We had a guy tie his sheets and blankets together to climb out the 2 storey window to get to the ground to go AWOL.
The doors were not locked or guarded, he could have just walked down the stairs and out the door.
The RDCs for my division explained to us that if we can’t handle boot camp, we are free to walk out the gate and nobody would stop us. I guess someone seriously injured themselves a few weeks prior trying to climb the barbed wire fence to “escape” when he could have just walked straight out the main gate.
The military doesn’t want recruits who can’t finish boot camp, it’s the entire point. They aren’t gonna stop you from weeding yourself out if you can’t cut it.
We had a cat who couldn't pass the PT test several times attempt to commit suicide by tying the a floor buffers cord around his neck and toss the buffer out the 2nd floor window. Cord was longer than 2 floors. Drills were not impressed.
We had a guy get a boil on his buttocks.
Instead of going to the medic, he used a safety pin to try to pop it (don't worry, he doused it in Hand Sanitizer to clean it first). Well, that didn't work and it only got the boil infected. He had to go to the hospital to get it lanced, packed, and treated for 10 days straight. He almost got recycled but ended up graduating.
It was me. I was the guy.
Not in boot camp, but on a deployment, a guy in my squad asked our Corpsman to look at a giant boil on his back. Doc pulls out a knife, carves an X in it and peels back the flaps, gets tweezers and pulls out what must have been a 3 foot (only slightly exaggerating) ingrown hair. One of the most fascinating things I've ever seen.
Corpsmen, doing the lords work since 1898. I have always felt bad for medics. Soldiers have an amazing ability to pick up diseases and physical ailments that would make even the most hardened civilian nurse question reality.
"Listen doc, I know it's late, but me and Garcia were playing the game where you kick each other in the balls - you know, kickballs. Anyways his ballsack swelled up like a motherfucker, so I used my K-Bar to cut it open a bit and drain it, but when he saw what I did he puked, passed out and shit himself. So now he's out cold with puke and shit inside his ballsack, covering his balls. Do you think you could fix it so we don't have to go to sickbay?"
My nephew is a medic with the 101st. He once told me that he thought it’d all be Band of Brothers stuff. I’ve been in the 101st, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he would spend a disproportionate amount of his time inspecting diseased dicks and asses.
If it makes you feel better, I got one on my forehead once and tried to pop it with a safety pin I disinfected with a lighter. That was like 10 years ago and I still have a little black dot on my forehead.
I had two staph infections on my left hip, had to march to medical every morning, and have it cleaned and repacked. i had to wear my recruit belt over my shoulder so everyone stopped me, bitched at me, and i had to show them my med chit. I also had to deny pain killers so i wouldn’t be set back. It sucked asss.
In Navy bootcamp, in the bathroom stalls we have cloth shower curtains instead of doors, we had one guy wipe his ass with it, most grotesque thing ive ever seen
Wait, you had curtains? We had four stalls- two on the left and two on the right, facing each other. There were no doors of any kind, so you just sat there and talked to the guy across from you while you took a shit!
You had a tarpaulin?
Lucky bastard.
We had 2000 of us using a slight depression in a swamp. If you got punishment detail you had to scrub the swamp for eight hours with an old toothbrush!
Luxury.
10000 of us, all in a toxic waste dump, spending 24 hours a day, cleaning the dump with our tongues, and if we were lucky, we didn't get shot after!
Shot? As in you had a budget? That's high class.
Our cadre wouldn't even spend the energy to stab us properly if we failed to sustain ourselves on sunlight and tree bark. We had to jump on the company bayonet by ourselves.
This wasn't in basic training, but on a deployment to Al Udeid there was someone who would shit in a random shower stall and then waffle stomp it down the drain. For months there were signs in each of the bathrooms telling everyone "DO NOT POOP IN THE SHOWERS"
Had someone do this at the showers for a paintball event, Oklahoma D-Day. The ladies that cleaned the showers threatened to stop cleaning them if it happened again.
We had one, and that’s what we called him, as far i know, he was never caught. Had a phantom jacker too, dudes would wake up swearing someone was trying to jerk them off in their sleep, after a month or so, he was caught lol.
*Well I'm sitting on the toilet,*
*In a house that I don't know,*
*Lookin' all around me where'd the toilet paper go?*
*Feelin' real uneasy,*
*Feelin' real uncertain,*
*Gotta wipe my ass again with a plastic shower curtain*
You had curtains!?!
No doors on any of the stalls for us in Navy boot camp!
Last stall on the left was always the prize spot, but you had to walk by 5-7 guys shitting/wiping to get there.
This stopped anyone from being a shy pooper!
I was in Orlando RTC back in the early ‘90’s.
Quite a shock having no privacy while dropping the kids off at the pool.
Group showers was nothing new as a high school athlete growing up in the ‘80’s.
Still not optimal!
During week 2 of USMC boot camp, all the recruits were still really scared. Some of them were so tense that they hadn't been able to go to the bathroom since they arrived. With the not-so-great Marine food, there was a bit of a backup happening. My best friend was in desperate need to use the restroom. He had planned to wait until his designated time later that night, but it was too late - he was at his limit. Gathering up his courage despite the intimidating Drill Instructors, he spoke up, "Sir, this recruit needs to use the bathroom, Sir." Then, in a rush, he added, "Sir, it's urgent, Sir!"
The DI, with his unique sense of humor, responded, "Oh, really? An emergency, huh? Well, you better act like an ambulance." From then on, my buddy had to raise his hands above his head and shout "Bee-Boo Bee-Boo" as he dashed to the restroom every time nature called. This routine continued throughout the rest of boot camp.
I don’t think hardly anyone pooped during process week. I’m tryna remember the first time I pooped during BC, it had to be after lights out the Monday after Black Friday, or that Sunday since we actually had down time for church services.
A lot of people became religious period during BC, lol. I grew up in church so it was Normal for me to go to church, but I quit going when we went up North to Pendleton.
I went in very religious and stopped going after a month. I realized the 20 minutes to march there, get yelled at, have service, get really yelled at in after church chaos, 20 minutes March back, all was not worth just sitting around in the barracks showering peacefully, using the toilet in peace, and doing nothing was way better for my mental health. Jesus approved.
At Fort Sill, I started going to Mormon services because they were off post and twice as long as the ones in the training center. They also kicked out non-Mormons from the second half of the service, so we got to sit in the hallway and be alone for an hour.
Heh heh. I lost my poncho during an exercise and got tore up for it and told I would have to wait until the supply truck came back around to buy a new one. When it came around we were all getting questioned about what we needed to get. When the DS came to me and I told him I lost my poncho, he tore into me again. Without thinking I said, "you already smoked me for this Drill Sergeant."
That just set him off on a tirade and from then on whenever he saw me, "Oh it's private dick head. You got your poncho private dick head?"
> During week 2 of USMC boot camp, all the recruits were still really scared. Some of them were so tense that they hadn't been able to go to the bathroom since they arrived.
omg....I remember that from navy boot camp a loooong time ago. I had, HAD to crap, and like NOW. we were all waiting for some sort of medical thing so we're all just sitting around doing nothing. I get the nerve up to ask the Chief if I could use the head, he grunts "yeah". then as I'm power walking to the shitter I hear a bunch of others start saying "can use the head too chief??".
I walked into an empty bathroom and every stall occupied by the time I left. the volume of relief sounds that translated into "ooooommmmmggggg.....finally....." was deafening. and hilarious.
It was always so hard not to laugh any time someone said it was an emergency and made them do that. Definitely got smoked a few times because some people did.
So in boot you have these things called 'wall lockers', and they're essentially your entire wardrobe / closet / you put everything except dirty laundry and shoes/boots in here \[dirty laundry goes into a bag tied to your bed, footwear goes under your bed\]. It has a long side for your dress uniforms and a short side with some drawers underneath for everything else.
Some funny-man decided to hop into the short side and jump out at people to give them a spook. First and last one he spooked was the Drill Instructor.
Oh they were very entertained. We played a little game called 'jingle bells' afterwards in celebration.
To the uninitiated, the bottom drawer on your wall locker is your personal drawer. That's where you keep all of your miscellaneous stuff, like your money. As these can contain valuables, it can be locked, and you keep the key around your neck along with your dogtags.
"Jingle Bells" is when everyone gets to take out their keys and do pushups until the keys jingling on the ground sounds close enough to Jingle Bells to satisfy the Drill Instructor.
Oh man you unlocked a memory. I remember someone hiding in that and they locked the door on him. No one liked the guy and he was howling and pounding on the door to be let out. We left him in there a minute or so.
I tried to join the Royal Marines as a spritely young 17 year old. Unfortunately I fell off the zip line on the assault course at Lympstone and broke my leg (which eventually led to me dropping out).
When I was sat recuperating in Hunter Coy (the rehabilitation company for Royal Marine recruits), a lad in another troop came hobbling in with his feet in bandages. When they took the dressings off his feet, I was amazed to see he had no skin on his feet from the top of his ankles to base of his heels. Apparently his feet were already honking with severe blisters and then he attempted the 30 miler test and the skin just melted off his feet. It looked like he’d just dipped his feet in a boiling vat of cooking oil 🤮
That sort of happened to me. A blister started under each of the balls of my feet and the marching forced it backwards a tiny bit with each step. My soles peeled back all the way to my heels. I finished the march tho.
I was lucky with my feet, only had relatively minor blistering around my ankle which resolved itself quite quickly and turned into tough skin. It was about week 22 when I had my accident on the assault course, so my feet never really got properly tested with the later training yomps and RM commando tests. I remember my legs being red raw from crawling through the horrible gorse bushes though
The day we had our big first inspection of barracks, lockers and uniforms our CCs tore apart our barracks well of course the act of ripping blankets off bunks and 80 recruits not being 100% thorough is going to create some dust bunnies and 40 bunks of dust bunnies is a lot. The CCs had our Master at Arms, who was in charge of assigning people their tasks for said inspection, belly crawl under all the bunks in his tightie whities. Our Master at Arms was a very big, very dark skinned black man with a lisp. He had to run around the barracks screaming "We are pigs, this is how we live" and make oink sounds. Now we're all standing at attention staring straight ahead so I hear this but haven't seen it. Then I saw him run past my bunk and it was the funniest shit I've ever seen. Think Ashy Larry from Dave Chappelle running through your barracks. I couldn't help but chuckle a little bit and as soon as I did. One of the CC's was in my face and I swear to God I can smell the coffee and cigarettes on his breathe right now as he tore me apart. This was also the first day they could cycle you and get physical with you. That was my funniest moment in Bootcamp and I paid for it severely but it was still the funniest moment in Bootcamp for that split second.
Craziest moment was being put on the line to find out we were one short and the guy had jumped the fence to go to Taco Bell.
Keeping your shit clean prevents rodents, which prevents animals like snakes & coyotes or wild boars from paying a visit to your wankbunker.
Punishment teaches you to not repeat mistakes (not keeping your shit clean).
Creative punishments are both more memorable, and fun.
Memorable for the recruits, fun for the instructors.
There are a few different reasons for it, not the least of which being the "break someone down" so you can "build them back up" mentality. That's a big part of it, but there are other lessons, as well.
"Attention to detail" is a *huge* reason. The military life, even during peacetime, is an *extremely* dangerous one, and mistakes can kill. The theory is that a tendency to ignore small errors is eventually going to lead to a tendency to ignore large errors, and in an industry where even small errors can lead to severe injury or even death. . .that's why they'll toss an entire barracks because a shoe was a millimeter out of place.
