So lets all get ready to travel back to August 1985.
I was in Marine Corps boot camp at Paris Island, SC.
I was in Third Battalion, supposedly the toughest because we were removed from the main part of the base so there wasn't as many eyes on the Drill Instructors, making sure that they weren't being too cruel to us.
We had four drill instructors and our Senior DI was a Gunnery Sergeant, and we were his very last platoon of recruits. He was supposed to have won all kinds of awards.. but for some reason he couldn't get our group to march together to save his life.
This pissed him off GREATLY… no I mean GREATLY.
Sometimes he would get so red in the face because the hillbillies in my group couldn't tell right from left and they kept running into each other.
He was relentless when they would screw up and send us to the "sand box" were we would have to do all kinds of exercises (sit ups, push ups, etc). This doesn't sound so bad until you understand that as you are flipping around ("On your back! On your stomach! On your Back! On your stomach!) sand is flying everywhere including down your pants, inside your shirt, in your hair, everywhere. In the hot, humid summer in South Carolina, its not a pleasant thing to march around the rest of the day with sand in your drawers.. without the ability to itch or scratch the sand fleas climbing in your ears or in your eyes.
I know.. not very funny.. but just wait.
One time we were marching and he is particularly upset and he is screaming in the face of some of these kids like a rabid bulldog.. and they are TERRIFIED. He is trying to lead these clueless wonders in drill until he just can't take any more. He's so red in the face and screaming he looks like he's going to burst a blood vessel at any moment. Then all the sudden.. he can't take any more and he screams at us to "GO GET IN THE SAND BOX - NOW!!!" and when they say now.. you don't really take your time. Its all out pandemonium whenever they tell you to do something, part of the "do what I say immediately and ask questions later" part of the training.
Well he and the other DIs are screaming and yapping at our heels, doing their best to scare the crap out of us, but what nobody realized was that there was a freshly laid sidewalk between where we were and the sand box. All I could hear upon my fast approach was PLOP, THFFFT, SQUILCH!! These kids had tried running across it and their feet sunk 8 or more inches into the cement.. and then with the force they were traveling, they fell face first into the gray matter.
I saw what was right in front of me and I did this huge award-winning NFL leap over the pile-up completely clearing the entire mess and when I looked back, I nearly burst out of my mind trying to hold the laughter in, although some of the guys didn't have the strength to hold it in.
Well needless to say, the Senior DI couldn't have been more displeased.
And the look on his face as he stood screaming at the gray spackled recruits, and seeing a 30 foot stretch of completely ruined sidewalk that had once been completely smooth, nearly sent him over the edge.
This makes me laugh out loud even today.
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PS -- Gunny (Senior DI) really was a hateful bastard. Not in the hateful way that DIs are supposed to be hateful.. I had plenty of special "attention" from quite a number of Drill Instructors. If there ever was a Drill Instructor who was a cry baby.. it was Gunny. I don't remember his name
As for my other DIs. I met one of them, Staff Sergeant Thompson, years later in Japan as he came into my office at Camp Shwab in Northern Okinawa. By that time I had been promoted several times and was only two ranks below him.. but I couldn't force myself to call him anything but "SIR." There are some people I will respect forever.
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