Games

This entire experience is one giant mind game.  Drill Instructors have a seemingly endless array of games.  Everything is designed to get us to move faster, listen better, and work as a collective.  The games only start when someone screws up.  Who exactly can one screw a simple instruction like turn to your right??  This friggin platoon somehow figures out a way.  It's almost unbelievable that we can't do anything right. When we first got here I really thought that the DIs were just psychos.  They scream all the time and they always want more.  They snap at you even when you do it right.  I got up in the middle of the night to make a head call.  The squad bay is really dark and on my way to the head I didn't see Sgt Cain until I was about to pass him.  I said "Bye your leave, good evening Sir" and attempted to keep walking.  I should have known better.  "Oh hell no" was his reply, "Get back and try again."  Just so you know get back means go all the way back to my rack and then walk up and do it properly.  I didn't roll my eyes when he said it, but he cussed me out anyway "Good to Connors, you nasty thing lose your bearing too!  You owe me on the quarterdeck in the morning!  Get out of my sight!"  I was almost relieved to be able to go the head and just hoped that Cain would forget about the quarter decking in the morning.

When we move to slowly we hear "Oh?!?  Good to go?!? You want to move slow?!?" and then the bizarre task comes.  What constitutes a bizarre task?  Here is a list of notables:

• get on line with two sheets and a blanket
• fix your racks now (after you just stripped it)
• get to the rear of the squad bay
• get to the front of the squad bay
• get to the port side
• get to the starboard side
• get on line with a footlocker
• dump out your footlocker
• put everything back in your footlocker
• dump out your footlockers in the center now
• put everything back in your footlocker (good luck getting your stuff back)
• get into your PT gear
• put your uniforms on
• form a school circle
• get out to the street
• get back to the squad bay
• get into the pit

There are a lot more of these.  If you don't think that this sounds bad, you're right.  You're right because listing them doesn't include a DI screaming at you.  The games begin when the DI tells you to do this and then decides we aren't moving fast enough.  Get on line becomes get on line with two sheets and a blanket, which then becomes make your racks now...  "10, 9, 8, 3, 2, 1 You're done."  Everything always started with "Good to go, you want to move slow?" Then the instruction. Then the countdown.  No matter how fast we did it, we didn't do it fast enough.

The DIs have another set of games.  These are punishments.  We aren't allowed to say I.  We have to refer to ourselves in the third person as "This Recruit."  One recruit called himself I and got the following punishment; He had to stand at the POA and point at his eyeball and shout "Eye!" and then at his chest and shout "Recruit!" repeatedly for an hour.  Another time a recruit fell asleep during a class, so the DI chewed him out asking how he'd feel if he fell asleep on guard duty and got the platoon killed?  Then to emphasize the point he gave eight hours of fire watch and made him stand at the POA holding a pen in his finger tips with his arm straight out.  If he lowered his arm or dropped the pen he had to report to the DI Hut and announce that he had killed the entire platoon.  This kind of thing can happen at any time for any reason and I think I'm becoming paranoid.

Flash forward

Today is March 20, 2011.  Eight years ago today Operation Iraqi Freedom started.  I don't know how I feel about this.  It doesn't seem possible that it's been eight years.  My birthday is March 18.  I turned 27 two days before OIF began.  To be completely honest I didn't think I was going to turn 28.  War in any form is a scary thing, there is nothing glitzy or glamorous about it. People die and get hurt.  I knew all the Marines in MAG-39 who were killed.  I saw the pictures on the news of guys I went to Parris Island with who were killed.  I remember having chow with my friend Otis and sitting and talking to a guy Otis was friends with.  The next day he was killed.  Just one of the many to the folks back home who disagree with why we came to Iraq, but a real face to me.  Life became very simple for us.  Get up in the morning, check your boots for scorpions, go to the head and clean up, go to chow, go to MAG HQ work for 20 hours, go back to the tent, try not to fall asleep untying your boots, pass out...  repeat.  All the while you are doing two things:  hoping you don't die and trying not to think about home.  I know that I chose to join the Marine Corps.  I didn't have to do this.  We were trained to be hard as nails and that the most important thing was the mission.  We were trained to improvise, adapt and overcome.  We were trained to never give up and never surrender.  I never broke a bone or got shot or hit by shrapnel from a IED.  I wasn't deployed multiple times for over a year at a time.   I do have scars.  Sometimes it's very hard to keep my mind focused or my emotions in check.  I can get overly sensitive or insanely angry for no reason.  This happens to a lot of veterans.  The saying goes that time heals all wounds.  I've come to the conclusion that just isn't true.  Some events are so earth shattering, so traumatic, so scary that you will never be able to let them go and you will never feel the same again.  I have developed a bizarre coping mechanism, I focus my rage and aggression on the small and insignificant rather than real issues.  You could say that I sweat the small stuff in order to deal with the big stuff.

