Weapons familiarization

After morn­ing chow, we were usu­al­ly marched back to the bar­racks to change into PT uni­forms.  These were issued to us at the same time as our oth­er ini­tial issue and con­sist­ed of a yel­low, short-sleeved tee shirt with red pip­ing at the neck and sleeves, and red gym shorts with yel­low pip­ing down each side.  We also had can­vas sneak­ers which were only worn dur­ing PT periods.

I should note here that the offi­cial col­ors of the Marine Corps are scar­let and gold, but yel­low and red were as close as could be accom­plished with clothing.

PT took place in a large grassy field and con­sist­ed of side-strad­dle hops (jump­ing jacks), pushups, sit-ups, pull-ups, squat thrusts and some team-ori­ent­ed exer­cis­es (tug-of-war, 440-yard runs).

We then marched back to the bar­racks to change back into util­i­ties.  Next stop, the classroom.

Classroom instruc­tion includ­ed sub­jects like mil­i­tary cour­tesy, rec­og­niz­ing rank (impor­tant to know who was due a salute), Marine Corps his­to­ry (a lot of that), gen­er­al orders (which we were required to mem­o­rize and which I have long since for­got­ten) and the work­ings of the var­i­ous weapon­ry which we would be uti­liz­ing in the months and years to come.

Weapons famil­iar­i­ty includ­ed the 1911 Colt .45 auto­mat­ic pis­tol, the M‑1 Garand rifle and the BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle).  The pis­tol and BAR were both weapons first used in World War I; the Garand came into use right at the begin­ning of World War II although Marines fought their first bat­tle against the Japanese on Guadalcanal with the Springfield ’03 bolt action rifle until late in the cam­paign. The M1 would be in ser­vice through Korea and until the begin­ning of the Vietnam War.

We would learn to dis-assem­ble and re-assem­ble all these weapons in quick time.  The only weapon which we would car­ry through­out boot camp was the M‑1 (and its accom­pa­ny­ing bay­o­net) and much lov­ing atten­tion would be lav­ished on it includ­ing con­stant­ly rub­bing down the wood­en stock with lin­seed oil to make it glis­ten.  Much time was spent in the evening in bar­racks rub­bing those stocks with our bare hands and lin­seed oil to the point of gen­er­at­ing heat. 

The BAR weighed 19.5 pounds and was very cum­ber­some.  No one who was assigned the BAR enjoyed car­ry­ing it but it was high­ly cher­ished in World War II and Korea because of the fire­pow­er it could deliv­er on auto­mat­ic fire from a 20-round magazine.

Afternoons were usu­al­ly spent march­ing on the parade field, learn­ing all the com­mands nec­es­sary to move a group of 80 peo­ple in an order­ly fashion.

Column right, col­umn left, to the rear, right oblique, left oblique, by the left flank, by the right flank, right shoul­der arms, left shoul­der arms, port arms.

There were many sore shoul­ders dur­ing the first cou­ple of weeks as we got accus­tomed to slam­ming the rifle from one shoul­der to the other.

“Don’t move your head around that rifle, dick­head, move the rifle around your head!”

Forearm par­al­lel to the ground, back of your arm flush with your back when car­ry­ing the rifle at shoul­der arms. 

The pla­toon marched three abreast.  When we were first formed in march­ing order the com­mand was “If the man in front of you is short­er than you are, move up.”  With this for­ma­tion, the pla­toon was led by the taller of the mem­bers, grad­u­al­ly reduc­ing in height with the short­est bring­ing up the rear.

The sec­ond per­son back on each out­er flank served as ‘road guard’ and this was my duty.  Whenever cross­ing a street or road on the base, road guards would run ahead of the pla­toon and stand in the road­way as a halt to any oncom­ing traf­fic so the pla­toon could cross safe­ly.  There was nev­er any dan­ger in this duty as speed lim­its on mil­i­tary bases are always post­ed very low…and are uni­ver­sal­ly adhered to, and every­one who dri­ves on the base under­stands the impor­tance of giv­ing way to march­ing formations.

After the pla­toon had passed, we ran to re-assume our place in formation.

One mem­ber of the pla­toon was assigned “guidon.” He would march at the head of the for­ma­tion, car­ry­ing a guidon which con­sist­ed of a small flag attached to an eight-foot pole with a brass spear point.  The flag con­tained the Marine Corps sym­bol and the num­ber of the platoon.

On one occa­sion I saw anoth­er pla­toon whose D.I., obvi­ous­ly upset, took the guideon and hurled it across the field like a javelin and then ordered his pla­toon to march over it.

Just one lit­tle way of show­ing displeasure.