the air and walks away shaking his head saying "Now I've fucking seen everything....holy shit..."




We're on another couple night bivouac and our PLT is on a hill about 200m away from everyone else.  Its 5am and we go down to this open field near the other platoons....we start to hear music and we're like what the hell?
As we get closer and closer, the same DS as above has his yellow Ford Ranger in the field playing ICP and he's smoking his platoon to it!  Imagine doing flutterkicks to "The Neden Game"  or "Fat Sweaty Betty"  
He then walks over to us and is like, "Yeah, what chu know bout ICP???"
One of the NG splitops who didnt know not to fuck with this guy is like, "I do DS!"
The DS says, "Oh do ya?  You're a ninja are ya?"
Kid says, "Yes I am DS"
We're all looking at each other like, "Oh man, we are so fucked"....

DS looks him up and down and says, "Boy, get the fuck outta here, you aint no ninja..."
Kid says, "Yes I am!"
DS "Boy....do you braid your nuthair??"

And we just lost it, we're on the ground laughing our asses off...

Quoted: I called the Senior DS "sir". SFC Marrero made the next few hours a hell I will never forget. How are you supposed to address them?

I would get yelled at for calling my instructors "sir" in Navy boot camp, but I explained to them that I'm from Texas and out of respect call everyone "sir" or "ma'am" and they got over it.

Some disgusting fatbody left a jelly donut in his foot locker.  Gunny was NOT happy.

We had a guy whose last name was Kuntz. nuff' said.



I had quite a few girls sending me letters, so I was called Private blueballs.

I was sleeping peacefully in my rack one night, when my shitbag top rack mate got up, stepped on my rack getting down, and woke me up.  I started to say "What the fuck, Peck?", when I noticed he was still asleep, facing my rack, and pulling out his doogan.  My catlike reflexes allowed me to combat roll out of bed onto my feet just in time to miss the stream of urine.  He was sleep walking, and thought he was in the head.  

I woke his bitch ass up, then made him swap our mattresses and linen, so he had to sleep in piss until the next laundry day.

There were a pair of guys in my platoon that had joined up on the buddy system, their names were Earthy and George.  Now Earthy was bound and determined to have a drink before the rules said we could have alcohol....  this was during OSUT at Fort Knox in the very early 80s.   First, Earthy had one of his relatives send him a bottle of vodka.  The result looked something like this:

The platoon is standing in it's formation, in it's "box" just outside the barracks, right after lunch one afternoon about five weeks into training.  Dril Sgt (SFC) Stogdill is calling out daily mail when he gets to a box that's fairly heavy and rectangular but still just small enough to be held in one hand - he looks at the address and yells out "Earthy, front and center!"

Earthy cleanly exits the formation and presents himself to the Drill.  SFC Stogdill hands him the package without saying anything and Earthy does a left face to return to the formation... he gets about a half a step off when Drill Stogdill stops him with "Why don't you open that right here son."

Now Earthy's nervous, he knows what's in the box and he knows he's not supposed to be getting it in the mail.  As he kind of shakily unwraps the package you can almost see him thinking about how many pushups this one is going to cost him!    Finally, he pulls a full bottle of vodka out of the box.  The real surprise is that Drill Sgt Stogdill isn't screaming at him as the bottle appears.  Instead, Stogdill quietly asks Earthy if he can see the bottle.  Earthy hands it to him, still amazed he isn't pushing Kentucky away from him that very moment....

Drill Sgt Stogdill calmly asks Earthy if he can open the bottle...  "May I?" he asks while mimicing opening the bottle.

Earthy, still speechless, can only nod yes silently.

Drill Sgt Stogdill opens the bottle and takes a whiff of the vodka within.   "Mmmmm, that smells good Earthy!" He smiles.  "Mind if I take a taste?"

Again Earthy merely nods.

Drill Sgt Stogdill takes a good long pull from the bottle, easily a three or four shot chug of vodka.  He wipes his lips, caps it and hands the bottle back to Earthy, then says "Wow!  That's some good shit!!!!"

Earthy takes the bottle in hand and makes about another step and a half back towards the formation before the Drill interrupts him one more time...


"STOP Earthy."    Earthy freezes.   The Drill points at the base of big oak tree in the lawn between the box and the barracks.  "Pour it out!"


Sadly, almost forelornly Earthy proceeds to pour out the remainder of the vodka and I could've swore I saw a tear come out of his eye.  The Drill Sgt just chuckled and eventually dropped Earthy for 50 pushups.