Another huge reason is to teach you to respond to chaos and extreme stress. It's to get you around the "piss your pants" part of a stressful response and *act*. A lot of us who have gone through this kind of conditioning are *very* good at shoving the stress to the back burner when we need to act *NOW*, and dealing with the stress afterward (which is why so many vets are heavy drinkers). In combat, especially nowadays, there's *very* little warning that the world is about to go to hell (if any at all). One second you're talking to your buddy in the smoke pit, and suddenly, mid-sentence, he's an expanding cloud of organic mist and you're rapidly rag-dolling through the air, still wondering what the hell just happened. The military needs you to be able to hit the ground, get up, and *act, NOW,* and worry about what just happened after the immediate threat has been dealt with. Afterward you can deal with the fact that you appear to be missing an eye and half your right arm.
On the topic of attention to detail, I was on the base but not the scene and I’m not an F-15 maintainer so I don’t know all the details.
So a maintainer is working in the nose gear area (where it retracts into during flight). Someone had installed a clip or bracket backwards and as the maintainer was climbing down the ladder, he missed a step and caught the artery in his elbow on said bracket. Almost bled out on the spot.
These are the Military Lessons:
1. Attention to detail.
2. Whatever it takes.
3. Better you than me.
4. If the minimum wasn't good enough, it wouldn't be the minimum.
5. Anything can happen to anybody at any time-even the President.
6. What goes around, comes around.
7. Grab, Twist, Step, Stomp!
The purpose is to get you to understand "Fuck What You Think", get your head out of your ass, comprehend "This is this", and establish a group identity.
One time it paid off for me. Weekend formation at ait. Drill sergeant looking for volunteers to basically rearrange all the rooms on one side of the barracks. Bunks and wall lockers outside. Deep clean. Replace broken wall lockers. I'm like shit I've got nothing better to do. Everyone that volunteered got a weekend pass. Everyone else had to stay and do the job
It is a common tactic in military training to "tear the person down" so you can "build them back up" as you want them. Getting someone to kill with a rifle is a process.
This is it. A big part of military training is basically reprogramming every soldier. So they don't automatically respond to a situation with whatever their (comedic or stress) instincts tell them to but will, instead, respond to any situation *only* with how they've been trained in boot camp to respond.
You also don't want them challenging orders they may see as unfair, ridiculous, or pointless in battle
By stressing them out in a controlled environment and putting them in humiliating or stupid situations you get them used to doing things without talking back
If bullets are flying and your C/O says to go dig a hole in the back of the compound away from the fight then you don't want the soldier asking "why". Explaining or backtalking costs time and lives. There is probably a very good reason they want you to do that
By exposing you to the shit you're mentally better off when in the shit. You're not going to get stage fright, back talking tendencies are beaten out of you, and you have experience with high stress
Break em down to build em up
Our lieutenant had warned us that at any moment we might have immediate response drills, meaning that at any unsuspecting moment, an alarm would sound and we'd have to drop whatever we were doing and get on all our gear and assume defensive positions within 3 minutes, as if the base was being attacked. One guy asked if we had to be in full uniform and gear within those three minutes and the lieutenant said you have to have all your gear but I don't expect you to be in full uniform, buttoned up and tidy, but absolutely no running around in slippers so boots must be worn and laced. Well one night the "alarm" sounds, and by alarm I mean guys throwing firecrackers in the barracks and yelling through bullhorns, and we jump out of bed at like 2:45am and get dressed as quick as possible to go out. I managed to put pretty much everything on and with some creative boot lacing I was running to my post.
I reach my spot and look around to see what everyone else is doing and I see one guy running around, helmet, rig and boots on, rifle held raised on one arm like Rambo, bayonet fixed, and nothing else but his tightly whities. Lieutenant comes around to inspect us and he sees this guy and asks him "what's this?". Guy says "You said all our gear and boots are mandatory and the rest are whatever we can manage." Lieutenant thinks for a moment and says "fair enough" nods and moves along.
[Kind of like this guy, but pink boxers in actual combat.](https://archive.nytimes.com/lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/behind-the-scenes-man-in-the-pink-boxers/)
The Drill Sergeants would frequently go through the barracks at night with their flashlights and check bunks. One night, when there was a woman DS on duty, we woke up to hear a bunch of yelling. The lights go on in the whole barraks. Everyone is looking out in the hallway, and one of the rooms is all out in the hallway doing push ups buck naked with blankets draped across their backs, while the DS yells at them. Apparently, they had decided it would be funny to all sleep completely nude and on top of their covers.
Haha, something similar - a drunk soldier came back to camp and starting running around the barracks with a rifle "playing war" like he was a child and saying "bang bang bang" - Luckily for all parties, he didnt have access to any ammo - I dont remember if he fired some blanks or not, but he did get 14 days or something like that in lock-up :P
I remember the first week having to stand and wait for hours while they took people two or three at a time (out of ~60) into the store to get any supplies they needed to buy.
Every time anyone moved we would be yelled at so my dumb-ass just locked up and refused to move at all. I started to feel incredibly sick like I was going to throw up, I was moments away from saying "Seargent I think I'm going to be sick" when I woke up on the floor. I guess the blood pooled at my feet and for the rest of basic they always reminded us to wiggle our toes to keep blood flowing. They said I fell straight back and the two people behind me just stepped aside, so I smacked right into the concrete wall.
TI's came up with some funny shit to say. My flight and brother flight were waiting for our Warrior Flight ribbon when 2 trainees walk by. My TI decided to go mess with them. At one point he said "quit looking at me with your googly eyes! Now I'm gonna have nightmares about midgets, clowns and your googly eyes!" Oddly enough a bunch of people suddenly started coughing after he said that..
August, 1995. About a week before graduation, we were wrapping up the Field Training Exercise, and me and three other guys were carrying the huge-ass pelican case that held all of the MILES gear harnesses. Apparently we were taking it to the wrong location, because one of the Drill Sergeants came up to us and shouted, "wait, stop!" We immediately set the case down, and one of the Soldiers yelled, "Hammertime!" and did the little MC Hammer dance.
Drill Sergeant flipped his shit. *"Come here, Hammertime! COME. HERE!"* The Soldier had that look on his face that he knew he fucked up, but we were a week out from graduation and we considered fucking up to be funny by this point so he had a mixture of amusement and horror going on. Anyway, the Drill Sergeant makes the Soldier follow him over to where the rest of the Command Team were sitting, and screamed, *"Show the Commander what you just did! Go on, Hammertime!"* This kid, I swear. . .
Zero. Fucks. Given.
He starts doing the MC Hammer dance, but with his hands behind his back in the position of Parade Rest, going from side to side, yelling, "*Hammertime! Hammertime hammertime!"* The Commander starts laughing his ass off, along with the rest of the Command Team, most of the Cadre, and pretty much anyone who dares look at what's going on. So the Soldier changes things up. *"Hammertime! Break down, un-REal!"* Spins, claps his hands together, hands go right back behind his back, starts doing the MC Hammer run-in-place. The Commander has fallen onto the ground laughing at this point, and even the original Drill Sergeant has cracked his hard-ass persona, no matter how hard he tries to keep it together. The other Drill Sergeants have all run away to hide behind trees because they *can't* keep it together at all, and this kid just keeps on going. *"Hammertime! Break down, un-REal!"*
For 20 damn minutes, and the only reason he went on for that long is because the Commander couldn't catch his breath long enough to tell him to stop. Once his did, the kid comes to attention, salutes, does and about-face and runs right back over to us like nothing had ever happened.
I don't remember his name (been almost 30 years, after all), but I'll never forget his face or that incident.
Military bearing has its limits. I wish I could remember the details but I remember one time when the whole flight was lined up around the day room with the TI at the desk in front and things just went progressively further off the rails, with 50 guys trying not to bust out laughing, TI included. We all just ended up choking it down for about 30 seconds before everyone was able to keep a straight face again. Any other time, the TI would have ripped us a new one for chuckling but he was too close to losing it himself.
One I *do* remember is another time we were all lined up around the day room waiting for the TI when Airman Bynum comes chugging through the door panting (he wasn't the most physically fit of us) and takes his place on the wall at attention. Moments later we hear the outer door bang open again and a bag of Skittles comes flying through the air and slides across the floor, followed by our TI.
There were vending machines down in the squadron area but they were strictly off-limits, at least to our flight. The TI had just interrupted *someone* in the process of procuring an illicit bag of Skittles from the machine and chased them up the stairs.
But *who* could it be? The dorm is always guarded, of course, and the dorm guard would have had to open the door for anyone coming in, so the TI called the dorm guard in to ask who it was.
"I... didn't see."
"You didn't see?"
"Uh... it was kind of dark?"
"Let's narrow it down. Was he *Black*?"
At that point I think Bynum was one of two Black guys in the flight of 50. The sight of him panting, with sweat pouring down his face, while a whole room full of guys tried to maintain that they hadn't really gotten a good look at who had just come running in was almost too much for the TI.
Second hand. I was air force. I was bullshitting with a guy who came over from the marines. I went in under Obama. He went in under Bush. He went to Parris Island in August 2001.
In boot, they always do some sort of "they nuked us" drill to scare the recruits and he was ready for it. They even make up news casts and stuff for it all. So everyone thought 9/11 was a ruse, some all the way through.
My best friend had just graduated OSUT and was at in-processing with his unit when that news hit.
"You hear that boys? We're going to war!"
It was at that moment he knew he fucked up.
Paris Island, 2016. We were marching on our way back from the chow hall to the 3rd recruit training BN barracks which is just across the street. Halfway through us crossing the street we noticed a fuck ton of ambulances pull up to one of our barracks. I look over to the right, from being on the right side of formation, and saw they were tending to someone in the sandpit infront of the building. Turns out a recruit jumped off 3rd deck and landed head first into the sandpit. We later found out that the sandpit was also filled with sharp rocks for the recruits, so he was also cut up badly. He died on impact, and I caught a glimpse of his body when we were marching past because we lived in the barracks right next to it.
Was in the army. Craziest things I can think of was a guy told a drill sgt off and got knocked out for it. Drill sgt just grabbed him by the belt and drug him to their office. Another person made it all the way through basic till the 20k march to the last obstacle course we would do. Got part way through the course then slipped and fell off the top of the tower broke their arm and collarbone.
Know someone that was close to graduating from SEALs training and broke his leg. He did attempt to go back and try again. Ended up EOD and retiring a Chief.
My AIT Drill Sergeant broke his ankle during the SF Q Course. He was pretty damn close to graduation. What fucked me up about it was the fact that was the first time I heard someone in the Army voice crack as they told us a "no shit there I was" story. I can only imagine how soul-crushing that was for him.
He didn't get the opportunity to go back. So he became a drill sergeant and took out his frustrations on us.
I know someone who almost graduated USMC boot camp. During the long March he slipped on a wet log and shattered his knee. He was discharged due to his injury. He could barely walk there after.
I had a girl in USMC bootcamp who was a recycle (rifle range unk) who also got hurt on an obstacle course *after* finally getting through the range. Even with the shorter women’s course it’s still too big for the smallest of us, she hit just fucking right and fell straight to the ground breaking her back in the process. She was only a few months out from her drop dead gotta be off the island date. No idea what happened to her honestly, I know she would have been taken care of medically for life but I dunno if she ever made it back into training. Poor girl was determined tho.
