Last time on Springtime Folly…
Your friendly neighborhood Deuce, dropped by to fill in for the old man. As they say two lefts don’t make a Wright, but three do…or is it two Wright(s) make a wrong…err anyways Junior (ugg) here on substitute duty again. Though I guess people may want to call me Upgrade since I was put on the inevitable path of military service from a young age, and put it upon myself to join the “superior” military branch. That’s right (heh) Wright Jr joined the Marine Corps. Now not to disparage any of the services as they all serve their purpose, and do their part in service to God and Country. (Yes, there is a but) But, as anyone who has spent time in service, around service members, or on the internet knows we all have healthy rivalry with each other that includes all those infamous jokes. Now, let’s get some of those out of the way and out of our systems: The Navy and Air Force are just glorified taxi services, so we can just leave the squidies and pigeons well enough alone. Though I got to say they have the best chow, especially the flyboys. Army aren’t real marines yet, heh. Finally, in all good fun, Marines are the retarded step-childern of the US military (and we just won’t mention the coasties). Now at one point in my life (much like my father) I had wanted to join the airforce. But as I was cursed with porthole impaired vision (read glasses), that idea took a nose dive straight into the head (latrine). I almost joined the Army, but like I stated I wanted to upgrade and the Marines really have nice uniforms. And so, six months after signing my butt over to Uncle Sam, I was off to boot camp. Though I really need to mention some of the procedures in between signing the dotted line and the plane ride to San Diego. Now of course there was PT with the recruiter and other BS, but processing at the Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS) was a real eye opener. Let’s forget the idiots who showed up and popped on the MANDATORY drug test…let’s focus on the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) test. Now you may or may not know about this little test, hell maybe you took it once or twice. But suffice to say that you’re required to take it at MEPS as part of the process. This test is designed to be idiot proof and allow the greatest number of morons to pass and get shipped off to boot/basic training. It has some of the most ridiculous questions, for example: what is a carrot? A) mineral B) animal C) vegetable D) none of the above. Now I don’t know about you, but that is a question that cannot be answered incorrectly even while drunk, blind, and brain damaged. But I saw some people, while I was at MEPS, answered animal, just like they also said a cat was a mineral. Quality recruits, yes sir top shelf. Which is why I don’t rightfully believe my scoring in the 97th percentile was a huge feat, but in hindsight maybe scoring so high and being dumb enough to sign up was the extraordinary feat. Now back to flying down to San Diego. I don’t rightfully know how they run the other services’ basic training, but the USMC has two training centers. The one I went to was Marine Corps Recruit Training Depot (MCRD) San Diego. The other being the more infamous MCRD Parris Island. Now all male recruits west of the Mississippi are sent to MCRD San Diego, while men east of the Mississippi and all female recruits end up in the swamps of North Carolina. But aside from the practical order of boot camp training events, day one and its preamble are relatively the same at both. You fly into the local airport, and sit in the USO (United Service Organizations) lounge until darkness falls over the land. You might partake of the various free food, video games, TVs playing sports or patriotic movies, telephones to call family, or do the smart thing and sleep in one of them comfortable leather recliners. Because after it gets nice and quiet and really dark outside, and they dim the indoor lighting for the unsuspecting sleepers, devils descend upon us unsuspecting recruits. Now I slept for a good few hours, ate a nice free meal, called home, and was just casually watching Saving Private Ryan when these devilish men quietly infiltrated our ranks. Hell, I watched them do it. They encircled us, we were surrounded and cut off from any rescue. While the vast majority of the fresh meat in the USO were unaware of the danger, like antelope surrounded by a pride of lions. I watched as the USO staff stifled their laughter. I knew shit was about to meet fan. So in morbid fascination, I watched as all these Drill Instructors (DI) took in the biggest lung-full of air, and let loose war cries and bellowed. They started just ripping into anything within reach. That first: ‘What the hell do you sorry excuses of turd eating maggots think you’re doing?’ Everyone just froze, I even saw a few jump higher than Michael Jordan performing a dunk from the free throw line. And then as the horror set in, those DIs became hurricanes of movement prowling through the disordered ranks of daze recruits while their voices were akin to air raid sirens selectively quoting George Carlin’s ‘7 Words You Cannot Say On Radio or Television’ while seamlessly insulting all of us recruits and giving pinpoint orders for us to follow. Grab our shit, head out a specific door, get on the damn bus and put our head between our knees, and for those inclined…pray. Now dear readers, if you’ve ever seen military movies about basic training, most of them are grossly inaccurate or they go the documentary route that doesn’t really capture the fear, confusion, anxiety, and disorientation that boot camp or basic training dumps onto a fresh recruit fresh off the bus and stranded in a foreign and unwelcoming environment. Except one of my favorite movies does a fairly accurate job of it, Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Full Metal Jacket‘. If you’ve had the pleasure of watching this glorious homage to the Marine Corps and war, you should realize that it is a double feature with a shared cast. The first (half) is the best movie depiction of Marine Corps recruit training in cinematography history, while the second (half) is a humorous yet mediocre Vietnam War movie. I cannot stress enough how amazingly accurate boot camp is portrayed in the first half of the movie. So accurate that the only way to be more accurate is to actually experience boot camp for yourself. Now I first watched ‘Full Metal Jacket’, when I was a sophomore in high school, that’s right, while attending NMMI (military school). And I still remember those insults Gunny (Gunnery Sergeant) Hartmann unloads into those recruits in the opening scene. I remember using those same insults to shut, racist dumb ass white kids (remember I’m half Korean and look full Asian), the hell up without the ability to articulate a response. The best part was it was in a chow line so they got shut the hell up in front of damn near the whole school. Ah probably the first seed of my eventual enlistment into the Marine Corps was planted that very day. So as the DIs were raining expletives onto the dazed and confused recruits in the USO lounge at San Diego International Airport, I followed orders and ran to the bus and put my head between my knees and awaited my personal live reenactment of ‘Full Metal Jacket’. As I knew this was only the first in a long line of exercises in futility my 13 weeks of hell known as boot camp was to bring.
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