Going to Camp

By Happy Hoosier

In the winter of 1956 our High School principal must have had some concerns about the ten boys in the senior class about to graduate in the spring. He scheduled visits to talk to our class by representatives of all the armed services. Granted none of us were headed to rocket science school but I think we would have, as post high school grads, cautiously found our way into adult society.
But as luck had it; one of them was a recruiter for the U S Marines. I think that in those days all was fair in love and war, as far as enticing someone to enlist in your branch of the service. Actually this Master Sergeant did not lie to us, very much. The trick to it was to have a recruiter that really looked good in that uniform.
As he stood before the class and described how he had seen the entire world and then some, it was not too hard to visualize how that could be you up there. And to get there you just had to go to a summer camp, boot camp he called it. Anyone could do it with the proper desire to serve, he said, and after you got out of camp, why the rest was easy.

Well, I would guess about two weeks after this indoctrination; a few of us were seriously entertaining the idea of joining up. We liked what Sgt. Goldman had to say, and we reasoned that likely we would someday get drafted, maybe after we had gotten a good job, or even married. And besides that, life was only going to afford us one opportunity to wear a uniform like that! Six of the 10 of us walked into the principal's office in a few days and announced that we thought we were up to the task and had decided to join up. Mr. Landis, our great principal, was glad to hear that. He said we had made a good choice and wished us well. He even offered to give us a day out of school to go down and sign up. So we did just that, and we took the whole day off.
We graduated mid May and went on a senior trip to Washington DC, New York, and even Niagara Falls, the most traveling any of us had ever done.
We arrived home May 29 and a couple of days later we all boarded a Greyhound bus and headed to Indianapolis for a swearing-in ceremony. We went about Five miles to the next little town and four more young lads got on the bus who were also headed to Sunny San Diego Marine Camp.
This was going to be fun, all this travel, flying in a big plane with four motors for the first time and spending the summer at camp. Wow life was good. Our parents had seen us off. They seemed a little sad, and maybe a little glad to see us going to camp.
We all passed our exams in Indianapolis, were sworn in by a Captain I believe, and soon were boarding a plane to San Diego, California.
Indeed life was good, what had we done to deserve to be traveling around the county like this for free? Well, soon we would be there and probably a warm welcome awaited us to be members now of that great fraternity, the Marines. Yes, the few, the proud, the Marines, that's what we would soon be.
We had a great trip to California. It was nighttime, and we did not see anything, but still it was a great trip, because we got there. We got off the plane in LA and looked around for someone who could direct us to the Marine Base in San Diego.