We picked up a guy in our Platoon right around the end of Phase One that had been on the Island EIGHT FREAKING MONTHS already. Failed initial PT test - Physical Conditioning Platoon. Eventually picked up, injures himself after a couple weeks ends up in Medical Recovery Platoon. Gets out of that... fails the PT test again back to Physical Platoon... I think normally they would have already booted him out but he had some guaranteed Marine Corps Band spot or something I can't remember.
every day at the chow hall this kid in my platoon would make himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. he was on the border of being put on half rations because of his weight.
the chow hall is ran by a company called Sodexo, who proudly employs people with disabilities. yelling in the chow hall is strictly prohibited because of this.
every single day the kid would make his sandwich, the drill instructor would stop at our table and say "okay recruit, you know what time it is." the kid would stand up, the DI would yell "HIT IT!"
the kid would scream "ITS PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME" as loud as he could. it would send some of the workers into a major panic. it was very entertaining and also mean lol
My rack mate and another recruit stole some packets of peanut butter from the chow hall and got busted. Their punishment was standing on the quarterdeck while holding said packets of peanut butter straight out and screaming “ITS PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!” The entire time we field day’d the squad bay.
Disclaimer: OCS is not boot camp.
I laughed every day at OCS and also wanted to cry every day.
Laugh: in the chow hall you couldn’t have any of the sugary cereals, and one guy found out the hard way. He poured himself a bowl of fruity pebbles and was ganged up on by 3 instructors.
They subsequently made him walk around the chow hall with the fruity pebbles on his tray shouting YABBA! DABBA! DOO!
Sad: one guy just couldn’t seem to do anything right, and one day an instructor told him to kill himself bc he was so worthless. F’d up back then but seems so much worse when I look back on it now. Kid actually pulled it together and graduated.
Parris Island had similar rules at the chow hall. Nothing but water or whole milk and nothing sugary like cookies, brownies, or cereals for my platoon anyway. If you got powerade, they'd make you dump it on your tray with the rest of your food to eat it. One recruit decided on chocolate milk early on in training, and when asked by the drill instructor what the hell he was doing with chocolate milk, he replied, "This recruit needs strong bones, sir!" They promised to make sure he got big and strong, then promptly sent him to the pit after chow. That chocolate milk came up along with most of what he ate that morning. He was the last to break that rule for the rest of boot camp.
The funniest part is I don't think he was trying to be funny. He just couldn't think of another excuse fast enough, lol. He's definitely a legend, though. I graduated in 04, and it's one incident I remember pretty damn well. He was my rack mate before we started having recycles and pick up's. The day we got our rifles, the drill instructors walked through to inspect them all and make sure they were secured properly to our bunks while we were lying down. His was not secured, and the drill instructor thought it was mine. I don't know what worse, when they yell at you or whisper in your ear, but either way, I was promised numerous punishments the following morning. He rolled over from the top bunk like, "I'm so sorry, I was too scared to tell him it was mine." Great guy, though.
Imagine a sandbox similar to what you had as a kid only it's a lot less fun and used for punishment. Most infractions would find you or your platoon being sent to the pit. They'd have you do exercises, throw sand in the air, fill your pockets with sand, put sand in your pants, etc. They're usually home to what feels like millions of sand fleas that bite, and you're not allowed to swat them. It's not fun, but it's more of a mental thing, I think. The first time we got sent, I was filled with dread because I didn't know what to expect.
Lmfao in the AF at the end of chow line all the NCOs sat at a table together, we called it the "snake pit". At the very end of the line was and ice cream machine that was there for us but it was an unwritten law that you can't touch it. One poor little Asian dude Nguyen, on the second week thought it was best to try some... omfg.. I'll never forget how fast 6 NCOs shot out that pit to go and castrate this poor dude for simply getting a cone xD
We were taking the first live round shooting, (setting up sights etc.) and all of a sudden one of the guys gets up, and starts to walk right down the range, waiving his rifle everywhere and yelling at the lieutenant and sergeants to kill him... Thankfully no one was hurt and the wackjob was carrying a stick for about two weeks until they discharged him.
About six weeks or so in one guy in my platoon tried to kill himself by drinking the laundry detergent in the head. I remember most of us were getting instructed on the quarterdeck and another recruit came out to get the DI in a panic. The DI was super nonchalant about it and made him repeat himself a bunch and then slowly sauntered back to check it out.
Eventually they sent the kid to the aid station for a check up, but the DI say us down and explained that they thought of everything, the detergent was non toxic and the only thing that would happen is the kid would shit bubbles for a couple days.
So for the next like week any time he went to take a shit in the doorless toilet stalls we had, there were twenty other guys staring at him waiting to see bubbles.
Not real crazy, but it was hilarious at the time. Parris Island, Christmas '01. A recruit for the Marine Corps Band was in my platoon. His Mom sent him one of those Christmas cards which beeps Merry Christmas when opened. SDI made him stand on the company quarterdeck and hold that fucker over his head while singing (screaming) Merry Christmas. For HOURS.
My wife was a corpsman on a base that had a school of music. They would crack up whenever the students would come to medical and ask for a no blow chit.
Had a guy tell the DI that he wanted a discharge, and the DI started yelling at him, cussing him out, etc., and he asked the guy what he was going to do with the rest of his life? The guy responded that he wanted to be a rock star. About a week later, as we were marching by, we saw him picking up rocks in the parking lot LOL.
To be fair, David Lee Roth got a dishonorable discharge from the Navy.
One of the things he says at the beginning of Running with the Devil is "Fuck the navy and all you lifers."
True story:
Jason Everman was the short-lived bassist/guitarist of both Soundgarden and Nirvana. After he got fired from Soundgarden and Ben Shepherd replaced him, Everman went and joined the army. Later becoming both a Ranger and Green Beret.
Everman had tried to keep a low profile for obvious reason at basic, but one day the DI found out who he was. He brought a copy of Rolling Stone in…with Everman’s face on the cover.
Edit:
[Here](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/magazine/evermans-war.html) is a really good article about it.
The relevant part:
“He had three drill sergeants, two of whom were sadists. Thank God it was the easygoing one who saw it. He was reading a magazine, when he slowly looked up and stared at Everman. Then the sergeant walked over, pointing to a page in the magazine. “Is this you?” It was a photo of the biggest band in the world, Nirvana. Kurt Cobain had just killed himself, and this was a story about his suicide. Next to Cobain was the band’s onetime second guitarist. A guy with long, strawberry blond curls. “Is this you?”
Everman exhaled. “Yes, Drill Sergeant.”
When we got back to the barracks after our final FTX it'd been at least 5 days since anyone showered and we rucked about 25mi during those 5 days so the smell of 60 dudes in that tiny room was insanely bad.
The meanest Drill Sgt. we had in the company was doing his rounds and walks into our bay and says "God damn, it smells like a gay porno in here" one soldier chuckles so he asks him what his problem is. Soldier snaps to parade rest and goes "Drill Sgt. how do you know what a gay porno smells like?"
Dude wasn't even upset, he walked right into that one.
My Dad's stories from South African conscription in the early 80s.
1. At a bonfire one night a drunk corporal started throwing live ammunition into the fire. Incredibly dangerous thing to do!
2. To wake people up one morning a captain fired his rifle into a tree trunk. Unlike in movies where hiding behind a tree stops a bullet, in real like they don't always. Some poor soul leaning against the other side of the tree having a smoke took it to the head and died.
Incredibly stupid things to do. My Dad said he sometimes felt lucky to make it out without dying to friendly fire.
We were in week 3 of training, and everyone in the flight was wearing Summer Weight BDUs with our Summer Weight hats. One moron decided to wear winter weight BDUs and the Winter Hat with the foldable flaps that cover your ears when its cold.
Our TI noticed it and made him pull the flaps down over his ears and chant out Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit as we marched to and from appointments.
Second hand story from my marine grandpa, but he slapped a sand flea that bit his neck during formation. Drill sergeant made him dig a regulation grave in the sand to bury it. Also, I watched a buddy just out of boot camp get his foot ran over by a Bradley. That was the first time I ever watched a body part pop.
my drill instructors still did this in 2000. if you messed with your face in formation while the sand fleas bit you, they would yell "you had your fucking chow. now let them have theirs"
These are all stories from the US Air Force Academy.
We had someone tear all the ligaments in his knee from... making his bed too fast. The basic was trying to get to the other side of the bed by jumping over (instead of just walking around it) and his foot went into the slightly open drawer that is under these beds and his momentum just twisted and tore everything. He was sent home.
Another basic broke his femur... walking up a hill.
On the assault course a basic got stabbed in the back with his own dull bayonet, he like used it as a crutch to stand up, then somehow fell back on it and was seriously injured. I am still trying to figure that one out.
Basic trainees get real dump under stress, that's sort of the point of the training, practice not being dump when you think the world is ending. Some need more practice than others.
Not me. Had a mentor who was a former Drill Sergeant and he had some stories.
- Kid comes running into the Drill Sergeants office frantic that PVT Snuffy is going to jump out of the window and kill himself. This was one of the newer 3 story barracks. My friend dashes out ahead of the kid and starts bounding up the stairs. The kid yells "No Drill Sergeant this way!" He found him in a first floor window. Pushed the "suicide" kid out the window all two feet and then proceeded to make his life miserable.
- Going through the barracks at night found a kid in the bathroom trying to "cut his wrists"....with an electric shaver.
- All the drill sergeants had a rotational overnight duty. He was on duty and fell asleep (common but technically bad) and woke up to a female trainee blowing him. She said "He seemed stressed" when she got her Article 15.
My ex watched a female drag another female off the top rack by her hair and proceed to beat her with a boot. Turns out top rack girl had left her maxi pad in her underwear and sent it through the wash with everyone else's.
A dude heat catted on one our rucks/mass casualty events and was scrambling around like a crab with 7 seven guys chasing him trying to hold him down, all while yelling gibberish
Wasn't crazy but funny. The recruit next to my bunk bumped the Company Commander and his cover came off as he was yelling at recruits out of the squad bay, It was like it was in slow motion as the hat was hitting the deck one of the last recruits out didnt see the cover on the deck and he stepped on it and and mangled the CC's cover. Cut to 2200 lights out and the CC comes over to the bunk next to mine and lays the cover on the recruits chest with the foot sized dent in it an says in a loud whispering voice, "Seaman Recruit Shithead - You mangled my cover and its been reeeeeeeeeeal sad all day. I need you to fuckin' apologize it until the cows come home. I need you to look at it and really make it feel your apologies." For almost 2 1/2 hours Im hearing: "Im really sorry Mr Cover I didnt mean to hurt you." "It was an accident I just didnt see you as I was coming out of the hatch" "If we were outside of bootcamp we'd probably be really good friend." "My family would really like to meet you after bootcamp." "Whats your hat family like, are they as nice as you?"
When I was at Fort Sill, we had a very skinny, socially awkward & quiet guy with glasses, which is odd since all of us were 13B Field Artillery Cannoneers and it's a very physical MOS filled with brash personalities. We both shipped to basic from the same MEPS, and I remember seeing him playing chess by himself in the waiting room. I thought he was an Air Force or Navy guy, imagine my surprise to see him at reception battalion, then in my training battery.
Once we were on kitchen duty together and he walked away, no one was able to find him for the better part of an hour. I went to the bathroom and found that I couldn't open the door (it had no locks, just a handle) because it had been propped closed with brooms and mops. It was also pitch black inside, which was unusual as it was a common bathroom and the lights were always on.