I have been telling the story of The Misguided Children which began almost twelve years ago in a real time format, but today I wanted to pause and remember the 4,439 brave men and women who have died in Iraq and the over 300,000 who survived but have come home scarred in one way or another.  All gave some, some gave all.  Semper Fidelis.

Black Flag

Have you seen Biloxi Blues?  When they get off the train Jerome says "God it's hot!  It's like Africa hot! I don't know if I'm gonna be able to stay here if it's gonna be this hot!" That's pretty much what Parris Island is like.  It's humid ALL the time.  It's hot ALL the time.  This is not an exaggeration.  It's hot when it rains. It's hot at night.  It's so hot here that the Marine Corps has to categorize how hot it is with the cunning use of flags.  It's called the Automatic Heat Stress Index or AHSI (I swear to God I should have signed up for the MOS that makes acronyms because the Marine Corps has an acronym for F@#$ING everything!) and it has four levels:  1) Green Flag Condition is 80 to 84.9 degrees.  Heavy exercises, for unacclimatized personnel, will be conducted with caution and under constant supervision. 2) Yellow Flag Condition is 85 to 87.9 degrees.  Strenuous exercises or physical labor will be curtailed for unacclimatized, newly assigned Marines and Civilian Marines in their first 3 weeks.  Avoid outdoor classes or work in the sun.  3) Red Flag Condition is 88 to 89 degrees.  All PT or very strenuous work will be curtailed for those not thoroughly acclimatized by at least 3 weeks.  Personnel not thoroughly acclimatized may carry on limited activity not to exceed 6 hours per day. 4) Black Flag Condition is 90 and above degrees.  All nonessential physical activity will be halted.   There have been days when the black flag is up by 9 am.  If we are out practicing drill on the parade deck and the black flag goes up they we go back to the barracks.  It should be noted that drill instructors hate these limitations and take it out on us when they have to alter their plans.  Now we may be in the barracks but that doesn't mean we are getting a break.  We will drill in the squad bay.  This gets extremely messy.  Platoon 2070 sucks at drill and trying to drill in a closed space just makes it worse.  The barracks are air conditioned.  This is not for comfort.  That would be an amenity and there are no amenities here.  They are air conditioned so we can train when it gets too hot outside.  There are 110 guys in this platoon.  It gets hot when 110 guys are running back and forth in a closed space.


I wish I could tell you that the recruits of Platoon 2070 are some of the finest young men America has to offer, but I can't.  Truthfully this might be the biggest collection of assholes and retards ever assembled.  These morons don't listen.  They can't walk in a straight line.  They won't sound off when answering the DIs.  We get chewed out and punished for everything and I'm actually beginning to think we might deserve it.  Why go off on this rant when I've been talking about black flags?  Well, because the funniest and saddest thing that has happened to date occurred while we were drilling inside during a black flag.  We were in our four squads lined up facing starboard in the squad bay.  There are two types of drill: marching and rifle manual.  We were doing rifle manual.  The Senior was standing on a foot locker calling out the commands and the other three jackals were moving through the platoon watching and correcting mistakes.  The Senior yelled "Left Shoulder Arms!" and you can hear all the rifles move but one loud thud on the ground.  Hockenberry for some unknown reason went to order arms.  In case you are wondering what the difference is I'll explain it quickly.  Left shoulder arms basically means that the muzzle of the rifle is above the left shoulder and the buttstock of the rifle is in the left hand.  Order arms means that the muzzle of the rifle is in the right hand and the buttstock is on the ground.  There is slightly more to it but that is the gist.  Now the Senior saw this and lost it.


Senior: "Hockenberry?!?!  God dammit?!?!  Do you even know what state you're in?!?!"
Hockenberry: "Sir Pennsylvania Sir!"


