Women Marines, and more

Women Marines are also trained at Parris Island.  They were suf­fi­cient­ly sep­a­rat­ed from the males under­go­ing train­ing that we nev­er, to my rec­ol­lec­tion, saw any of them except per­haps at Sunday reli­gious ser­vices.  I don’t remem­ber being in a posi­tion to even talk with a woman Marine recruit until our last full day on the Island when we were allowed on-base lib­er­ty and we found our­selves in the “slop chute,” basi­cal­ly what some would call the can­teen, where we could get some­thing to eat that didn’t smack of mess hall food, can­dy (pogey bait, of which we were allowed none dur­ing train­ing) and soft drinks.

We referred affec­tion­ate­ly to the women Marines as BAMs, broad-assed Marines.  I sus­pect bad-assed Marines would have been equal­ly appropriate.

Sundays were the only days dur­ing which train­ing was some­what relaxed although we could occa­sion­al­ly find our­selves under­go­ing in-bar­racks pun­ish­ment for minor infrac­tions.  All recruits were required to attend reli­gious ser­vices which were divid­ed into Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish.  Those of each denom­i­na­tion were marched to the ser­vice of their choos­ing. I was with the largest group, the Protestants, and our ser­vice was per­formed in an open-air sta­di­um of sorts.  It resem­bled a high school foot­ball sta­di­um as much as any­thing else and we sat in bleach­ers.  At the end of the ser­vice, we would be marched back to barracks.

There were a few instances when kids would fre­quent the under­side of the bleach­ers and if we had some change in our pock­ets, could bribe them to secure a can­dy bar or some such for us before the ser­vice was con­clud­ed.  I nev­er ques­tioned where kids came from on Parris Island.  I assume they were the chil­dren of those sta­tioned there.

I think we were allowed to sleep in a bit on Sundays but can’t real­ly remem­ber that.  If so, it would prob­a­bly not have been for more than an hour or so and we would still have to do our dai­ly clean­ing, toi­letry, rack-mak­ing, rifle main­te­nance, boot shin­ing, brass buck­le shin­ing, let­ter writ­ing, etc.

DIs were not allowed to hit recruits.  They did any­way.  The UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) had tak­en effect only a few years ear­li­er.  Prior to the adop­tion of the UCMJ, Marines oper­at­ed under a code which has been described as “Rocks and Shoals” which basi­cal­ly meant that what­ev­er pun­ish­ment was met­ed out by a supe­ri­or was accept­able.  There was very lit­tle phys­i­cal con­tact between DIs and recruits in our pla­toon.  LaCoursiere was the most like­ly to engage in the occa­sion­al phys­i­cal rebuke but I can recall only one instance when one of our fel­lows returned to the squad bay some­what chas­tised, pos­si­bly hav­ing been slapped or punched in the gut.  Tracy, the newest DI, once cau­tious­ly slapped a recruit for insub­or­di­na­tion.  I remem­ber Tracy look­ing around before he slapped the guy, know­ing that, if he were observed by an offi­cer, he would be imme­di­ate­ly removed from DI duty.

The UCMJ was pos­si­bly the result of an inci­dent in 1956 when a pla­toon was marched into the swamp, result­ing in the deaths of sev­er­al recruits.  The ensu­ing con­gres­sion­al hear­ings and inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tions undoubt­ed­ly affect­ed recruit train­ing thereafter.

I think we were all con­stant­ly in fear of incur­ring the wrath of the Dis and of even being struck by one of them but pure phys­i­cal vio­lence was very rare.  There was just as much fear of just doing some­thing stu­pid that would result in dis­ci­pli­nary pun­ish­ment being met­ed out to the entire platoon.

There have been many ref­er­ences thus far to “march­ing.” We marched every­where, not even count­ing the march­ing we did just to make us bet­ter at march­ing.  We marched to mess.  We marched to church ser­vices.  We marched to PT (phys­i­cal train­ing).  We marched to the rifle range – and back.

We marched to Eliot’s Beach at the end of our train­ing peri­od for overnight exer­cis­es.  And, in the end, we marched in parade to show off our prowess at marching.

But we were proud of our abil­i­ties to respond to march­ing com­mands.  We were sharp!  Not the sloven­ly group of peo­ple who ambled onto Parris Island many days pre­vi­ous­ly and we knew that when we marched near anoth­er pla­toon that was just enter­ing train­ing, they would be won­der­ing – as we did – if they would ever look as sharp as we were at that moment.