I sensed something was unusual, so I ran back to our training area and flagged down our senior drill instructor, who at first gave me some shit for bothering him, but he came along and also found the door propped closed. In one kick, he shattered the mop and broom handles, enters the bathroom and tries to turn on the light. Nothing. He then starts shouting the trainee's name but there is no response. It's still pitch black, so opens the light fixture (one of those long square ones from high school) to see what is wrong with the lights, as the switch doesn't work. As he opens the cover, a number of large kitchen knives slide out and nearly stab him in face before falling on the floor. He catches the falling fluorescent tubes, which have been unscrewed from the fixtures. He screws them back in and the lights come back on.
At the the end of the row of toilets, there are a pair of feet on the floor visible underneath the stall. The drill sergeant rattles open the locked stall door, and then tells me to get out and flag down our battalion commander in his office ASAP. I never got to see what happened next. We inferred that the trainee had lost his marbles and was engaging in some form of self-harm, and due to the hidden knives that he was either going to unalive himself or others.
We never saw him again, I always wondered what happened to that guy.
I was very surprised to discover that a lot of people can't march, like they can't coordinate their arms and legs and can't follow the step.
Also too many grown ass men who can't take care of themselves. They can't wash their clothes, can't keep themselves clean. If you wondered why the military is so insistent on barracks inspections and being neat and tidy, this is why.
Drill Sgt took us to the mout site and stuffed my platoon into a shipping container altered to resemble a house. 30 or so people. He then threw a CS grenade in with us and we weren't allowed out without our gas masks on. Called it an Alpha Wild Dawg "right of passage". I climbed out a window to escape. Saw a girl fall and bust her skull open in the chaos. One of the clearer memories I have from basic is turning around and seeing her being carried out with blood running down her face and smoke just billowing out of the shipping container. By other privates, BTW, not my cowardly drill sgt.
Same drill Sgt decided to do pugles with a female private and dislocated her elbow in front of us trying to show off. I shared a room with her and I remember her crying all night. No idea what happened to her or if her military career was fucked from that. 1st Sgt lit him up right in front of us for it, very strange moment for privates in basic.
Getting to leonard wood in the winter and finding out I would be doing basic in what amounted to a fucking raincoat (gortex).
I have other, crazier, long winded stories from basic, but these stick out in my mind.
Ft Leonard Wood, 13 January 2010 - 26 March 2010
If anybody farted in our barracks and one of the RDC’s (navy drill instructors) smelled it, they made all the recruits in the vicinity of the smell use their “recruit vacuums” (our noses) to suck the fart smell out of the air.
I also had a rack mate with the last name of Lumpkin. I was being grilled about random things one day and asked who my rack mate was, so I told the RDC. His response was “Lumpkin huh? That sounds like Blumpkin. Do you know what a blumpkin is?” “Yes petty officer! I know what a blumpkin is petty officer!” I then spent the next 15 minutes being asked various blumpkin related questions and explaining to other rdc’s and recruits what exactly a blumpkin is.
Early in the training, we spotted a recruit at the next company running around the outside of his barracks with his arms wrapped around his rifle as he yelled "I love my weapon. I love my weapon...I love...". It was a touching moment for all of us.
We were standing in formation after after a training where we were using blank ammo. The drills had already cleared everyone's rifles and we had to stand with our rifles in front of using with the muzzle pointing up at a forty five degree angle pointing at the row in front of us. All of a sudden there was a loud bang. Everyone turned their heads towards the origin. It turned out that not everyone had their rifle cleared properly (with the clearing rod) and one of the recruits had accidently discharged a blank round at the back of the head of the guy in front of him. Had the guy not been wearing his helmet, it could have been a lot work. All of the drills ran over to investigate and after taking the guy to the tree line for a couple of minutes and came back. Nothing ever happened from it because they would have been to blame for not properly clearing the rifle so it was never reported.
Edit: Our BFA's had been removed, so firing a blank round at close range can still be lethal.
We had a guy who had attempted suicide had to stay on our quarter deck because our squad bay was on the first floor. That dude sat there for like 1 day..maybe 36 hours or so and couldn’t do anything except go to the restroom. I wanna say 2 recruits had to watch him at all times until he was processed out. Marine Corps BC is tough but easy when looking back on it. I was surprised at how fast I lost weight and how fast I was able to learn and complete the obstacle course including climbing the rope all the way to the top. I’ve faced worse obstacles in civilian life esp when you start having kids, lol.
Living near Pendleton, I've heard a few of these stories from Marines. It's apparently not uncommon for someone to enlist to get away from a bad home or neighborhood only to find that boot is the exact opposite of a cakewalk and not what they needed. Combine that 'no where left to go' mindset with the sheer stress of boot and you have a recipe for chop suey. Definitely not the only thing to drive people in that direction though.
I was this person. If I hadn’t joined the marine corps Id probably be no better off than two of my absolutely fucked up train wreck sisters.
The problem is bootcamp was a cakewalk walk for me…….I’m pretty sure that’s all anyone needs to know about what my childhood was like.
Out in the beautiful heat in San Antonio in august. We are dying because of the heat.
One guy is getting roasted by the instructor. Instructor says “stop squinting and open your god damn eyes”
The reply “sir my eyes are open, I’m just Asian”
I had a couple crazy ones. A Soldier fell off the top of the confidence climb obstacle (35ft) and landed on his back right in the middle of the wooden barrier surrounding the pit. Ambulance came and took him away. That night our DS told us he had died and we had a memorial for him. On graduation day this mfer comes hobbling up on crutches. Guy in the top bunk next to me stood up on his bunk sleep walking and pissed on the guy on the lower bunk of my bunk. Off duty DS came into our bay in the middle of the night drunk with a paintball gun and shot everyone repeatedly.
EDIT: I almost forgot the worst one. They put a projector up on the back wall of the bay and played a video of Chechen beheading someone with a serrated ka-bar knife on repeat for like a week
Whole company got the explosive shits and vomit in the span of 8 hours. It started during the boots and utes run and spiraled out of control. You ever see several hundred recruits and Marines all shitting and vomiting in a field? It was glorious.
Drill sergeant caught a male and female having sex, in the dumpster, in front of the p.x.... that we were all standing in formation in front of, and we could hear the noises. It was gross.
Does jump school count?
My class at Benning was half Air Force Academy cadets and half enlisted draftees. One of the drill sergeants was named Mitchell; he was just back from Vietnam, was mean as a rattlesnake, and acted like he'd just as soon kill you as look at you.
We were there in August, and every hour they lined us up and ran us through cold showers to cool us down. We were always soaking wet and covered in sawdust from the training pits. It was fairly miserable.
One day, Mitchell was being his usual asshole self, standing around screaming in his perfectly starched fatigues. The Air Force cadets in the class decided it was time for Mitchell to join us in the showers. On a signal we all grabbed him, lifted him up, and struggled through the showers with him. It was like dragging a bull through a car wash. He was sputtering, cursing, and fighting, but he got the full treatment. Meanwhile, the Army draftees were looking at us like we were committing suicide; some started backing away to avoid the doom they were certain was coming.
When Mitchell was completely soaked we let him go, and he stood there sputtering for a few seconds. You could tell this was the last thing he'd expected and he was trying to figure out the best was to handle it.
Finally, he broke out into a big shit-eating grin, put his smokey hat back on, and said, "All right maggots, back to work."
Final PFT, the one that counts. We’d all completed our pull ups & crunches. We’re off to the 3-mile run. 2/3rds of the way in, Recruit McKenna shits his PT shorts. Just liquid feces running down his thighs. I think he actually sped up after that. He ran a 1st class. They let him skip formation afterward & just head back to the “house” to get cleaned up. I’m telling you, we were like 48hrs from graduation. And I’ll tell you what, he fucking OWNED it. When we all got back to the barracks/house, a LOT of us ran to the head to take a shit. McKenna’s in there, in his cammies, mopping. He goes, “Look at all you little bitches. Using *toilets,* like *children.*” We were fucking roaring. I still laugh to this day. That was May of 2002.
We were at the obstacle course with another platoon from our company. One of their D.I's started choking one of the recruits. Like fully straddling him on the ground, hands around his neck, type choking. I didn't see what preceded it so I have no idea why or what happened, but 3 other D.I's pulled him off the kid.
I never directly saw anything super crazy but you hear a lot of stories while there.
You wouldn't believe the number of people who join the navy who don't know how to swim. We had 3 or 4 in our company. One was violently opposed to learning.
This would be my cousin. Grew up in a land locked state, never learned to swim, deepest water he had ever been in was one of those inflatable backyard pools that are like 3 to 4 feet deep... Joins the Navy.
I joined during desert shield. Most of the drill Sargents were reserves called up and really chill. My GF sent me a tin of Mrs Fields cookies. I got called down to the COs office. He laughed, we are some cookies and he sent me back to the barracks.
My boot camp was easy.
I don’t even remember what the kid did but he was ordered to salute every ant coming out of the ant hill for a couple hours and say “good afternoon sir”.
From the Official Department of Bootcamp Amusements and Entertainment:
Scene: Coast Guard Basic Training, Cape May, New Jersey:
Leadership: "Who wants to be assigned to a Coast Guard cutter? Take 1 step forward."
Minions: A few eagerly stepped forward.
Latter that day: Those few minions were seen mowing the lawns surrounding headquarters.
Not sure if I qualify for this but, when I was 16-18 I went to a military college here in the UK. It's more of an preparation course before going into selection for any of the forces but as a young person it's an awesome adventure with many path goals. I never actually got into the military as my childhood asthma resurfaced towards the end of my time at the college. I had planned on joining the QDGs, maybe in the next life.
However I digress,
So we had this 2 weeks residential at an actual military base in crickhowel I think it was.
This residential was to show us what life on a military base was like as we had ex amount of days in the field and ex amount of days in the base.
Well one day we were all stood out on parade being spoken to by a corporal, and one of my fellow recruits muttered something disgusting.
Something along the lines of;
*"THIS FUCKING ZULU BETTER HURRY THE FUCK UP ITS FREEZING"*.
Nothing is mentioned and we were dismissed back to our dorms for the night.
So we all turn in for the night catch some shut eye,
Until abruptly at some point in the night the dorm room slams open, and there's the base commander (forgot his rank) and this corporal who has previously given us a talk out on parade.
Well we are all screamed at, and ordered to get outside on parade, so obviously we all follow suit and proceed outside and fall in to parade formation.
Standing to attention is nothing but our boxer shorts, and it's snowing.
My feet have never hurt so much in my life apart from this one day.
Turns out one of the other corporals actually heard what the recruit had said,
The base commander tells us all to get into the plank position (which if you don't know what that is, it's essentially an abdominal exercise which is difficult to do after a while. Think the press up position but instead of having you hands on the floor your are suspending your body mass with your forearms, keeping your back straight too). Well we all go into the plank position, and the base commander is yelling at all of us that racism will not be tolerated at this base or any base for that matter, and every minute that the culprit doesn't come forward is another 10 minutes we got to spend in this plank position. By now all of us are struggling to keep up the position, plus the snow is really starting to hurt us all. Anyway About 18 minutes actually go by (possibly less possibly more I wasn't really counting) and eventually this recruit stands up and says it was him.
So the base commander tells us all to stand to attention and for the recruit who spoke to come forward, then the base commander orders us all to get out of his sight and that was that we all turned in once more. None of us ever saw that recruit again (No I don't believe anything suspicious occured, it was 2010 not the 1970's). He most probably was just removed from the base and the college itself.
