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them days the Marines had a real rough Boot Camp. They didn't baby anybody; in
fact, they were pretty rough at times with some of the guys, but I didn't have any
problem with the DI. Of course, I could go all day without stopping. We had a big
parade ground there and we'd go over calisthenics and all that on the parade ground
and the DI gets ahead of the platoon and gets on push-ups - and he's so good at it
cause he does it all the time. A lot of the guys couldn't even do two or three; they'd
be flat on their face. It happened to be him and I - we were counting cadence: one,
two, one, two. I'd go up and down, finally he'd get tired and we'd stop. And when
we'd get done, before we'd stop, he'd say, "Platoon, halt!" and I'd do one more and
before I'd go down, I'd clap my hands. He had quite a bit of respect for me.
Above him was a sergeant. He was a corporal (the DI) and the sergeant was in
charge of two platoons, and he came twice a week and inspected the platoon. He
was a tall mean-looking character and he had most of the guys scared to death. This
one kid came from Hillsboro. He couldn't have been over 18 - he died of malaria
in Guadalcanal - heck of a nice kid; but the sergeant came to inspect the platoon,
you know, the rifles and all and of course I was in the third squad and this kid was
in the second squad. The sergeant goes to the first squad first and he goes and he
comes down the next line, and as he goes down inspecting these rifles he goes
"inspection arms" and you have to snap it up right in front of you and he looks right
at you. So he comes down the line to the kid from Hillsboro. You've got to look
straight ahead when you're at attention; you can't move your eyes or nothing and he
moved next to this kid ahead of me and I happened to glance down and I see this
kid ahead of me and his knees were shaking. The sergeant would throw that rifle up
and look down the barrel and give them the devil - "There's an elephant in that
barrel" "It's so dirty, looks like an elephant in there!" This kid, his knees were
shaking so bad, and when the sergeant came up in front of him, he turned and the
kid came up with "inspection arms" and then the sergeant, you don't turn loose of
that weapon until he snapped it out of your hands, well, the kid dropped the weapon.
"What's the matter with you, Boy?" A big grin came on my face; I couldn't help it.
I knew I wasn't supposed to grin, of course, I got him off that kid, anyway. "Wipe
that smile off your face, Boy!" and I couldn't do it. Then he grabbed the kid's rifle
and said, "Wipe that smile off your face, Boy, or I'll wipe it off for you!" and then I
just ha-ha-ha'd - I just couldn't help it! I thought "Oh, well", and he didn't say
nothing more after that. He just went down to the end of that squad, three or four
guys or so, and then he turned and came down our line and I thought, well, had a
hard time keeping a straight face, but I managed to. He didn't say a word! He
didn't even say I had elephants in my barrel.
Another time, the DI had done a little boxing in the China theater. He was about
35 - he was an old guy to me - but during the week we had one night we'd get
together in the theater right there in camp. We had a big parade ground and the
end of the parade ground was sandy and there was a galley where we'd eat and that.
We had this theater there. Well, we'd march down to see the movie and as soon as
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we'd get into the sand, he'd say "Drop-march" and we'd walk like a herd of cattle in
the sand. We didn't get out of the theater until 10 o'clock, and we had to get up at
4:00 every morning, and that comes early. But, anyway, we'd get of the theater and
"drop march" up to the blacktop and the parade grounds that were blacktop, and he
said, "Platoon, 'tenshun! Threep, four, and a left; threep, four, and a left; count
cadence down!" and we'd all holler, "One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four!"
and the dummy ahead of me said, "Five". His name was Breckeridge, I remember
it, and the DI stopped the platoon (this was the corporal DI) "Platoon, left face, at
ease." and he says, "Who's that wise 'soul' on my right?" He didn't say guy, of course.
Then the guy on my right, cause we had "left face" was on my right and he was so
scared he wasn't about to speak up; so he says, " The next guy that pops off, I'm
going to kick his rear end for him", only he didn't say rear end; he said like they do
in the Marines, okay, then "Right face, Platoon, march, threep, four, threep, four",
and I got to chuckling under my belt. I'd like to see him kick somebody's rear end,
you know, you get engrossed in your belly that way, and you forget what you're
doing. Threep, four, left, count cadence, count one, two, three, four, one, two, three,
four, and I said, "FIVE" just bigger than heck-and I had no intention of it, but, boy!
that was a bad deal cause here it's 10 after 10 and he just flew right off. We lived
in tents - 8-man tents off the edge of the parade ground - and he went till midnight
at a fast pace drilling around that parade ground, and I thought, "Stop and ask who
did it and I'll tell you!", you know, but he didn't stop. Finally, at midnight (in four
hours we had to get up) he pulled us over to the end of that tent row and went "All
right, Platoon, at ease", he said, "You know why you got that extra duty. Now you
can do what you want about why you got that", he said, "Dismissed!" and everybody
just went really flying to their tents. They wanted to get in bed fast, so I stood there;
he called me "Red". "What's wrong with you, Red?" I said, "I'd like permission to
speak to the Drill Instructor, Sir," "OK, what do you want to talk about?" I said,
"Well, I didn't say 'five' that first time, but if you had stopped the platoon the second
time like you said you were going to kick somebody's rear end, if you had asked, I'd
have said, 'I did it'." "Oh", he said, "Maybe you don't think I can kick your rear
end?" and I said, "Sir, you'll never know until you try it", and he said, "You hit the
sack, Red" - just like that. They had respect for me.
M: What about your buddies? Were they mad at you?
H: No, no. Cause it wasn't my fault; it was that first guy's fault. Course they had
respect for me. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. Some of those guys, of course, they
were told your rifle is your 'piece' and you don't call it a gun, ever; you call it your
rifle or a piece. Every once in a while some guy would say "his gun" then he's out
there on the blacktop hotter than heck on his hands till they get blistered up, and
others would go around the parade ground with a pillow over their arms with their
rifle on it (and I used to laugh) hollering "I love my rifle". Just keep hollering; they
had to. Other than that, I can't remember much about it, other than all the drilling.
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