Earthy and George had a few more encounters in their quest for alcohol and I even covered for them once, but I'll type one or more of those at a later date.




note:  I eventually switched services and spent my time in the USAF but I will NEVER forget basic training!

Got off the bus at PI onto the footprints.  The DI screams that whoever has their orders go over there.  About two dozen recruits with manila folders ran to where he pointed.  I had a folder too, but they wern't orders, so I stayed put.  The DI runs up to me and screams to get the fuck over there you dumb SOB.  I try to explain that these aren't orders but....he screams again move, move, move.  I about face and run completely over the top of the DI I didn't see standing behind me.  I mean I nailed his ass.  Sent him flying backwards on his ass, his Smokey the Bear flying another way.  You can probably guess what happended next.  In the early '70s they could still beat you.

The next day I ate a mothball thinking it was a salt tablet.  The DI said I couldn't go to sick bay.  A dumb ass like me deserved to die and didn't belong in his beloved Corps.  And he didn't let me.  It took me two days to get that shit outta my system.

Quoted: One of the female companies in my training group had a bunch of girls get caught pleasuring themselves with tubes of toothpaste.

Cool.

A guy in my company got a package in the mail one day, it turned out to be a teddy bear from his girlfriend.  That didn't end well, and one of the company commanders made him write a letter to her saying "Recruit so and so respectfully requests you send a dildo to this recruit"

I don't think that letter ever got sent

Another guy in my company got a letter that contained a few pictures of a girl in a very small bikini.  Picture a few postage stamps and some floss.

Well, this is what followed

YN2: What the fuck recruit? Didn't we tell you no girly pictures?
Recruit: Yes Petty Officer Nazario
YN2: So why the fuck did your girlfriend send you these pictures?
Recruit: She...shes not my girlfriend Petty Officer Nazario
YN2: What the fuck? Who the fuck is she?
Recruit: Shes my sister
YN2:  I'm going to regret the answer to this, but where the fuck are you from son?
Recruit: West Virginia Petty Officer Nazario
YN2: Gimme those

The next day, our lead company commander (who was female, and the object of male attention across most of the base) came up and gave him the pictures back

HS1: What the fuck were you thinking? I don't want girly pictures on my goddamned desk!  Is she really your sister?  (she was too, scary huh)  Nevermind, I don;t want to hear. Here's your pictures back, I don't want to see them again.

Later:

YN2: Ahhhhh so HS1 Gave you your pictures back.  Well dont think I don't have a copy, I know how to work a fucking scanner. They are sitting on the dash of my car right now.  Is your sister coming to graduation
Recruit: Yes Petty Officer Nazario
YN2: Good, I almost took up a collection to fly her out here for your shipmates

And firedrills during shower time were fun.  The CG has mixed male and female companies, and someoone would always forget to put skivvies on underneath the blanket they had to wrap themselves up in if they were in the shower.

I heard that the 6 females in my company had a little trouble doing pushups in Nov. in Cape May, NJ wearing nothing but a blanket.

Quoted: Quoted: I called the Senior DS "sir". SFC Marrero made the next few hours a hell I will never forget. How are you supposed to address them? In the Army, it's 'Drill Sergeant' (during BCT/AIT), then 'Sergeant' there-forward for E-5 to E-8 unless said NCO is serving as 1SG... Sir is for officers... Oh, and don't 'Sir Sandwitch' an O, he'll quickly remind you that 'You didn't join the Marine Corps, and he's not a Jarhead' or something similar....

UNLESS you are in OCS, in which case most of the TAC's will think it is appropriate, even though it is only for use in certain circumstances.   (the sir sandwich, I mean).

Quoted: One of the female companies in my training group had a bunch of girls get caught pleasuring themselves with tubes of toothpaste.

Pie flavored toothpaste

Quoted: One of the female companies in my training group had a bunch of girls get caught pleasuring themselves with tubes of toothpaste.

A girl in my sister flight in basic was caught being pleasured by another girl whilst on dorm guard duty. We could never figure out which ones though...

Quoted: We had a guy whose last name was Kuntz. nuff' said.

