Next week I head to DC for the last reunion of my old platoon from Marine Boot Camp.
75 of us were thrown together in June of 1956 to become Platoon 3002. All we knew for sure those first few days is that we had made the very biggest mistake of our lives. It seemed so romantic, daring, I don't know maybe we saw too many of those old John Wayne WW Two movies of Iwo Jima, Tarawa, Guadalcanal, but man we (about 6) of my High School class, we just thought we needed to do that....and we did it...well the recruiter told us if would be tough but we really did not know just how much till we got there and experienced it first hand...And we put on good faces during the day but when the lights went out at night finally after 10 and we lay there exhasted and in almost semi shock at times until the 5:30 reveile, we knew for sure we had made a big mistake, but one that we most likely would survive and someday maybe we could hopefully look back and say well it was not so bad afterall...
Well we did our 50th in San Diego the scene of the crime in 2006 and between 20-22 of the 75 showed up...In Omaha in 2008 we had about 14 maybe of the 75 and now in DC we will have only 9 so I think it will be time to quit while we are ahead and make this the last one. It will be about 54 years next month since we graduated from that training, we were proud to have made it and now called Marines instead of "beady eyed recruits", or "shit birds", or, well I better not go further...looking back it is comical to think of some of those exchanges between the D.I. and us, was not then, but it sure is now...Purpose of it all was to eliminate any pride, self esteem that you may have, completely, and if it did not disappear willingly they would just knock it out of you...some needed that, mine went willingly, for the most part...and then the plan of action was to slowly build you back the way the Marine Corps wanted you....All in all, for the most part it went well, we had maybe two or three who went over the fence in the first couple weeks never to be seen again, one kid in a neighboring hut in Plt. 3003 hung himself on a Sunday afternoon which was sad...We all had to walk by and observe him, I guess so we would not repeat the event maybe.
I think all in all it set us on the road to manhood rather quickly. I think the Marines did have a plan, and for what they needed us to be, it was a good one....I do, having observed how they make Marines since then a few times, I will say they get better at it every year. The end product just keeps getting better and more professional than we were. I do love to go as we will do next week and observe Marine training...it will be fun and it will be our last meeting....
No doubt I will be led to do a story or two of what we see, and maybe what it is like to look men in the eye that shared the experience, shake their hand and say "I remember you as if it was yesterday"
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