My recruiter warned me that at one point during receiving week the DIs would try and intimidate me into disclosing my deepest, darkest secrets. He told me that if it was not on my criminal record that I need not disclose it. When this moment came on day 5 of receiving I was pretty paranoid that they would find out about the tennis ball bomb Daniel Decker and I had gotten in trouble for. This incident never went on my record and therefore there was no evidence of it. At the time I was a paranoid person like my mother, and so when they told the room of 300 or more recruits that if we did not disclose our secrets they would find out I was ready to raise my hand.
The words of my recruiter kept resonating in my head however, and I did not want to take the chance I would be kicked out of boot camp so I kept it to myself. They never found out and so I stayed. Even if they had, I doubt anything would have happened because I was not considered a criminal because of it. After this interrogation we were led to a squad bay where we would live for the next 12 plus weeks and told to sit and wait. We were required to sit “Indian style” every time we sat on the floor for the entire 13 weeks. This was to help us get used to firing in the sitting position with our M-16 rifles. After 30 minutes or more at a time it would become pretty uncomfortable but it helped us with flexibility.
We knew that we were about to meet our permanent drill instructors and the anticipation was killing all 88 of us. At this point I was just beginning to meet the other recruits and learing their names. As Marines we call each other by our last names and that starts in boot camp. Most platoons get 3 drill instructors but we were lucky enough to get 5. This meant that we would get almost double the torture because there were more of them to find discrepencies. They came out and stood at attention in front of us as they were introduced. Once the order was given for the senior drill instructor, who was a sergeant but would be promoted to staff sergeant during our cycle, to take over all hell broke loose. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr18XK8qgPU)
Besides all the screaming from the instructors we had our whole barracks transformed as if a tornado had hit a trailer park. Our belongings were dumped, our racks were overturned, recruits were doing pushups and other exercises all over the squad bay. It was as if WWIII had erupted right inside our little home. It was comical really and quite enjoyable for me. It was really hard not to laugh about it all but I managed to maintain my bearing and endure the fun. As a recruit boot camp become pretty easy for me and fairly enjoyable. I got three meals a day, got a paycheck, had a roof over my head, and got to deal with tons of chaos. I was actually pretty sad when I graduated 13 weeks later because I realized that I had to start making decisions for myself again.
My drill instructor’s names were Senior Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Oxner, Sergeant Yoshida, Sergeant Jones, Sergeant Vargas, and Sergeant Felder. I liked all of them but had the most respect for Sergeant Yoshida. I don’t think my senior drill instructor liked me all that much and that's ok, but the rest of them thought that I would make a pretty good Marine by the time it was all over.
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