There was a kid in my plt named Fuchs...that was a hoot!  But one of my funnier stories was about from about halfway through my time at the Benning School for boys, we'd been there long enough to be lulled into that false sense of "everything is ok" & "the drill sgts are cool"     So, like everyone else I would swipe a piece of cake at dinner.  Well one of the so-called "cool" DS's saw me and said "do you like cake private?"  And thinkning that he was cool I said "yes drill sgt" So a minute later he comes over to my seat and drops a whole fucking sheet cake on my tray and says "go ahead and eat cake private"

After eating a whold fucking sheet cake and being run until I puked, I never thougth DS's were cool or wanted to eat cake again....

a guy in my flight had cotton balls spill out of the bag in a tupperware container in his security drawer during a inspection (in this drawer everything had to perfect) the T.I. flipped and began throwing the cotton balls at him and said look its snowing sing me a christmas song.  This kid didnt celebrate xmas and didnt anything but the begining to jingles bells. the other T.I. laughed so hard he went into the flight office and shut the door and turned the stereo up.



The security drawer in our lockers had to be locked at all times.    well this kids left his drawer unlocked as we left to go to PT . when we came back everything in his locker was on his bed and his bed had been completly taken apart and had shaving cream sprayed all in his locker and over his BDU's and dress blues. all the other contents of the drawers were all mixed up i a pile of tooth paste and shaving cream.     The T.I.'s then told us that WE ALL had 5 min to get it back together. needless to say it wasnt done in time so they tore apart the bed and threw everything back on the ground and made do it again till we got it right. we finally got it right the 3rd time.



This security drawer was most of are pain. We wore the  key to the lock of the security drawer around our neck and if you got caught with it hanging out it was 50 push ups.
well this guy kept forgetting about it and kept on have to do pushups. so it got to the point were everyone else had to pay if this guy didnt remember to keep it tucked in his shirt.   so the T.I's had a key party (no not that kind)  every one put there keys in a bucket and then we stired them up with some core vaules. then had 3 min to find you key open up the drawer and have it in hand ready for inspection. itook us about 4 trys to get it right before we started writing our names on the keys.


thats all i can remember for now ill put more up as they come to mind

Had a dumba$$ diet recruit swipe some peanut butter from the chow hall and of course gets busted by the DI who proceeded to bend the sh*t out of us on a Sunday no less.

Went to sick call for shin splints and there was a guy there getting his hand worked on who put a tracer round through his palm during the night fire while attempting to put the screw on barrel shaft thing.  Apparently, he was then famously knew as "Gun Smoke" due to the smoking hole in his hand from then on.

At retreat, do the cerimonies and all of that, flag just off the pole, all is silent of course, and what do we hear?

This big huge nasty fart from someone in the other squadron.  Seriously both groups with 8 squadrons total had to have heard that.  It was massive.

 The poor kid was getting smoked so bad as we marched off....thank god he wasn't in my flight

In before the buffer suicide story

Quoted: Another guy in my company got a letter that contained a few pictures of a girl in a very small bikini.  Picture a few postage stamps and some floss. Well, this is what followed YN2: What the fuck recruit? Didn't we tell you no girly pictures? Recruit: Yes Petty Officer Nazario YN2: So why the fuck did your girlfriend send you these pictures? Recruit: She...shes not my girlfriend Petty Officer Nazario YN2: What the fuck? Who the fuck is she? Recruit: Shes my sister YN2:  I'm going to regret the answer to this, but where the fuck are you from son? Recruit: West Virginia Petty Officer Nazario YN2: Gimme those The next day, our lead company commander (who was female, and the object of male attention across most of the base) came up and gave him the pictures back HS1: What the fuck were you thinking? I don't want girly pictures on my goddamned desk!  Is she really your sister?  (she was too, scary huh)  Nevermind, I don;t want to hear. Here's your pictures back, I don't want to see them again. Later: YN2: Ahhhhh so HS1 Gave you your pictures back.  Well dont think I don't have a copy, I know how to work a fucking scanner. They are sitting on the dash of my car right now.  Is your sister coming to graduation Recruit: Yes Petty Officer Nazario YN2: Good, I almost took up a collection to fly her out here for your shipmates

So, did the sailors get and take turns with her? :O

My grandfather went through Parris Island in about '49. He doesn't talk much about the Corps. Korea wasn't really a nice place.

Anyway, it was a long time ago when I heard this story. Hard to get stuff out. I've also heard the story from two or three other old Marines, so I guess it was kinda common.