As we got outside the terminal a Marine was there in a tropical beige uniform, not that nice blue one, and he did not even seem all that happy to see us like we had thought. He had a green bus, and he told us to get on the bus, and soon we would be leaving for camp. Well we figured he was just having a bad day, and soon, when we got to San Diego Marine Base, they would surely be more friendly and glad to see us come out to join them.
I had been to camp once before, a 4-H camp in southern Indiana, maybe four years earlier. It was kind of fun. We were taught some songs, did some hiking, swimming, and stuff like that. But somehow this camp seemed different right from the start.
As we arrived at the San Diego Camp, the Sergeant told us to get off the bus and line up. He seemed tired, maybe even a little grumpy. We were escorted into a big room. Maybe this would be the welcome party. Lots of tables were set up and there were big boxes.
We all stood by a big box, wondering what was inside? The boxes contained a towel and shower shoes. We were hoping for dress blues, not shower shoes! They told us to take all our clothes off, and put them into the box along with our shoes, watches and rings. They called all of these things “contraband”. We had thought it would be our civilian clothes that we would need for the weekends when we would be looking around San Diego. We addressed a label to our parents and stuck it on top of the box. We left that room in shower shoes and a towel around us.
We got new stuff, green clothes and green caps, and boots. They cut our hair, all our hair. We, all 75 of us, looked almost alike. We assembled outside, after I guess you could call it, a welcome.
Soon two sergeants walked up with smoky bear hats on and announced that they would be our mothers, fathers and GOD for the next few weeks. They introduced themselves as Senior Drill Instructor Sergeant Littlefield and Junior DI Sergeant Reed. They seemed kind of nice until we were marched to a deserted area behind some Quonset huts. There they picked out some of the tougher looking guys, one at a time, to demonstrate their superior skills and strength.
They surely got our attention, and within minutes we were convinced that indeed these guys were in charge of us! We caught on quickly and learned the words of “Yes Sir” and “No Sir” well.
One of the first things they did was to escort us to our quarters. These metal Quonset huts held 25 people, so we had three of them all side by side. There was a nice black top road in front that we lined up on in two rows. We were going to practice for a while being dismissed and entering our huts. But before we did that, a few more of us were asked some questions that we did not seem to answer properly and again were assured of our Drill Instructors superior strength and skills.
Now in pretty much full panic, and not wanting to attract attention to ourselves, we were willing to carry out orders quickly. So the senior DI said we would have, upon dismissal, only five seconds to get 25 men into each hut, and on the sixth second the junior DI and he would begin kicking any butts that still remained outside. Hey that sounded simple enough, could even be fun, just get through that door, right?
The order came, "Dismissed!"
Twenty-five campers all hit the door at exactly the same time. No one, and I mean NO ONE got through the doors! Can you imagine the pressure applied to that door opening with say six guys wedged into the doorway, ten more pushing hard behind them and nine more behind them pushing even harder, because their butts were indeed being kicked!
I had been told that the Marines built men, but had no idea how strong they could build Quonset huts! Even after the third attempt at this, the huts did not move. We were by now in full panic, just about where the DI's wanted us at this time in our training.
We still had not been inside our living quarters, but at least about half of us had gotten a glimpse of the double bunks lined up inside on each wall. Not the lucky ones either. I think the "wedgies", the group I was in on the second attempt, the ones with an arm or face or leg in the doorway, just as the wedge is formed, were the more bruised than the back nine who were getting acquainted with the DI's spit-shined shoes.
The prime real estate location, we were all learning after about the third futile attempt at this maneuver, was to be in that middle ten where one only enjoyed "compression", but avoided wedging, and shoe shining. We all I think had come to the realization that we had blown it, ruined our lives and that our goal would be to survive this, graduate, and then turn these maniacs into the proper authorities.
History teaches us that on the third day after Christ died for our sins that God intervened and a good thing happened. He rose again to live, and that believers can also be assured of this, and thus have eternal life in Heaven. Well God intervened at Camp also, and on the third day! You see we were Platoon 286 and we had drawn a couple of rough cookies for drill instructors. But on that eventful day it was announced that some reorganization was taking place at our camp. We would now be platoon 3002, the second platoon of the newly formed Third Recruit Battalion. And, this is the God part; we got new drill instructors!
Along came a Staff Sergeant L. M. Kiest and Sergeant J. Thurmond for our Junior DI. Just watching those platoon 286 DI's walk away, we all were convinced, there truly is a God!
Well life at camp from the 4th day on was not a bowl of cherries, like we had dreamed of back at High School, but these new DI's were at least civil most of the time. They could still put you in the prone position, if you needed an adjustment, but they seemed to have a goal, and after a few weeks lights started turning on for us one at a time, I believe. We started to understand what and why they may be trying to do to and for us.
We were issued a bar of Ivory soap and a big scrub brush for washing our clothes, we even soaped and scrubbed, rinsed and hung our socks and underwear out to dry.
We marched a lot of the time. Close order drill with our M-1 rifles is excellent to instill teamwork and a sense of accomplishment. One of my funny memories of marching was in the evening. Each platoon would march to the chow hall, without our rifles of course. As we approached the chow hall four abreast, it was a custom to kind of put on a show for the other platoons who had arrived earlier and were now at ease waiting to get into the chow hall.
As we got close to the hall we would do fancy maneuvers like to the rear, right and left obliges, right and left flanks, and other neat stuff. Then we would be marched directly at the other Marines outside the hall. Just before crashing into them, our DI would sometimes give us “Mark Time” instead of just “Company Halt.”
That meant we kept on marching at the same pace as we had been, but we were not going anywhere. He would watch us do this for a minute or so, making sure that every left leg was raising at exactly the same time and every foot hitting the deck at exactly the same time. Kind of like a mechanic checking out the timing on a finely tuned engine. Then if we had Sgt. Thurmond on duty that evening, he would then say, “Close it up.” And that meant that instead of an arm’s length between us we would cut that distance in half. Then he would say again, “Close it up tight." That then would have us compressed, rubbing each other as we continued our “marking time.” Continuing to march standing still going nowhere but it was impressive. Then he would say, "Tighter yet, make that man in front of you smile." We would all smile and after about 30 seconds of this he would give us the, "Company Halt" command and then, "At Ease."
We had finished our performance and would now wait for the next platoon approaching to do theirs. Each DI and each Platoon kind of had their own show so to speak, and it was interesting that after a while of watching platoons march, one could almost guess exactly the number of weeks they had been on board by the manner in which they marched and carried themselves. I believe they scheduled the platoons arrival at the chow hall starting with the ‘just got there’ recruits who could barely march. Then progressively to the platoons who were getting "salty", had been to the rifle range and back and had accomplished all the Corps had asked of them. They were now ready to graduate as full fledged Marines. In that manner each platoon waiting to go in the hall could then watch a better platoon approach and do their show each night, which challenged them to become better and more professional as each week went by.
One thing they allowed us to do in the evening after dinner was to “water the grass.” Our “grass” was sand around our huts where we lived. We carried water in our buckets each evening and completely soaked our “grass”. Each morning we got up early at 5 am. We then raked our “grass” into nice straight even rows. The wet sand did look nice. We then would take strings and pull them tight along where the “grass” met the blacktop roads. And others would come along and remove all the sand from the street side of the string. After the “grass” was raked, NO ONE could walk on the “grass”. The lines were straight. You could view the straight lines for blocks of Quonset huts, row after row. We did live in a good neighborhood; everyone learned to be very tidy.
Well camp life moved on. We had no contact with the outside world, no cokes no candy just good OLE Marine chow, and with the pace we worked at, it tasted better every day. It mattered not what was served, you ate it because you were hungry! We ate stuff we would not have touched with a ten foot pole at home. We learned to eat whatever came across the counter. I remember one night after we cleaned our trays and were back to our huts, a call came down, “Lahrman to the duty hut.”
That meant you moved out on the double running to the duty hut, and knocking and asking permission to enter. Upon getting that, in you went, to do a right face in front of the DI on duty, and announceing that, “Pvt. Lahrman was reporting as ordered, Sir!”
Sgt. Keist said, “Well, did you tell your momma to send you a box?”
“Well, yes I may have done that Sir,” I said.
“Well open it up and lets see what momma has sent us.”
So I did, still trying to maintain an attention posture. It was cookies and lots of them for me and my buddies.
He said, “Eat all you want private.”
Having just cleaned my tray at chow, three was all I could handle and they were not all that enjoyable standing there in front of several DI's. So they told me to leave that contraband there with them and they would get rid of it for me.
“Yes Sir, Thank you Sir”, I said. And I was out of there and back to my hut with no cookies to share!
About the fourth week of camp I think something “extra” had come across the counter in the chow hall. We all suffered a severe case of dysentery. It made it rather interesting as lag time between knowing and going was very short indeed! Accidents while marching had necessitated our being allowed to peel off out of formation while we were marching without any preliminary approval from the chain of command. And then try and make it to a head, (toilet) that did not have long lines. The stench that permeated the entire camp probably bled over into downtown San Diego!
In about the sixth week we needed another haircut. But first we were marched to the paymaster to be paid in cash. We then were marched to the base barbershop. Our DI's seemed friendlier than normal that day. They told us to stand in line, not talk, get your haircut and fall out in formation behind the barber shop area and that they would be back after a visit to the enlisted club to pick us up. Wow, we thought, these guys are starting to like us, they trust us, we are becoming trusted Marines!
Well as we entered into the barbershop, holy mackerel there were six candy bar machines. We had not seen a candy bar for six weeks; we had forgotten what candy even was all about or for. But some of us came to our senses quickly, and we started to purchase candy from these machines when no one was looking. We hid these bars in our dungaree pockets. We had lots of pockets; thus we had lots of candy bars. We had enough for several days, even weeks maybe. We got our hair cut and they left some hair on top, we were happy, we were trusted Marines with pockets full of candy.
We exited the barbershop and got to the formation of our peers. Well, who should be there already but our DI's, and they had a big green Marine blanket spread out on the street. As we were shaken down, each of us added our illegal ‘pogie bait’, or candy, from our pockets to the blanket. We had been good for the economy that day. We had emptied all six machines in that hallway. The last of our guys in line, the shorter guys, had not got any, and they had felt unlucky inside the shop, but then they felt very lucky outside.
Our caring DI's reminded us that we had been told that, “Marines do not eat pogie bait, it is not good for Marines to eat such stuff,” they said. “Children eat candy, we have children at home, and we will distribute this candy to those children. What do you recruits think of that,” they asked?
After a couple of very loud in unison “THANK YOU SIRS,” we were on our way to do more training to work up an appetite for some real food.