WTF?!?!?  Seriously?!?!  I can only assume that Hockenberry thought the Senior said from instead of in.  Well all hell broke loose after that.  The Senior actually fell off the foot locker laughing.  Most of the platoon laughed.  Sgt Smith started cussing out Hockenberry for being too stupid to breathe!  SSgt Askew got angry because everybody laughed.  Sgt Cain just stood there looking angry in a stupid way.  The Senior got himself together and ordered us all into the pit.  The sandpit behind the barracks is for punishment PT.  We spent almost 30 minutes in the pit that day.  We weren't even supposed to be outside.  

Candy Cain!!!

Boot camp is all about routines.  Every morning we get out of the rack when the dreaded "LIGHTS, LIGHTS, LIGHTS" gets yelled and we get dressed as fast as possible and on line for the head count.  All the recruits in the platoon stand on line at the POA (position of attention) while the drill instructors count the recruits and rifles.  In the beginning of boot camp all the DIs participated in the count.  We've gotten to the point that it's usually Sgt Cain who does the count.  Sgt Cain is the most hated of the DIs.  Everything the man does is annoying.  His voice just makes the skin crawl and just resonates in the small of your back.  He always wants the platoon's complete attention and then talks out of his ass.  When a DI yells "Zero" all the recruits have to literally stop and freeze in position and yell "Freeze Recruit Freeze."  The DI can leave you in this position for however long they want.  Cain is the worst offender of this.  Despite all his habits that have so endeared him to the recruits of Platoon 2070 one stands alone as the most hated.  In the morning while we stand on line at the POA he will correct recruits hand placement.  It's not the action so much as his particular method.  In the POA, proper hand placement is thumb on the trouser seem and knuckles against your leg.  If Sgt Cain feels that your hand is too far forward or back or that your hand is against your leg, he will adjust you by opening his index finger and thumb and jabbing this open claw into the fleshy part of your wrist between the bones of your hand and arm. (BTW if you don't think that will hurt or is annoying, open your hand like I said and now jab into your other wrist...  I'll wait...  See what I mean!!!)  You can see guys wince and glare at him when he does this.  You can see it in their eyes that they want to punch him right in his Where's Waldo looking face!!!

Now we all hate Sgt Cain, but Colson hates him to the point where he has become outright hostile.  Colson is a 5'10 fat black kid from Kentucky.  He is such a hick that I honestly question whether or not he ever owned shoes before he joined the Marines.  Colson tends to stand at the POA with his his fists pointed out instead of in and everyday Cain adjusts him.  Colson is stupid, annoying and unpleasant to be around, but he does have one talent.  He can throw his voice.  He has figured a way to talk out the side of his mouth and make it appear that it's not him.  He likes to do this to Sgt Cain.  After Sgt Cain passes him Colson will yell "C-A-I-N!!!!" in a high pitched squeal.  This drives Sgt Cain crazy.  He flips out every time and we all get punished.  No matter what he does to us, we won't tell him that it's Colson. While I think Colson is a total idiot I will give him his due, he won't do it when any of the other DIs are around.  After a week of yelling "C-A-I-N!!"  He decided to add "C-A-N-D-Y" to it.  I thought I had seen Cain at his maddest but "C-A-N-D-Y C-A-I-N!!!" pisses him off to end.  It's getting to the point where I personally can't believe that he doesn't know it's Colson yet.  I also can't believe that he hasn't caught him yet.  It's just another way that this place is completely insane.  Colson antagonizes Cain, Cain cusses us out and punishes us and nobody says anything.  Colson is becoming as unpopular as Cain.

This all came to a head last night.  Cain was the on duty DI for the night.  Colson pulled his little stunt twice and we got reamed out.  After lights out, Cain went into his office and shut the door.  About five minutes after he went into his office Colson decided to yell "C-A-N-D-Y C-A-I-N!!!" at the top of his lungs.  Before anyone could laugh Cain's voice came out of nowhere "THAT'S IT!!!  I CAUGHT YOU COLSON YOU FAT STUPID BASTARD!!!  GET UP AND INTO MY OFFICE YOU'RE DONE!!!"  First of all, I saw Cain go into his office, so I'm wondering what ninja technique the sneaky bastard used to get back into the squad bay?!?  Second, see first question?!?!  WOW!!!  This morning the Senior told us that Colson had been dropped from our platoon and that anyone else who wanted to test the DIs would meet the same fate!  I still can't believe how Cain caught him.  I'm actually in a state of awe right now.