A guy in my grandfather's training unit called his M1 a "gun". He was put in the center of the parade ground, in the lovely southern summer heat, with his M1 above his head screaming "This is my rifle!" with his unit marching around him. Until he passed out.

Lesson: A M1 Garand is not a "gun".

Drill Instructor Sergeant Green was a little imbalanced, and having some problems with the wife.  Threats are not uncommon, of course, but he always made extra sure he followed through with his promises.  One night, he came on duty drunk and pissed off.  Very pissed off.  He walked up and down the squad bay with a pistol, stopping at the racks of a few he could remember, wondering out loud if they were worth putting a bullet in.

In our final weeks, he marched us all the way over to the First Battalion barracks, and took us back to one of the sand pits.  He lined us up, put us at attention, and stood there for a while, slowly pacing a bit.  He walked up to the pit, picked up a handful of sand, and walked down our ranks, sprinkling sand on all of us.  When he was done, he said it was his pit, where his blood, sweat, and tears had been shed.  

He also fucked up final drill for us.  That wasn't scary or funny though, just fucking sad.  Marched us off into the grass

I'm guessin a few Army boyz should have some fun storys to tell...


content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=120544&ran=195809

On a rainy day thrashing while at the Range. The DI's afterabout about 20min. stated "Lets play a game. When we allow you off the quarter-deck, you have to send me a fresh body." I remember there was only 2-3 guys that where despised & picked whenever they were not being thrashed. About an hour into it I can still remember hearing " Ha, imagine that. Who would have ever thought you shits would be in a 3 way tie in our Popularity Contest."

They never talked to anyone for the last  3 wks of boot.....

The first night at boot produced a couple of interesting memories. Everyone had to produce a urine sample the minute we got into the temporary barracks the first night. Those poor guys that couldn't/didn't have to go on the first attempt with some strangers watching them were put in the center of everyone and made to chug cup after cup of water until a few of them started vomiting, then they were handed mops and while they cleaned up their mess we were informed that no one could move until these guys pissed and we were waiting on them to produce before we could move forward with the festivities.

Then everyone was herded into the head in groups of twenty and you had one minute to strip, one minute to shave, 30 seconds to shower, and one minute to dress. That wasn't to bad but the funny part was they pulled the four or five dumbasses aside that were stupid enough to show up with full beards/goatees. We all then got to watch as they were each given a single bladed razor, a can of shaving cream and two minutes to get that "contagious muff fungus" off their faces. When they came back out of the head it looked like they had been lined up and a weedeater had been run across those poor bastards faces'. I guess stupid really does hurt, what moron shows up at bootcamp with a beard ?    

Basic Training in February, 1980, Ft. Sill OK.

Some guy in on the second floor of the barracks next to us couldnt make it to the shitter one night. So. he does the obvious thing, he hangs his ass out of the window and sprays runny shit all down the side if the building. For the rest of the cycle they were to be referred to as Shit Platoon, even among themselves.

I walked outside one night for a smoke, both hands in my pockets, and bump into Drill Sergeant Ambrosek. In a moment of complete insanity I walk right past him, hands still buried in my pockets and say "Hey Drill Sergeant, whats up?" I got the smoke I wanted

After being sent across the Motor Pool in search of >whatever< by one Drill Sergeant, another stops me and asks me what I'm doing. I respond "I'm in looking for >whatever< Drill Sergeant". He asks me who told me to go get >whatever< , without missing a beat, I turn, point my finger at the first Drill Sergeant and say "that colored (black) Drill Sergeant right there".
Big Fucking No No.

Ahh, the memories.

A funny thing I remember is a guy was pretending he was stripping in the middle of the squad bay, doing a slow dance, pulling off his belt while singing "ba de ba buh bohhh ba buh" or something like that. Unknown to him one of the CCs was standing at the other end of the room and then made him go to every different company's bay, find their CC, walk up without saying a word and start stripping. That poor guy showed back up about two hours later soaking wet with sweat and then they sent him across the parade field to another set of barracks to find some more audiences, that was pretty good.  

Quoted: I guess stupid really does hurt, what moron shows up at bootcamp with a beard ?

We had a kid in my flight show up with blue hair. Yep, he was "Smurf" for 8 weeks (was there for 9/11, added a week and a half).

I remember one day leaving the chow hall after dinner and we got pulled off into the grass. We all knew what was coming, it was towards the end of Basic and we were used to what being pulled off the road into the grass while marching meant. Anyways while we're standing there waiting to get dropped the DS calls out one of the guys, we'll call him Pvt Snuffy. Has him come up to the front and face the platoon.