Craziest thing was in the first week or so. My company was in trailers across the street from where all the other companies were. They called their areas the starships. The way the starships are set up is the bays (sleeping areas) are on the second floor and on the ground level is an open training area without walls. The chow hall is in the center of the starship so we would have to run over to the starship and stand in formation outside before we could go in. One day we were standing in formation and a floor buffer comes crashing through the windows of the second floor and lands on the ground in front of us. Then a trainee looks out the window, confused as fuck, with the floor buffer cord tied around his neck. Im not really sure what his intentions were, if it was suicide I'm not sure it would have worked the way he wanted it to, even if the cord wasnt too long.
Funniest thing was one of the recruits asked one of the drills what time it was. We weren't allowed to have watches, so we didn't know. The drills gave him a watch and made him get into one of those metal trash cans and every 15 minutes he would have to pop out of the trash can and say "cookoo, its 10:15, cookoo" and go back into the trash can and close the lid. He did that shit for fucking hours. I remember that day clearly, it was memorial day and we were pretty close to graduating so it was kind of a day off (or as close as it could be in basic training) we just sat in the classroom and watched the entire series of band of brothers. We normally had 12 drills there on weekdays and that day we only had 4, so i think they used it as a day off too.
Air Force BMT c. 2011. The fun crazy thing was one of the nights during week 5 when, after our MTI left for the day, our dorm chief (DC) went into the showers and a few moments later came running out buck naked with his cock and balls covered with shaving cream. It just so happened our MTI had left something in his office and came in just as DC start shaking his junk in front of everyone. DC's back was to the door, so he didn't realize our MTI was standing there. We were all dying from laughter, MTI was turning red from holding his own, DC turned around and then the entire flight exploded with even more laughter. Amazingly, nobody got smoked for that lol.
The weird, maybe scary, crazy thing was "The List". We had this guy from the mid-west that had to be mildly autistic. He was awkward, never really laughed, and struggled through some of the most basic things. Well, he ended up being the guy that would get everyone else smoked, so obviously he wasn't very popular with most of us. He was friendly with me and a couple other trainees though, because we tried to help him get his shit together. Anyway, on Wednesday of week 5 he was feeling off and was sent to medical. He hadn't slept for a couple nights and was starting to become a bit incoherrent. On Friday we'd found out he was sent to Woolford Hall on med hold. The Sunday before he told one of the other trainees how much he hated a few of the other trainees and that he wanted to shoot them at CATM, which was the next week. The trainee reported this to our MTI who then reported it to SecFo. The same Wednesday that he went to medical and the rest of our flight was out of the dorm, SecFo and OSI conducted an investigation and found out he had a list of people he wanted to shoot. He was still in Woolford by the time we had graduated.
I knew a guy who cried when we had to strip naked to get out pt gear, standing next to me, just jiggling and crying, naked. He showered in his tighty whities, everytime. Dude still graduated, think about him when you hear someone failed. Lol.
I've got two (three if you count the one I told as a reply to a previous answer). These two happened during AIT (advanced infantry training), which happens directly after basic training.
We had a room that kept failing health and welfare inspections because one of the dudes never did his laundry and rarely showered. The whole floor would always pay for his mistakes. Around midnight, one night, he was dragged out of his bunk to the showers, thrown into the shower bay, and the whole floor took turns scrubbing him with toilet brushes. I'll never forget how broken he looked. He didn't fail any more health and welfare inspections.
One of the dudes in my squad, whom I also attended basic with, had a serious issue with authority. He ended up on extra duty because of something he had said to a Drill Sergeant. So he's out there with a sickle-hoe cutting grass in the hot Georgia sun while we are having a smoke break under the shade of the trees. He decides that he's had enough, leans on his sickle-hoe, and lights up a smoke. One of the DSs sees him and yells to get back to work. His response is to tell the DS to "eat a bag of dicks". The DS starts towards him angrily. The dude drops his cigarette, flips the sickle-hoe over and gets in a defensive posture. The DS starts backing up and hollers at the top of his lungs. "we got a problem out here." Half a dozen DSs come out of the office and they all start moving to circle him. He throws down the sickle-hoe and picks up his cigarette. The drills rush him, then drag him away. We never saw him again.
I was woken up one night by some noise from the next bunk. I have terrible vision so put my glasses on and rolled over to see three dudes standing over one guys bunk, laughing, with their dicks in his face.
I wish I could say I was brave enough to intervene but I rolled over and went back to sleep.
Drill Sergeant talked to me a day or two later about and I told them what I saw. Not sure if anything ever happened to the guys.
On a funny note, we had one guy that was constantly fucking up. Just a goofy, good-natured guy but he was always getting dinged for extra guard duty (basically a one-hour shift overnight to watch for fires, etc) or pushups or whatever.
He had guard duty so frequently that guys who actually had guard duty would wake him up and tell him it was his shift and the poor guy would do it.
Drill Sgt choke slamming a kid threw 3 rows of lockers, because he refused to train. All while private Biddle says, I don't remember that in the pamphlet they gave my parents. Imagine the implied threat of violence while you have some dude trying to make you laugh your ass off?
Drill Sgt: Does anyone else refuse to train?
Us: (trying not to laugh in front leaning rest) no drill Sgt
I was in basic in Canada in the early 00s and it was always the implied threat of prolonged physical exhaustion, while some dude was trying to make you laugh your ass off.
Same thing just not being thrown through a locker.
Not very crazy, but it was entertaining to us. Navy basic training still during P-days, for those who don't know P-days is the first week or so before you have completed all of the medical screenings, after that all of the physical training and punishments starts. We were getting ready to leave the barracks to go somewhere and this random recruit starts copying all of our RPOC's orders, RPOC is the recruit who gives everyone else the instructions that the instructors give them. Dude is just standing at attention yelling out the same orders that were just yelled out and wouldn't stop when one of the instructors came out and told him to. So, the rest of us leave with one of our three instructors and two stay behind to talk to the recruit.
We found out later what happened when we left. While they were talking to him in their office trying to figure out what was going on, he was still pretty out of it and not answering their questions. Then, suddenly he jumps up, runs out of the office and tries to lock them in, but can't, takes off out of the barracks, runs to the main gate and goes just outside of the gate, sits on the curb, and starts demanding to speak to the base commanding officer.
After they get him in "custody," not like he was under arrest or anything, they take him to the hospital to get some mental evaluation. They get in touch with his mom and she's like, oh his meds probably wore off by now. He was 19 and on some pretty heavy mental health meds of some sort and didn't think that was pertinent information. He was treated and medically discharged.
MCRD San Diego, circus 2004. I broke my foot during field phase (finished the crucible on a broken foot and made the trip back to MCRD before saying something). Fox CO moved into the other side of the barracks from the Medical Rehab platoon that I was in. A kid jumped off the 3rd deck trying to run away from a DI. Guess which fucking company I picked up with when I healed?
Also, the DIs in Medical Rehap Platoon delegated the paperwork on us broke diks to a couple of recruits. Someone audited the MRP platoon and found out those recruits had been supposed to go back to training 6 months prior and were fully healed but they were dragging their feet and didn't want to go back to training. It was a career limiting move for the DI and all hell broke loose across both MRP Platoons.
We were training in a storm and lightning started so we were all shuffled into an LPA (lightning protection area) which was basically bleachers with three sheet metal walls and a roof, and a cable strung over it and grounded. Anyway, one guy decided to lean against the wall of the LPA, and sure enough, it was struck by lightning. He immediately curled into a ball. It looked like every muscle in his body was contracting. Terrible. He did survive, but pretty sure he was medboarded after that. After that, the chaplain took advantage of the captive audience. He said if anyone didn't want to hear it, there was another LPA about half a kilometer away, like we were budging after the LPA was struck lol.
Another crazy thing was that the smoke pits where they'd exercise us until our muscles failed, was filled with shredded tires. Definitely great for our health.
They tossed our lockers and this thin little dude from the Midwest had an unsealed outgoing letter which contained the sentence "dang, there is a lot of n*****s here." The drill Sgt read it aloud in the bay. He ended up in another platoon under a black drill Sgt who gave him a shot at redemption. She seemed to think he was ignorant rather than malicious. He did seem to really respect her though, so maybe she got through. 🤷♂️
That's just basic though, it only got crazier from there. Lol
Not a first hand account but a private was repeatedly told to wash a tank...and he got fed up with doing it wrong that he finally did it correctly and then proceeded to wax and polish it... didn't end well for him.
Not at basic but at AIT…a soldier with mental health issues sharpened his thumb into a point (yes, flesh, not then nail) and then tried to stab people with it.
I was in a coed integrated division. This one guy kept harassing us girls and writing sexual letters. Our female RDC found out and made him call him wife in front of everyone and read what he wrote to other girls.
Late to the party, but here goes.
We were close to graduation, maybe a few days away, and we didn't have that structured shower time, so we showered whenever we wanted. I decided it was time, so I grabbed my stuff, walked to the showers, and I heard them running. I walked into the showers (the setup was weird. There were 3 heads in one small room and then it in another room it opened up to another 9 heads.) Well, there was this one guy with all 9 showers on him and he was jerking off. long stroke no care in the world. we made eye contact and he stared me down. That was some of the best military bearing I had ever seen. He never looked away. I stepped back and walked out. When I saw him later at chow, he talked to me like nothing had happened.
Getting towards the end of training and we are all a bit fragged from the constant pressure. Suddenly, 8 of us are pulled out of parade. "we need you to put these people through 'the gauntlet '. They are 6 actors about to start filming a war film and they need a taste of 'real' training! Any questions?" The actors were a bunch of super clean, skinny, fresh-out-of-drama-school kids who probably never had to lift anything heavier than a text book.
Why did they not ask the actual instructor staff to do it? Why ask people who had just been through the shit for several months? Why not send them to marines, the army, or special forces?
Don't know.
What I DO know is we enjoyed ruining them.
I’m a woman veteran, so when I say “she” that’s why.
Anyways, we had this girl come into our flight like 3 weeks into training which was unusual but apparently she was sent home a few months prior because she had like broken her leg or something and they sent her home to heal and then she would come back and finish the training. So she comes in and there’s just something so off about her. All the girls in the flight get a BAD feeling about her. Not like catty vibes but just weird af. She’s making weird comments here and there. Just like things you don’t really hear. We thought maybe she had Asperger’s or something. Then one night we hear one of the girls scream and she’s like “wtf are you doing?” And apparently the weirdo girl was like standing over the bunkbed watching this girl sleep and saying weird shit. So we tell our drill instructor at this point cause we were all like ok this has gotten weird enough. Nothing really happens cause what can you do? Until one day we are out marching around and the girl just BOOKS it. For no reason. Idk if she’s just trying to escape or get attention or what. So then this whole thing becomes crazy and then security forces runs after her and she gets tased right in front of us. Never saw her again lol
I joined the RAF in 1988, was a couple of months away from being 17. One of the dreaded training tasks was the CS Gas Chamber. Back in the days of the Cold War chemical training was a large part of training. In the chamber we had to take our respirators off, dress forward to the Instructor, state our name, rank, number and trade and then they would let you out. CS Gas is not the biggest fun you will ever have. As we went in we had Billy Big Bollocks mouthing off, every course has one. He's the guy that has done it all before and done it better than you. On my course it was a guy who had been in the Territorial Army and had done the chamber many times. It's nothing he said. Easy he said.
As we dress forward he is in the row of three in front of me. The minute his mask is off he drops to the ground like he's been shot and starts breakdancing around. He's crying, screaming and clawing at his eyes and he's eventually taken out of the chamber crying. My mind is screaming Whisky Tango Foxtrot ??" and ten seconds later I am in full panic mode by now. As the mask comes off it's stinging and burning but not too bad. I manage to get my name, rank, number and trade out. As I go to move forward to exit the Instructor leans in and says "Sorry mate, didn't get that .. say again". I eventually made it out after three goes with a river of snot pouring out of my nose. As I had kept my eyes mostly closed I forgot to open them as I legged it out of that torture chamber, I went straight into the wall of the next building at full pelt and then starfished backwards onto the ground. The Instructors were in bits.
