0400—0405 hours: Reveille. Time to get out of the rack (bed). Drop your c**** and grab your socks. No soothing sound of easy listening music on the bedside radio, or pleasant drone of the buzzer on the alarm clock. Instead, a riot of sound that included Drill Instructor’s shouts of awakening in concert with yells of profanity. The banging of empty 25 gallon garbage cans with a nightstick, kicking of racks or the turning thereof, physical mauling and psychological abuse—and just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill, bull-in-a-china shop, cacophony slash bedlam.
0405—0410 hours: Frantically make that rack. Then a mad scramble to get into clothes and conduct a head-call. Guys crowded over and around urinals like wildebeests at a watering hole. Followed by a headlong rush out of the Quonset hut barracks onto the parade grounds for morning formation. Short spell while the DI’s get everyone squared away—covers (hats) low over the eyes and squashed down on bald head, all buttons of the fatigue shirt buttoned (even the neck), all thirteen buttons buttoned on the pants, trousers properly bloused over boots, said boots polished within inch of their lives. Each scumbag (aka recruit) centered on the man in front—shoulder-to-shoulder with the man on either side—to make a perfect rectangle.
0410—0411 hours: Double-time to the mess hall.
0411—0416 hours: Yep . . .you read it right. Five minutes! Three hundred seconds for 80 recruits to side-step thru the chow line like convicts, have their trays filled with the daily vittles, hurriedly seat themselves at picnic tables, eat like starved dingo’s, stand-up and exit in a bum’s rush. . . to wash and stack the trays and get back into formation. Nary speck of food uneaten as per DI dictum. Which was a miracle in of itself considering the only utensils issued for chow (sans spoon and knife) was a fork. Made it a bit hard when soup was served at other meals.
0416—0430 hours (approx): Double-time to the barracks with a one mile detour to peruse the sights of the recruit depot (although it is still dark).
0430—0559 hours: Field day the barracks. Sweep the floors, mop the floors, apply wax, buffer the wax. Clean the shitters & pissers with a scrub brush, sanitize the showers & sinks, sweep the floors, mop the floors. Now square away your personal gear. Inspect your footlocker to see if clothes are properly folded; the socks tucked, and sundry gear in order. A last glace toward your cot—checking to see if the blanket is folded and tucked properly. Stretched so tight that a quarter will bounce off it in rebound; like a trampoline.
0559—0559 and 59 seconds: Take a minute to scratch your head and wonder in quiet reflection: What the f*** did I get myself into?
0600 hours: A start of another glorious day in Mah Beloved Marine Corps!
(to be continued . . .)