Says to the guy "Pvt Snuffy, why do you have cake in your pocket!?" Look on the guy's face was priceless. I guess he thought he was really getting one over. Anyway he gets it together and says "It's my birthday DS."

So the DS takes the cake from him, smears it down the front of his BDUs and says "All right 2nd Platoon, we're going to have a birthday party." and makes us do about 100 pushups while singing Happy Birthday. We figured that was going to be it but it wasn't over yet. DS says "This is a pool party, do the swimmer." For anyone who doesn't know the swimmer is where you lay on your stomach and lift up an arm and the opposite leg, put it down and repeat with the other arm and leg, pretty dumb actually.

While we're doing this he has Pvt Snuffy standing there scraping the cake off his BDUs and eating it. Then he called the Platoon Guide up. The Platoon Guide is a trainee they give a brassard with stripes on it and he is in charge of the rest of us when the DSs aren't around, gets to call cadence and stuff when we march and things like that. Anyway he tells the PG that there's got to be a pony ride, so the PG has to get down on all fours and  carry Snuffy around on his back around the entire formation. By this time we were all laughing so hard the DS got pissed and just marched us back to the barracks.

A marine buddy of mine came back with a few stories.

One evening at chow, another recruit steps into the chow hall and inserts himself into line right in front of my buddy, cutting in line.  My buddy grabs is arms and pulls him back, with the intention of saying, "hey, the end is that way."  Well, the recruit takes a big swing and decks my buddy in the mouth.  My buddy steps back and in his words "prepares for the shitstorm."  He stands still as every drill instructor in the building makes it clear that hitting another marine is not a good idea.

Boot @ Parris Island. Several laughers

Recruit was on firewatch at wakeup, kind of a shy guy. Goes up to the DI's hatch, [knocks on frame] bam, bam, bam, "sir the time on deck is 0350 sir", no response. Drill Instructor Sgt. Bowman was a bear to wake up or maybe just an ass. Recruit walks around 5 minutes and repeats. By now, everyone is awake ready to jump down and dress. No DI or no lights yet. After 0400 everyone starts getting worried. DI Bowman finally slams the hatch open at ten after 4 and absolutely demolishes this kid.

Fast forward 4 nights when Bowman is back. In PCP platoon we generally only had 1 DI stay in the barracks at night. I have firewatch wake-up, I head over to the hatch, bang 3 times, "sir the time on deck is 0350 sir." Pretty freakin' loud but no response. Mother f'ker!! I walk around 5 minutes and head back. I get every ounce of strength and weight into the pounding with my palm, BAM, BAM, BAM, and yell at the very top of my lungs, "SIR, THE TIME ON DECK IS..", "ADAMS GET AWAY FROM MY HATCH. I heard several chuckles coming from the racks. From then on I always seemed to get wake-up when he was on duty

Several times, recruits would stumble or blank-out on the DI's name when reporting everything safe and secure before lights out. The hatch would slam open and like a lightning bolt, the DI had the poor sob down on the deck.

Once, reporting to chow hall for breakfast, I must have been first squad leader at one point to get the honor, I happened to get a little too close to our DI. DI Sgt Francois, a small mighty mouse DI with recon wings. Extremely bad ass. He said something about me invading his space and that he was about to start defending himself. The entire time he is about 6" away from my face looking up at me, continuously poking his finger on my BCG's. After it was all through, I couldn't see shit with all the finger prints on my glasses.

I can also remember scrubing the freakin' barracks floor. Moved all racks to one side, dumped water and soap, scrubed from one end to the other, several times and repeat for the other side. All the while getting the countdown, "you've got 10, 9, 8, 7654321, too slow. The recruit right next to me cramped up bad and couldn't move. Me and the guy on his other side grabbed his arms and dragged him through the suds on his ass to get him to the other end, TWICE. The DI's got a decent chuckle out of it.