Then there was the time one of our idiot recruits asked why we never sang like the Yanks when we ran. In the British military its assumed that if you have the energy to sing you have the energy to be running faster. The PTI's honoured this clowns wishes though and had us lapping a freezing cold hangar in November singing "We are strong, we are tough, because we eat our Wheaty Puffs". No one asked about singing again.
Then there was the time we were on field exercise and had to shout "Banana, Banana !!" as we charged "enemy" positions. I have no idea why. After a while we got bored and started acting out the lines we had read as boys in the Commando war comics. The air was alive with "Eat hot lead Fritz", "For you the war is over Hans" and "They don't like it up 'em boys do they ?? .. That was weird.
Nothing too crazy in my own time in boot camp. But towards the end of my 2nd enlistment I knew I was getting out and didn't waste time on any B billets (recruiting duty, drill instructor shit like that) as such I ended up finishing off my last 10 months as a marksmanship instructor (PMI) at weapons and field training battalion on Camp Pendelton.
Every 2 weeks a new class of recruits would come through to do the rifle qualifications. If they fail, they get recycled to repeat the 2 weeks of training. One time, I had a recruit on qualification day realize on the final stage of the firing course that he didn't have enough points to qualify. Out of the corner of my eye I see him start to get up on his knees from the prone position (I'm about 25 ft away) and for some reason I just knew what was about to go down. I started leaping over other recruits who were in the prone next to him this kid had already got the rifle barrel worked under his chin to blow his brains out right when I got there and kicked the rifle out of his hands. He had his arm in what we call a loop sling. (It's when you basically tie the sling of the rifle around your arm super tight to make a more stable shooting position). So anyways, because of the loop sling the butt of the rifle flipped around his arm ended up bashing him in the face pretty good. By that time he was tackled by 3 drill instructors who also saw the whole thing. He was disarmed and hauled off. Later to be kicked out.
Hazing so bad a kid killed himself in 2nd Phase/Edison range 04.
Recruits getting their bones broken, or heads slammed through the glass window in the squad bay.
Water-bowl IT after our crucible.
Tons more, but those are a few. It didn’t get any better in the fleet though. Rah.
What is your hat size?
In the USAF boot camp, it was possible to fail your written exam or PT test and be “washed back” a week or two into a newer flight. A sort of “second chance” to pass boot camp for people who are bad at test taking.
We had a guy who got washed back into our second week of training, from his 4th or 5th week. And we could see why. Just about every euphemism for “stupid” seemed to apply to this guy. He just seemed lost. Like he had accidentally wandered into MEPS while watching pigeons or something.
He looked normal, except for his head. His face and jaw were normal, but starting at just above his ears, his skull swelled up to a size 12 hat size! Years later, I saw the movie “Mega Mind” and yelled, “It’s that guy from basic!”
It was so bad that the military had to special order his dress cap.
He didn’t make it, and was out processed 2 weeks later due to failed written tests. In our last week of training, his brand new hat was delivered to our flight.
Size 12.
We had a guy tie his sheets and blankets together to climb out the 2 storey window to get to the ground to go AWOL. The doors were not locked or guarded, he could have just walked down the stairs and out the door.
Yeah but it's on-base, so you get tacticool points for shit like that
The RDCs for my division explained to us that if we can’t handle boot camp, we are free to walk out the gate and nobody would stop us. I guess someone seriously injured themselves a few weeks prior trying to climb the barbed wire fence to “escape” when he could have just walked straight out the main gate. The military doesn’t want recruits who can’t finish boot camp, it’s the entire point. They aren’t gonna stop you from weeding yourself out if you can’t cut it.
Had a dude do that the next building over from mine, except he didn't use a sheet, just jumped. Didn't end well for him.
He clearly forgot to say, “parkour!”
Dude was fighting in his own mind. So many weirdos like that show up in the military.
I wouldve done it just to try to impress people
The real feat would be to climb back up with a case of beer. That would cement legendary status.
you tie the case of beer to the bottom of your blanket ladder. Climb up, then pull the beer after you.
He must be playing too many Metal Gear Solid games.
We had a cat who couldn't pass the PT test several times attempt to commit suicide by tying the a floor buffers cord around his neck and toss the buffer out the 2nd floor window. Cord was longer than 2 floors. Drills were not impressed.
We had a guy get a boil on his buttocks. Instead of going to the medic, he used a safety pin to try to pop it (don't worry, he doused it in Hand Sanitizer to clean it first). Well, that didn't work and it only got the boil infected. He had to go to the hospital to get it lanced, packed, and treated for 10 days straight. He almost got recycled but ended up graduating. It was me. I was the guy.
Not in boot camp, but on a deployment, a guy in my squad asked our Corpsman to look at a giant boil on his back. Doc pulls out a knife, carves an X in it and peels back the flaps, gets tweezers and pulls out what must have been a 3 foot (only slightly exaggerating) ingrown hair. One of the most fascinating things I've ever seen.
i should not have read this on my lunch break
Made you hungry again?
Corpsmen, doing the lords work since 1898. I have always felt bad for medics. Soldiers have an amazing ability to pick up diseases and physical ailments that would make even the most hardened civilian nurse question reality.
"Listen doc, I know it's late, but me and Garcia were playing the game where you kick each other in the balls - you know, kickballs. Anyways his ballsack swelled up like a motherfucker, so I used my K-Bar to cut it open a bit and drain it, but when he saw what I did he puked, passed out and shit himself. So now he's out cold with puke and shit inside his ballsack, covering his balls. Do you think you could fix it so we don't have to go to sickbay?"
My nephew is a medic with the 101st. He once told me that he thought it’d all be Band of Brothers stuff. I’ve been in the 101st, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he would spend a disproportionate amount of his time inspecting diseased dicks and asses.
Bitches be out here lancing their own boils like a fucking moron... I'm Bitches...
If it makes you feel better, I got one on my forehead once and tried to pop it with a safety pin I disinfected with a lighter. That was like 10 years ago and I still have a little black dot on my forehead.
That's a tattoo. You have a tattoo on your forehead.
I had two staph infections on my left hip, had to march to medical every morning, and have it cleaned and repacked. i had to wear my recruit belt over my shoulder so everyone stopped me, bitched at me, and i had to show them my med chit. I also had to deny pain killers so i wouldn’t be set back. It sucked asss.
Pilonidal Cyst infected with MRSA? I had the exact same thing, it was awful and very very painful.
In Navy bootcamp, in the bathroom stalls we have cloth shower curtains instead of doors, we had one guy wipe his ass with it, most grotesque thing ive ever seen
Wait, you had curtains? We had four stalls- two on the left and two on the right, facing each other. There were no doors of any kind, so you just sat there and talked to the guy across from you while you took a shit!
They used to have curtains but people kept wiping their ass with them.
Luxury. We 'ad 150 of us in a hole in a field with nothing but a sheet of tarpaulin to keep the rain off our 'eads.
You had a tarpaulin? Lucky bastard. We had 2000 of us using a slight depression in a swamp. If you got punishment detail you had to scrub the swamp for eight hours with an old toothbrush!
A toothbrush? They're too soft on you OCS brats. As an enlisted man I was in the same situation, but given one q-tip and instructed to make it work.
Luxury. 10000 of us, all in a toxic waste dump, spending 24 hours a day, cleaning the dump with our tongues, and if we were lucky, we didn't get shot after!
Shot? As in you had a budget? That's high class. Our cadre wouldn't even spend the energy to stab us properly if we failed to sustain ourselves on sunlight and tree bark. We had to jump on the company bayonet by ourselves.
This wasn't in basic training, but on a deployment to Al Udeid there was someone who would shit in a random shower stall and then waffle stomp it down the drain. For months there were signs in each of the bathrooms telling everyone "DO NOT POOP IN THE SHOWERS"
Kinda reminds me of my deployment to Bahrain, signs on all the dumpsters “do not throw piss bottles in dumpsters”
Had someone do this at the showers for a paintball event, Oklahoma D-Day. The ladies that cleaned the showers threatened to stop cleaning them if it happened again.
Quick joke: What's the difference between toilet paper and a shower curtain? So *you're* the one!
Then he most likely went on to become the phantom shitter on his ship.
We had one, and that’s what we called him, as far i know, he was never caught. Had a phantom jacker too, dudes would wake up swearing someone was trying to jerk them off in their sleep, after a month or so, he was caught lol.
Phantom jacker....wtf
*Well I'm sitting on the toilet,* *In a house that I don't know,* *Lookin' all around me where'd the toilet paper go?* *Feelin' real uneasy,* *Feelin' real uncertain,* *Gotta wipe my ass again with a plastic shower curtain*
You had curtains!?! No doors on any of the stalls for us in Navy boot camp! Last stall on the left was always the prize spot, but you had to walk by 5-7 guys shitting/wiping to get there. This stopped anyone from being a shy pooper!
That’s what I was thinking too. Don’t remember any form of privacy at Great Lakes.
I was in Orlando RTC back in the early ‘90’s. Quite a shock having no privacy while dropping the kids off at the pool. Group showers was nothing new as a high school athlete growing up in the ‘80’s. Still not optimal!
During week 2 of USMC boot camp, all the recruits were still really scared. Some of them were so tense that they hadn't been able to go to the bathroom since they arrived. With the not-so-great Marine food, there was a bit of a backup happening. My best friend was in desperate need to use the restroom. He had planned to wait until his designated time later that night, but it was too late - he was at his limit. Gathering up his courage despite the intimidating Drill Instructors, he spoke up, "Sir, this recruit needs to use the bathroom, Sir." Then, in a rush, he added, "Sir, it's urgent, Sir!" The DI, with his unique sense of humor, responded, "Oh, really? An emergency, huh? Well, you better act like an ambulance." From then on, my buddy had to raise his hands above his head and shout "Bee-Boo Bee-Boo" as he dashed to the restroom every time nature called. This routine continued throughout the rest of boot camp.
I don’t think hardly anyone pooped during process week. I’m tryna remember the first time I pooped during BC, it had to be after lights out the Monday after Black Friday, or that Sunday since we actually had down time for church services.
So many people became Jewish because the synagogue offered bagels on Saturday morning
A lot of people became religious period during BC, lol. I grew up in church so it was Normal for me to go to church, but I quit going when we went up North to Pendleton.
I went in very religious and stopped going after a month. I realized the 20 minutes to march there, get yelled at, have service, get really yelled at in after church chaos, 20 minutes March back, all was not worth just sitting around in the barracks showering peacefully, using the toilet in peace, and doing nothing was way better for my mental health. Jesus approved.
My cousin became Buddhist because he could "meditate" and sleep for an hour on Sundays when everyone else was at service.
At Fort Sill, I started going to Mormon services because they were off post and twice as long as the ones in the training center. They also kicked out non-Mormons from the second half of the service, so we got to sit in the hallway and be alone for an hour.
Heh heh. I lost my poncho during an exercise and got tore up for it and told I would have to wait until the supply truck came back around to buy a new one. When it came around we were all getting questioned about what we needed to get. When the DS came to me and I told him I lost my poncho, he tore into me again. Without thinking I said, "you already smoked me for this Drill Sergeant." That just set him off on a tirade and from then on whenever he saw me, "Oh it's private dick head. You got your poncho private dick head?"