We had no contact with the outside world, no radio's, no papers, no telephones, just life at camp. Occasionally an airplane took off at the airport next door and most of us, probably truth be known, wished we were on board. One day we did hear about Elvis. We heard several DI’s talking that they had read where Elvis was thinking about enlisting in the Marines to beat the draft. They were excited, they could not wait to help mold Elvis into a Marine. But it did not happen, they had to be content with the mostly farm and small town boys they had…us.
Our ten weeks the recruiter had promised turned into, I think, 16 weeks. But we got there. One day we were issued our dress uniforms and dress shoes that we spit shined for hours. Even nicer than we had spit shined our combat boots for weeks. We were ready to graduate as full-fledged members of the Corps. And we did and moved on to combat training and then duties in the Fleet Marine Forces. It had been a good summer, a little rocky at first, but it had turned out well. Some have said it well, “We would not take a million dollars for what we experienced at Camp that summer, but we would not want to give a dime to do it again”.
That was true for many years, but of late I have started to dream of seeing these faces one more time, possibly a 50 year reunion of Platoon 3002 in the summer of 2006? And even the faces of our DI’s, even Littlefield and Reed. They were all doing their jobs. I have no ill feeling towards even them. I have visited the Marine Boot camp twice in the last 15 years. Things have changed. Recruits are no longer mal-treated as a means of training. And I truly believe that the evolution of that training has been good, that a better product is being produced. These new “warriors of the sea”, are still no better friends for our allies, and no worst nightmare for our enemies. This nation will continue to be well served by what comes out of San Diego, California and Parris Island, South Carolina Marine recruit training.