Did I mention all the push-ups we did in our racks? Every day was an adventure

MFN

oh where do I begin?  In the great sand flea uterus known as Parris Island:

A few weeks before graduation, we were on the parade deck marching toward the chow hall.  On the far side a fresh platoon is also marching to chow.  you know, wearing go fasters with rolled trousers.  Anyway, our DI tells us while we are marching we are going to perform a hasty gear drop and assigned the guard, then fall out and fall in in front of the chow hall hatch.   So we perform as planned, and while falling in we are in the middle of this new platoon and we justr shove them out of the way while our DI hastily gives the orders to enter the chow hall.  Once inside our DI is ATTACKED by the other platoons DI's.  Being at this point of training, we are quite protective of our tormenters so we jump to his aid.  Needless to say, he shit on us publicly, but once back in the barracks, we had an easy night with all the easter candy that had been denied us dispersed.

During the CC inspection a turd had ugly boots that were so dim they absorbed light waves passing 10 feet away.  This guy was two recruits down from me.  The company commander looks down at his feet, looks up at his face, and proclaims "boy, did you polish your boots with a turd?"  I let out a laugh and the company first sergeant right next to me simply extended his arm and grabbed my thraot and informed me my excellent score had just become a fail.  whoops.

At the rifle range a desperate guy managed to bang a chick from 4th battalion in the range porto-shitter.  For the record 4th battalion chicks at the rifle range ARE NOT HOT no matter how little tail you have seen. (YMMV)

Another time during rifle maintenance a guy had just been thrashed for some offense, and while walking past the DI hut mumbled "these drill instructors must be crazy thinking they can talk to me like that" As soon as his lips closed on the final syllable, an arm extended through the DI hatch and yanked him in by the collar.  He emerged a humbled, nasty hog about 20 minutes later.  


I would stay in boot camp forever if possible.  I never laughed harder.

ETA:  Did any one else have to build Mt. Suribachi in the rifle range squad bay upon arrival? and plant the guidon on top?  just curious if that was a trend or an isolated invention.

We had to put towels over the drains in the shower, and along the coamings to all the doors, fill the squadbay up with about an inch of water and "go surfing"

We were graded by the company commanders for splash, form, distance, and overall style.  If we got low scores, we got smoked.

I forget what the point was, but it was hell of a lot of fun, and was a great way to burn off some stress.

Swabbing it all up sucked though.

Another one was training center wide.  Every company at Cape May had to unpack thier lockers, put everything in thier seabag, and put it on thier rack.  And then, each company started moving to a new squadbay, sometimes in a different building.  One item at a time.  We had to keep our socks rolled up in pairs, and we thought that counted as 1 item.  Boy were we wrong.  We would get stopped by random CC's and have an item inspection.  So no cheating.  We were all toting around our "pieces as well" (demilled M-1 Garands)  so that made things even more difficult. I never did so many up-down-out-ins that night.  

Total, my company of 71(at that point) people moved in roughly an hour.  This was our 3rd week in.  Some of the other companies took more than 2 hours.  Once all the companies were moved, we had to move back.

My company also had a "sick day"  So many people (about 55 out of 66 at that point) came down with a wicked case of the Cape May Crud.  So our CC's managed to get classes cancelled for the day, and we spent all day scrubbing down the squadbays with bleach.  Literally every single surface.  We were removing covers to the radiators and scrubbing them down, hosing out screens, etc etc.  And then, after evening chow, we got 2 hours of study time and got early lights out with no watch.  I was coughing so hard I threw up several times.  All night, all you heard was coughing, gaggins, and puking coming from the head.  2 of our CC's went to the hospital because they got it bad and were so dehydrated they needed IV's (we found out about that right before graduation)

So, boot camp was interesting

Quoted: One of the female companies in my training group had a bunch of girls get caught pleasuring themselves with tubes of toothpaste.

That's hot.

One day in particular stands out in my mind.

We were out in the field, close to our base, practicing some improvised stuff - flinging molotov cocktails at an old tank wreck.  Then, for some reason, there was a break in the action, and one of the lieutenants decided to check our platoon to make sure EVERYTHING was correct on our battle dress.  So he'd yell out an item and location, and eberyone had to present the item, or suffer the wrath.  Stuff like atropine-injector holders, correctly tied under the left armpit.  Box of earplug, yellow, containing four clean plugs in right front breast pocket.  One sharpened pencil, left shoulder pocket.  One armour identification card, left fron breast.  And so on. Every person that didn't have an item was given an impossibly short time period to run the almost mile back to barracks in full gear, and come back.  Most people simply couldn't make it, and would get smoked when they got back late.  I was supremely confident that I couldn't get nailed, because I am super-anal - but they got me.  I wasn't wearing regulation underpants, and was give 12 minutes to get back to base, into the barracks, change underpants (with all the combat gear on), and get back.  Another guy got nailed for the underpants too, so we both ran back -a nd WE MADE IT.  By jumping the barbed wire fence by the tank yard, and by cutting off our underpants and pinning the new ones in place with safety pins so it looked like we were wearing them, we jsut managed to make it in time.