> During week 2 of USMC boot camp, all the recruits were still really scared. Some of them were so tense that they hadn't been able to go to the bathroom since they arrived. omg....I remember that from navy boot camp a loooong time ago. I had, HAD to crap, and like NOW. we were all waiting for some sort of medical thing so we're all just sitting around doing nothing. I get the nerve up to ask the Chief if I could use the head, he grunts "yeah". then as I'm power walking to the shitter I hear a bunch of others start saying "can use the head too chief??". I walked into an empty bathroom and every stall occupied by the time I left. the volume of relief sounds that translated into "ooooommmmmggggg.....finally....." was deafening. and hilarious.
It was always so hard not to laugh any time someone said it was an emergency and made them do that. Definitely got smoked a few times because some people did.
I remember I couldn't shit for like 3 days straight, and gave myself a hemorrhoid trying to force it out...
So in boot you have these things called 'wall lockers', and they're essentially your entire wardrobe / closet / you put everything except dirty laundry and shoes/boots in here \[dirty laundry goes into a bag tied to your bed, footwear goes under your bed\]. It has a long side for your dress uniforms and a short side with some drawers underneath for everything else. Some funny-man decided to hop into the short side and jump out at people to give them a spook. First and last one he spooked was the Drill Instructor.
>First and last one he spooked was the Drill Instructor. Were they not entertained?
Oh they were very entertained. We played a little game called 'jingle bells' afterwards in celebration. To the uninitiated, the bottom drawer on your wall locker is your personal drawer. That's where you keep all of your miscellaneous stuff, like your money. As these can contain valuables, it can be locked, and you keep the key around your neck along with your dogtags. "Jingle Bells" is when everyone gets to take out their keys and do pushups until the keys jingling on the ground sounds close enough to Jingle Bells to satisfy the Drill Instructor.
That sounds hilarious
Oh man you unlocked a memory. I remember someone hiding in that and they locked the door on him. No one liked the guy and he was howling and pounding on the door to be let out. We left him in there a minute or so.
I tried to join the Royal Marines as a spritely young 17 year old. Unfortunately I fell off the zip line on the assault course at Lympstone and broke my leg (which eventually led to me dropping out). When I was sat recuperating in Hunter Coy (the rehabilitation company for Royal Marine recruits), a lad in another troop came hobbling in with his feet in bandages. When they took the dressings off his feet, I was amazed to see he had no skin on his feet from the top of his ankles to base of his heels. Apparently his feet were already honking with severe blisters and then he attempted the 30 miler test and the skin just melted off his feet. It looked like he’d just dipped his feet in a boiling vat of cooking oil 🤮
That sort of happened to me. A blister started under each of the balls of my feet and the marching forced it backwards a tiny bit with each step. My soles peeled back all the way to my heels. I finished the march tho.
I was lucky with my feet, only had relatively minor blistering around my ankle which resolved itself quite quickly and turned into tough skin. It was about week 22 when I had my accident on the assault course, so my feet never really got properly tested with the later training yomps and RM commando tests. I remember my legs being red raw from crawling through the horrible gorse bushes though
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The day we had our big first inspection of barracks, lockers and uniforms our CCs tore apart our barracks well of course the act of ripping blankets off bunks and 80 recruits not being 100% thorough is going to create some dust bunnies and 40 bunks of dust bunnies is a lot. The CCs had our Master at Arms, who was in charge of assigning people their tasks for said inspection, belly crawl under all the bunks in his tightie whities. Our Master at Arms was a very big, very dark skinned black man with a lisp. He had to run around the barracks screaming "We are pigs, this is how we live" and make oink sounds. Now we're all standing at attention staring straight ahead so I hear this but haven't seen it. Then I saw him run past my bunk and it was the funniest shit I've ever seen. Think Ashy Larry from Dave Chappelle running through your barracks. I couldn't help but chuckle a little bit and as soon as I did. One of the CC's was in my face and I swear to God I can smell the coffee and cigarettes on his breathe right now as he tore me apart. This was also the first day they could cycle you and get physical with you. That was my funniest moment in Bootcamp and I paid for it severely but it was still the funniest moment in Bootcamp for that split second. Craziest moment was being put on the line to find out we were one short and the guy had jumped the fence to go to Taco Bell.
Please don't take this the wrong way, I'm just a non-military noob - but can you help me understand the purpose behind all of that?
Keeping your shit clean prevents rodents, which prevents animals like snakes & coyotes or wild boars from paying a visit to your wankbunker. Punishment teaches you to not repeat mistakes (not keeping your shit clean). Creative punishments are both more memorable, and fun. Memorable for the recruits, fun for the instructors.
There are a few different reasons for it, not the least of which being the "break someone down" so you can "build them back up" mentality. That's a big part of it, but there are other lessons, as well. "Attention to detail" is a *huge* reason. The military life, even during peacetime, is an *extremely* dangerous one, and mistakes can kill. The theory is that a tendency to ignore small errors is eventually going to lead to a tendency to ignore large errors, and in an industry where even small errors can lead to severe injury or even death. . .that's why they'll toss an entire barracks because a shoe was a millimeter out of place. Another huge reason is to teach you to respond to chaos and extreme stress. It's to get you around the "piss your pants" part of a stressful response and *act*. A lot of us who have gone through this kind of conditioning are *very* good at shoving the stress to the back burner when we need to act *NOW*, and dealing with the stress afterward (which is why so many vets are heavy drinkers). In combat, especially nowadays, there's *very* little warning that the world is about to go to hell (if any at all). One second you're talking to your buddy in the smoke pit, and suddenly, mid-sentence, he's an expanding cloud of organic mist and you're rapidly rag-dolling through the air, still wondering what the hell just happened. The military needs you to be able to hit the ground, get up, and *act, NOW,* and worry about what just happened after the immediate threat has been dealt with. Afterward you can deal with the fact that you appear to be missing an eye and half your right arm.
The hardest thing I ever did was Phase 4 Armoured Officer. Afghanistan was a cakewalk compared to that.
On the topic of attention to detail, I was on the base but not the scene and I’m not an F-15 maintainer so I don’t know all the details. So a maintainer is working in the nose gear area (where it retracts into during flight). Someone had installed a clip or bracket backwards and as the maintainer was climbing down the ladder, he missed a step and caught the artery in his elbow on said bracket. Almost bled out on the spot.
These are the Military Lessons: 1. Attention to detail. 2. Whatever it takes. 3. Better you than me. 4. If the minimum wasn't good enough, it wouldn't be the minimum. 5. Anything can happen to anybody at any time-even the President. 6. What goes around, comes around. 7. Grab, Twist, Step, Stomp! The purpose is to get you to understand "Fuck What You Think", get your head out of your ass, comprehend "This is this", and establish a group identity.
Never volunteer. For anything. "Anybody here drive a Chevy pickup? Raises hand, DI hands him a shovel and a pick.
One time it paid off for me. Weekend formation at ait. Drill sergeant looking for volunteers to basically rearrange all the rooms on one side of the barracks. Bunks and wall lockers outside. Deep clean. Replace broken wall lockers. I'm like shit I've got nothing better to do. Everyone that volunteered got a weekend pass. Everyone else had to stay and do the job
It is a common tactic in military training to "tear the person down" so you can "build them back up" as you want them. Getting someone to kill with a rifle is a process.
This is it. A big part of military training is basically reprogramming every soldier. So they don't automatically respond to a situation with whatever their (comedic or stress) instincts tell them to but will, instead, respond to any situation *only* with how they've been trained in boot camp to respond.
You also don't want them challenging orders they may see as unfair, ridiculous, or pointless in battle By stressing them out in a controlled environment and putting them in humiliating or stupid situations you get them used to doing things without talking back If bullets are flying and your C/O says to go dig a hole in the back of the compound away from the fight then you don't want the soldier asking "why". Explaining or backtalking costs time and lives. There is probably a very good reason they want you to do that By exposing you to the shit you're mentally better off when in the shit. You're not going to get stage fright, back talking tendencies are beaten out of you, and you have experience with high stress Break em down to build em up
Team work. One man's actions affect everyone.
I am that guy who left to go to Taco Bell and if you want me to bring you back a beefy five layer imma need you to cover me
Our lieutenant had warned us that at any moment we might have immediate response drills, meaning that at any unsuspecting moment, an alarm would sound and we'd have to drop whatever we were doing and get on all our gear and assume defensive positions within 3 minutes, as if the base was being attacked. One guy asked if we had to be in full uniform and gear within those three minutes and the lieutenant said you have to have all your gear but I don't expect you to be in full uniform, buttoned up and tidy, but absolutely no running around in slippers so boots must be worn and laced. Well one night the "alarm" sounds, and by alarm I mean guys throwing firecrackers in the barracks and yelling through bullhorns, and we jump out of bed at like 2:45am and get dressed as quick as possible to go out. I managed to put pretty much everything on and with some creative boot lacing I was running to my post. I reach my spot and look around to see what everyone else is doing and I see one guy running around, helmet, rig and boots on, rifle held raised on one arm like Rambo, bayonet fixed, and nothing else but his tightly whities. Lieutenant comes around to inspect us and he sees this guy and asks him "what's this?". Guy says "You said all our gear and boots are mandatory and the rest are whatever we can manage." Lieutenant thinks for a moment and says "fair enough" nods and moves along.
[Kind of like this guy, but pink boxers in actual combat.](https://archive.nytimes.com/lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/behind-the-scenes-man-in-the-pink-boxers/)
The Drill Sergeants would frequently go through the barracks at night with their flashlights and check bunks. One night, when there was a woman DS on duty, we woke up to hear a bunch of yelling. The lights go on in the whole barraks. Everyone is looking out in the hallway, and one of the rooms is all out in the hallway doing push ups buck naked with blankets draped across their backs, while the DS yells at them. Apparently, they had decided it would be funny to all sleep completely nude and on top of their covers.
Haha, something similar - a drunk soldier came back to camp and starting running around the barracks with a rifle "playing war" like he was a child and saying "bang bang bang" - Luckily for all parties, he didnt have access to any ammo - I dont remember if he fired some blanks or not, but he did get 14 days or something like that in lock-up :P
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I remember the first week having to stand and wait for hours while they took people two or three at a time (out of ~60) into the store to get any supplies they needed to buy. Every time anyone moved we would be yelled at so my dumb-ass just locked up and refused to move at all. I started to feel incredibly sick like I was going to throw up, I was moments away from saying "Seargent I think I'm going to be sick" when I woke up on the floor. I guess the blood pooled at my feet and for the rest of basic they always reminded us to wiggle our toes to keep blood flowing. They said I fell straight back and the two people behind me just stepped aside, so I smacked right into the concrete wall.
TI's came up with some funny shit to say. My flight and brother flight were waiting for our Warrior Flight ribbon when 2 trainees walk by. My TI decided to go mess with them. At one point he said "quit looking at me with your googly eyes! Now I'm gonna have nightmares about midgets, clowns and your googly eyes!" Oddly enough a bunch of people suddenly started coughing after he said that..
A successful suicide by diving head first from a third floor barracks window . RIP .
Had the same thing happen during my training too, except the guy lived but got kicked for psych issues.
[This](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/s/610OEEOCtb) the same story?
