Before anyone can get comfortable we are up and at it again. Day two is hard and long and miserable. But the end is finally within reach. As tired as everyone is there is genuine sense of teamwork and helping each other out. Whether it is simply an encouraging word or picking up a hurting team mates pack or carrying him over your shoulder, nobody is getting dropped now. There is a fatigued humor setting into the recruits and drill instructors. Staff Sergeant Askew has been saying for weeks that if any of us are feeling froggy that he'll happily take that recruit into the treeline and whoop his ass. While sitting and eating chow in the woods, Nash says to him with a giant smile on his face, "SSgt, we're in the treeline and I'm feeling a bit froggy?!?" SSgt Askew's eyebrow goes up Rock style and then gets up and starts toward him as Nash laughs and runs away. This exchange was unimaginable yesterday.
We move through the field fire course and the day and night resupply sluggishly but get it accomplished. As rack time approaches the Senior comes over with a box. He starts handing out apples. As we devour them he tells us to take out our cammies with the name tapes, rank insignias and emblems on them. We get to wear them on the march back to the parade deck. That may seem like nothing to you, but to us it means that our days as recruits are finally at an end. Tomorrow morning we will become Marines!!!
We have nine miles left to go when we wake up on Saturday morning. We stopped twice, once at 3 miles and once at six. We didn't do cadences during the first six miles. When we stopped at the six mile mark, I was sitting on my pack and watched the sun light up the Carolina sky with all the pinks, oranges and yellows that burned the image into my head forever. At that moment I knew that something, call it whatever you want God, a spirit, a guardian angel, doesn't matter, had helped me get here and I realized that no matter what life throws at me from this moment on that I could handle it.
The last three miles were spent singing cadences and joking. The funniest exchange of boot camp came on this leg of the hump:
Sgt Cain: "Does anyone have to go to Medical?"
Rct Riddle: "I do Sgt Cain!"
Sgt Cain: "What the F@#$ is the matter with you Riddle? Did you get sand in your pussy?"
Rct Riddle: "No sir! I sewed it up before we left!"
Even the Heavy laughed at that!!
Once we get back to the parade deck, the six platoons of Golf Company Second Battalion form up around the Iwo Jima Memorial. The colors are presented. The Company Commander tells us that the men immortalized in this statue are looking down from heaven and know that their Corps is in good hands: OURS! The drill instructors hand out EGAs to us and congratulate us. We are now United States Marines! The journey to earn the title is complete!!