Then, the platoon continued with the days events, which involved moving in terrain (i.e. crawling around) while sergeants kept flinging thunderflashes to simulate artiller to get us to take cover.  Of course we did these activities in the muddies tank tracks they could find (and because it rains so much in Denmark, the tank tracks are muddy).  Towards the end of the day, everyone was covered in a thick layer of mud from head to toe.  A moment that stands out in my mind was when we were running through hip-deep water, with thick mud at the bottom - well, it wasn't really "running" but we were trying.  I was next to Nygård (a guy I had worked in a factory with over the summer), and he was next to Møngaard, my buddy partner.  Suddenly I heard a yell, and looked over and saw Møngaard but not Nygård.  I Trying to catch my breath, I asked him where Nygård went, and he laughed and said "he's gone man"  It turned out that Nygård ahd gotten cramps in both his thighs from pulling his legs through the mud, and had simply fallen over and disappeared in the gunk.  We found him pretty easily and pulled him out, but it was hilarous (although in retrospect, I guess he could easily have died, if neither of us had noticed ).

At the end of the day, the platoon was marched back to the base, and instead of going to the parade field in front of the barracks, we were taken down to the tank yard, and the platoon was lined up and hosed down by the sergeants with the high-pressure hoses used to clear tanks and APC's, while we were made to loudly sing the platoon song.



Good times.  

Quoted: Snip It was just pretty cool to be out running with this 2nd LT who got a Silver Star in Afghanistan for lobbing some M203 rounds over some boulders and helping stop an advance of insurgents towards him and his mens' position.   As well as a purple heart for taking an AK round to the neck.

By any chance do you remember this fellows name?

Halfway through 11X OSUT in '99 my platoon had become complacent about physical security. We had come back from the field in the morning and cleaned all our gear. We went to dinner chow and were all coming up the back stairs when we heard a severe commotion inside. The door was locked and for 10 minutes it was just loud banging. The DS finally opened the door and yelled at everyone to stand by their bunks.

Almost every bunk and at least 5 wall lockers that had been left unsecured were tossed over. The contents of the wall lockers were in one big pile in the center of the bay with shaving cream, foot powder, toothpaste and laundry detergent spilled all over it. After being nicely reminded of the need for physical security the owners of the contents were told they had two minutes to claim their stuff out of the pile. Anything remaining was to be thrown away.

Seeing the guys who screwed up trying to get their stuff out was somewhat enjoyable in a sadistic way. After two minutes the DS's went and inspected what they had grabbed. Amazingly not a one of them had matching boots and few of the correct BDU tops. The DS's took them downstairs and told us to clean up the bay while the offenders were treated to some PT.

My battle buddy and I had it the easiest as the bunks on both sides of ours were tipped inward and ours was left standing perfectly untouched. All I had to do was straighten out one corner of my blanket.

Of course when the DS's brought the offenders back we were also treated to some good ole PT for not squaring away our buddies.

yakrat101
C-2-54 Aug '99-Dec '99

Well here is not the normal story your going to hear.  During basic, we had to do a timed run towards the end of training to graduate.  Well there was an airman named logans.  Good kid.  He was a AF brat. We were on latrine duty together and knew him pretty well.   Well he failed the first run and had to run it a second time.  I had passed mine the first time, so that mourning I was doing PT underneath the over hang at the 331st.  Well airman logans was finishing up his run and collapsed no more than 10ft from the finish line with a minute to spare.  Well all hell broke loose with TIs around him screaming profanites at him to finish and to get up.  Well finally after a few minutes of the screaming, someone noticed that he wasnt moving.  Talk about a shit storm.  My TI who was a PJ was trying to revive him while the rest were running around screaming orders to get medical personell on scene.  Never in my life have I seen such a panic. Well Airman Logans ended up being pronounced dead on the way to the hospital.  We later found out that that he had some sort of heart problem he didnt even know about which led to total heart failure.  After that we basic was a very subdued.  We had a few guys that cracked up after that.  

I have a bunch of other good stories, but that one is the only one that is worth retelling.  RIP Airman Logans.