Close-order drills and hand-to-hand combat

It’s quite strange how each day, filled with vir­tu­al­ly the same rou­tine — ear­ly ris­ing, clean­ing bar­racks, break­fast, PT, class­es, march­ing — could still pro­vide new and unex­pect­ed occur­rences that all work in con­cert to make the days a blur.

Close-order drill was a part of every day that we were on the Island.  Column right, march.  By the right flank, march.  To the rear, march.  Right shoul­der, arms.  Left shoul­der, arms.

When “pla­toon, halt!” was called, it was actu­al­ly pos­si­ble (after sev­er­al weeks of accu­mu­lat­ing skills) to see the entire pla­toon come to a stop and lean slight­ly for­ward to a full-upright posi­tion as a sin­gle unit, like three rows of domi­nos com­ing to attention.

The antic­i­pa­tion of who would make a mis­take that would cost all of us end­less pushups, of what minor indis­cre­tion would piss off the D.I. and result in pun­ish­ment, of how long we would be march­ing and slam­ming our rifles from one shoul­der to the oth­er made each day dif­fer­ent, yet so much the same.

Noon and evening meals were basi­cal­ly the same except for the fare offered. Noon meals tend­ed to be some­what lighter and evening meals a bit more relaxed.

Noon and evening meals came with unlim­it­ed amounts of Kool-Aid in large stain­less pitch­ers while break­fast would offer cof­fee, milk, and orange juice.

Many meals also came with a dessert that con­sist­ed of a pat­ty of ice cream.  The pat­ty was about three inch­es square and three-quar­ters of an inch thick, always vanil­la.  Most of us were always so hun­gry that we would often place the pat­ty between two slices of bread (also avail­able in unlim­it­ed quan­ti­ties) to make an ice cream sandwich.

On one occa­sion a mem­ber of the pla­toon made him­self a peanut but­ter sand­wich which he sneaked back to bar­racks.  It was dis­cov­ered and we all paid with pushups.

There would always be one or more recruits in each pla­toon who were over­weight.  These indi­vid­u­als were sub­ject­ed to very lim­it­ed pro­por­tions and vari­eties of food.  Any recruit who could not reduce his weight in accor­dance with accept­ed cri­te­ria would be “mus­tered out” and sent to the “fat man’s pla­toon” where his food intake would be dras­ti­cal­ly cur­tailed and cou­pled with con­stant exer­cise. It was expect­ed that he would even­tu­al­ly lose the nec­es­sary weight and be sent back to a reg­u­lar train­ing pla­toon, but not the one from which he had come because that pla­toon would have moved on in its training.

Sometimes we would get pack­ages from home.  All such pack­ages were sub­ject to exam­i­na­tion by the D.I.s lest some “con­tra­band” come through.

I once received a let­ter from home with a sus­pi­cious bulge in it. I was required to open it in front of the D.I. and it revealed a ball­point pen with the admo­ni­tion to write home more often. I was allowed to keep the pen and told to write home more often, some­thing that becomes dif­fi­cult when one’s time is filled with all the oth­er demands of training.

A recruit once received a fair­ly large pack­age from home. As he opened it under inspec­tion, it was found to con­tain a cake sur­round­ed by pop­corn. The recruit was made to eat the pop­corn and drink warm water while the cake was passed around amongst the D.I.s. Cakes and can­dy were clas­si­fied as “pogey bait” and, if not avail­able with meals, verboten.

One night, short­ly after evening mess and before return­ing to bar­racks for our night­ly chores, we marched for a brief time on the parade field.  At the edge of the field was an out­door the­ater, a large screen, some speak­ers and bench­es. It was almost like a dri­ve-in the­ater with­out cars.  I don’t know who got to watch movies there; we nev­er did. But on that night a news­reel was show­ing (still com­mon in those days), and Marines were going ashore in Lebanon.  The pla­toon was halt­ed for a few moments so we could take in that scene.  I think there was some sense of pride amongst all of us know­ing that we would even­tu­al­ly become part of what we con­sid­ered a proud tradition.

One day we were marched to the base gym­na­si­um.  Many of us were excit­ed to know that we would be get­ting judo train­ing. I had been inter­est­ed in mar­tial arts for some time and looked for­ward to the experience.

We learned just enough to get our­selves into trou­ble try­ing to use it.  Judo is a prac­tice that takes a long ded­i­ca­tion to become pro­fi­cient.  We were expect­ed to learn just enough to instill some confidence. 

Since the goal of per­son­al com­bat is to dis­able one’s oppo­nent as quick­ly as pos­si­ble, the instruc­tors demon­strat­ed a choke hold that, when prop­er­ly applied, could ren­der an oppo­nent uncon­scious with­in a mat­ter of sec­onds. It con­sists of plac­ing the right fore­arm across the front of the opponent’s neck, with the right hand clasped with the left, form­ing a fist. The fist is then pulled against the left side of the neck while, at the same time, press­ing the head for­ward with the shoul­der. This places com­pres­sion on the artery sup­ply­ing blood to the brain and uncon­scious­ness comes quickly. 

Since the instruc­tors were only show­ing how to apply the hold, not the result, I fool­ish­ly asked how quick­ly it worked.  Summoned up for demon­stra­tion, I was rapid­ly apprised of the effec­tive­ness of the hold, awak­en­ing a short time lat­er . . . no worse for wear but a lit­tle smarter about how to pose questions.

Part of train­ing with rifles — aside from learn­ing to shoot — was using the weapon in man-to-man com­bat with or with­out a bayonet.

In order to facil­i­tate this type of train­ing – and to encour­age aggres­sive­ness – we were exposed to com­bat with “pugel sticks.”  These are thick wood­en rods with padded ends. Each com­bat­ant is fit­ted with box­ing gloves, a foot­ball hel­met and face shield and a groin pro­tec­tor much like a jock strap, but with a steel insert.

It was actu­al­ly a good deal of fun and no one was severe­ly hurt.