Photos and graduation

After com­ple­tion of train­ing at the rifle range, we marched back to the First Battalion area and to new bar­racks. They were iden­ti­cal to the ones we had left three weeks ear­li­er, but bor­dered the same drill field, and we were ser­viced from the same mess hall.

We were exposed to one last vis­it to the “bar­ber” and shorn once again.

We also were tak­en for pho­tographs.  These were required for the Platoon 195 year­book.  We were required to pur­chase this book and I expect that vir­tu­al­ly all of us from that time have remained glad that we did so, to pro­vide refresh­ers of our time there.

All of the indi­vid­ual pic­tures were tak­en with us in ‘Dress Blues’.  The fun­ny thing about this is that none of us had Dress Blues at that point – and they would not be issued before leav­ing the island.  In fact, none of us received Dress Blues.  They would have to be pur­chased lat­er if any­one chose to have them.  The pho­tographs were pro­duced with a dress blue blouse that was open in the back and had a clasp on the back of the col­lar.  We would place it around us for the pic­ture, don a white cov­er and then return them after the pho­to was tak­en.  We were told not to smile, and I was told to remove my glasses.

With only a lit­tle time left for boot camp, we were essen­tial­ly prepar­ing for grad­u­a­tion.  This meant not much more than drilling and mod­est PT.

We were tak­en to be issued our dress uni­forms.  While we would not be get­ting dress blues, each of us would be issued sum­mer trop­i­cals and win­ter greens, includ­ing socks and dress shoes.  The socks we had been using through boot camp were long socks, with padded soles, specif­i­cal­ly designed to be worn with boots.  Dress shoes were dark brown, and we also received brown shoe pol­ish, which would be well used in the next cou­ple of weeks as we seemed to spend near­ly every wak­ing moment shin­ing those shoes.  When issued they were a dull brown; by the time we left the Island, those shoes would be high­ly reflective.

I hon­est­ly can’t remem­ber where we got the rags we used to shine those shoes, but it seems like we used old tee shirts.  There is a com­mon mis­con­cep­tion that shoes were “spit shined.”  I don’t know of any­one who used spit. 

Wrap a small por­tion of the rag around the fin­ger, dip it in water which is held in the small cap of the pol­ish can, apply a small amount of pol­ish to the fin­ger and begin rub­bing in end­less cir­cles on the leather.  Believe it or not, after sev­er­al days of this rou­tine, one could actu­al­ly see his reflec­tion in the leather.

Dress uni­forms were not issued until the end of basic train­ing because many of us would have changed our bod­ies dur­ing train­ing.  Some would lose weight, some become more sol­id.  As for me, I gained about fif­teen pounds.  With all the march­ing we did, I’m sur­prised I didn’t shrink in height.

Marines have always prid­ed them­selves on the appear­ance of their uni­form and mul­ti­ple mea­sure­ments assured the prop­er fit.

Within days our prop­er­ly tai­lored uni­forms would be avail­able, and we would be spend­ing time get­ting them squared away, pressed, shown the prop­er way to wear badges, etc.  Our new cov­ers were a billed hat and, like the shoes, were issued with a dull appear­ance, to which copi­ous amounts of pol­ish would be applied until they too glistened.

All of us who had qual­i­fied at the rifle range were issued badges indi­cat­ing the lev­el of our qual­i­fi­ca­tion, to be worn attached just above the left breast pocket.

And so we pre­pared for final parade when our pla­toon would march in for­ma­tion before the bat­tal­ion brass and any fam­i­ly mem­bers who could find the time to attend.

My par­ents and fam­i­ly could not come as both par­ents worked full time and my sis­ter was mar­ried with a young son while her hus­band was in ser­vice in the army.

However, I don’t recall feel­ing left out.  Just the sheer ela­tion of hav­ing sur­vived Marine boot camp was more than enough to bright­en the time for me.

Shortly after final parade, while we were still in uni­form, we were to be allowed a few hours alone on the base.  We could not leave the base, but for the first time we would be able to vis­it the PX, the slop chute (enlist­ed man’s club) and enjoy a soft drink and some pogey bait, both of which had been most­ly miss­ing dur­ing the pre­vi­ous twelve weeks.

That night, in the bar­racks, Sergeant Temple held a bull ses­sion with the pla­toon, and we were per­mit­ted to ask some ques­tions of him that would nev­er have been thought of earlier.

Tomorrow we would be board­ing busses for Camp Geiger, North Carolina where infantry field train­ing would fill the next three months.