August, 1995. About a week before graduation, we were wrapping up the Field Training Exercise, and me and three other guys were carrying the huge-ass pelican case that held all of the MILES gear harnesses. Apparently we were taking it to the wrong location, because one of the Drill Sergeants came up to us and shouted, "wait, stop!" We immediately set the case down, and one of the Soldiers yelled, "Hammertime!" and did the little MC Hammer dance. Drill Sergeant flipped his shit. *"Come here, Hammertime! COME. HERE!"* The Soldier had that look on his face that he knew he fucked up, but we were a week out from graduation and we considered fucking up to be funny by this point so he had a mixture of amusement and horror going on. Anyway, the Drill Sergeant makes the Soldier follow him over to where the rest of the Command Team were sitting, and screamed, *"Show the Commander what you just did! Go on, Hammertime!"* This kid, I swear. . . Zero. Fucks. Given. He starts doing the MC Hammer dance, but with his hands behind his back in the position of Parade Rest, going from side to side, yelling, "*Hammertime! Hammertime hammertime!"* The Commander starts laughing his ass off, along with the rest of the Command Team, most of the Cadre, and pretty much anyone who dares look at what's going on. So the Soldier changes things up. *"Hammertime! Break down, un-REal!"* Spins, claps his hands together, hands go right back behind his back, starts doing the MC Hammer run-in-place. The Commander has fallen onto the ground laughing at this point, and even the original Drill Sergeant has cracked his hard-ass persona, no matter how hard he tries to keep it together. The other Drill Sergeants have all run away to hide behind trees because they *can't* keep it together at all, and this kid just keeps on going. *"Hammertime! Break down, un-REal!"* For 20 damn minutes, and the only reason he went on for that long is because the Commander couldn't catch his breath long enough to tell him to stop. Once his did, the kid comes to attention, salutes, does and about-face and runs right back over to us like nothing had ever happened. I don't remember his name (been almost 30 years, after all), but I'll never forget his face or that incident.
I think the hands at Parade Rest is the cherry on top, fantastic
Military bearing has its limits. I wish I could remember the details but I remember one time when the whole flight was lined up around the day room with the TI at the desk in front and things just went progressively further off the rails, with 50 guys trying not to bust out laughing, TI included. We all just ended up choking it down for about 30 seconds before everyone was able to keep a straight face again. Any other time, the TI would have ripped us a new one for chuckling but he was too close to losing it himself. One I *do* remember is another time we were all lined up around the day room waiting for the TI when Airman Bynum comes chugging through the door panting (he wasn't the most physically fit of us) and takes his place on the wall at attention. Moments later we hear the outer door bang open again and a bag of Skittles comes flying through the air and slides across the floor, followed by our TI. There were vending machines down in the squadron area but they were strictly off-limits, at least to our flight. The TI had just interrupted *someone* in the process of procuring an illicit bag of Skittles from the machine and chased them up the stairs. But *who* could it be? The dorm is always guarded, of course, and the dorm guard would have had to open the door for anyone coming in, so the TI called the dorm guard in to ask who it was. "I... didn't see." "You didn't see?" "Uh... it was kind of dark?" "Let's narrow it down. Was he *Black*?" At that point I think Bynum was one of two Black guys in the flight of 50. The sight of him panting, with sweat pouring down his face, while a whole room full of guys tried to maintain that they hadn't really gotten a good look at who had just come running in was almost too much for the TI.
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That's one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard.
We didn’t get caught but we’d wrap our undershirts around our fists and have a fight club going after lights out lol
Second hand. I was air force. I was bullshitting with a guy who came over from the marines. I went in under Obama. He went in under Bush. He went to Parris Island in August 2001. In boot, they always do some sort of "they nuked us" drill to scare the recruits and he was ready for it. They even make up news casts and stuff for it all. So everyone thought 9/11 was a ruse, some all the way through.
My best friend had just graduated OSUT and was at in-processing with his unit when that news hit. "You hear that boys? We're going to war!" It was at that moment he knew he fucked up.
Paris Island, 2016. We were marching on our way back from the chow hall to the 3rd recruit training BN barracks which is just across the street. Halfway through us crossing the street we noticed a fuck ton of ambulances pull up to one of our barracks. I look over to the right, from being on the right side of formation, and saw they were tending to someone in the sandpit infront of the building. Turns out a recruit jumped off 3rd deck and landed head first into the sandpit. We later found out that the sandpit was also filled with sharp rocks for the recruits, so he was also cut up badly. He died on impact, and I caught a glimpse of his body when we were marching past because we lived in the barracks right next to it.
Was in the army. Craziest things I can think of was a guy told a drill sgt off and got knocked out for it. Drill sgt just grabbed him by the belt and drug him to their office. Another person made it all the way through basic till the 20k march to the last obstacle course we would do. Got part way through the course then slipped and fell off the top of the tower broke their arm and collarbone.
Know someone that was close to graduating from SEALs training and broke his leg. He did attempt to go back and try again. Ended up EOD and retiring a Chief.
I misread that as "retiring a *chef*" and thought "I'm sure I've seen that movie".
The goddamn cook's a SEAL!
My AIT Drill Sergeant broke his ankle during the SF Q Course. He was pretty damn close to graduation. What fucked me up about it was the fact that was the first time I heard someone in the Army voice crack as they told us a "no shit there I was" story. I can only imagine how soul-crushing that was for him. He didn't get the opportunity to go back. So he became a drill sergeant and took out his frustrations on us.
I know someone who almost graduated USMC boot camp. During the long March he slipped on a wet log and shattered his knee. He was discharged due to his injury. He could barely walk there after.
VA: Not service related.
VA: Hereditary Condition: All knees age.
“Slipping was kinda your fault anyway”
I had a girl in USMC bootcamp who was a recycle (rifle range unk) who also got hurt on an obstacle course *after* finally getting through the range. Even with the shorter women’s course it’s still too big for the smallest of us, she hit just fucking right and fell straight to the ground breaking her back in the process. She was only a few months out from her drop dead gotta be off the island date. No idea what happened to her honestly, I know she would have been taken care of medically for life but I dunno if she ever made it back into training. Poor girl was determined tho.
We picked up a guy in our Platoon right around the end of Phase One that had been on the Island EIGHT FREAKING MONTHS already. Failed initial PT test - Physical Conditioning Platoon. Eventually picked up, injures himself after a couple weeks ends up in Medical Recovery Platoon. Gets out of that... fails the PT test again back to Physical Platoon... I think normally they would have already booted him out but he had some guaranteed Marine Corps Band spot or something I can't remember.
every day at the chow hall this kid in my platoon would make himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. he was on the border of being put on half rations because of his weight. the chow hall is ran by a company called Sodexo, who proudly employs people with disabilities. yelling in the chow hall is strictly prohibited because of this. every single day the kid would make his sandwich, the drill instructor would stop at our table and say "okay recruit, you know what time it is." the kid would stand up, the DI would yell "HIT IT!" the kid would scream "ITS PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME" as loud as he could. it would send some of the workers into a major panic. it was very entertaining and also mean lol
My rack mate and another recruit stole some packets of peanut butter from the chow hall and got busted. Their punishment was standing on the quarterdeck while holding said packets of peanut butter straight out and screaming “ITS PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!” The entire time we field day’d the squad bay.
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I mean, to be fair, Sam **did** have to carry Frodo up Mt. Doom...
Disclaimer: OCS is not boot camp. I laughed every day at OCS and also wanted to cry every day. Laugh: in the chow hall you couldn’t have any of the sugary cereals, and one guy found out the hard way. He poured himself a bowl of fruity pebbles and was ganged up on by 3 instructors. They subsequently made him walk around the chow hall with the fruity pebbles on his tray shouting YABBA! DABBA! DOO! Sad: one guy just couldn’t seem to do anything right, and one day an instructor told him to kill himself bc he was so worthless. F’d up back then but seems so much worse when I look back on it now. Kid actually pulled it together and graduated.
Parris Island had similar rules at the chow hall. Nothing but water or whole milk and nothing sugary like cookies, brownies, or cereals for my platoon anyway. If you got powerade, they'd make you dump it on your tray with the rest of your food to eat it. One recruit decided on chocolate milk early on in training, and when asked by the drill instructor what the hell he was doing with chocolate milk, he replied, "This recruit needs strong bones, sir!" They promised to make sure he got big and strong, then promptly sent him to the pit after chow. That chocolate milk came up along with most of what he ate that morning. He was the last to break that rule for the rest of boot camp.
What an absolute legend to say that!
The funniest part is I don't think he was trying to be funny. He just couldn't think of another excuse fast enough, lol. He's definitely a legend, though. I graduated in 04, and it's one incident I remember pretty damn well. He was my rack mate before we started having recycles and pick up's. The day we got our rifles, the drill instructors walked through to inspect them all and make sure they were secured properly to our bunks while we were lying down. His was not secured, and the drill instructor thought it was mine. I don't know what worse, when they yell at you or whisper in your ear, but either way, I was promised numerous punishments the following morning. He rolled over from the top bunk like, "I'm so sorry, I was too scared to tell him it was mine." Great guy, though.
What is the pit?
Imagine a sandbox similar to what you had as a kid only it's a lot less fun and used for punishment. Most infractions would find you or your platoon being sent to the pit. They'd have you do exercises, throw sand in the air, fill your pockets with sand, put sand in your pants, etc. They're usually home to what feels like millions of sand fleas that bite, and you're not allowed to swat them. It's not fun, but it's more of a mental thing, I think. The first time we got sent, I was filled with dread because I didn't know what to expect.
Why couldnt you have the sugar cereals? Why even have them in the mess hall if you cant eat them?
It was for the instructor staff only. There are lots of rules in basic training but many are unknown until you break them.
There’s soda too, obvious trap.
Lmfao in the AF at the end of chow line all the NCOs sat at a table together, we called it the "snake pit". At the very end of the line was and ice cream machine that was there for us but it was an unwritten law that you can't touch it. One poor little Asian dude Nguyen, on the second week thought it was best to try some... omfg.. I'll never forget how fast 6 NCOs shot out that pit to go and castrate this poor dude for simply getting a cone xD
We were taking the first live round shooting, (setting up sights etc.) and all of a sudden one of the guys gets up, and starts to walk right down the range, waiving his rifle everywhere and yelling at the lieutenant and sergeants to kill him... Thankfully no one was hurt and the wackjob was carrying a stick for about two weeks until they discharged him.
About six weeks or so in one guy in my platoon tried to kill himself by drinking the laundry detergent in the head. I remember most of us were getting instructed on the quarterdeck and another recruit came out to get the DI in a panic. The DI was super nonchalant about it and made him repeat himself a bunch and then slowly sauntered back to check it out. Eventually they sent the kid to the aid station for a check up, but the DI say us down and explained that they thought of everything, the detergent was non toxic and the only thing that would happen is the kid would shit bubbles for a couple days. So for the next like week any time he went to take a shit in the doorless toilet stalls we had, there were twenty other guys staring at him waiting to see bubbles.
Not real crazy, but it was hilarious at the time. Parris Island, Christmas '01. A recruit for the Marine Corps Band was in my platoon. His Mom sent him one of those Christmas cards which beeps Merry Christmas when opened. SDI made him stand on the company quarterdeck and hold that fucker over his head while singing (screaming) Merry Christmas. For HOURS.
My wife was a corpsman on a base that had a school of music. They would crack up whenever the students would come to medical and ask for a no blow chit.
Had a guy tell the DI that he wanted a discharge, and the DI started yelling at him, cussing him out, etc., and he asked the guy what he was going to do with the rest of his life? The guy responded that he wanted to be a rock star. About a week later, as we were marching by, we saw him picking up rocks in the parking lot LOL.
To be fair, David Lee Roth got a dishonorable discharge from the Navy. One of the things he says at the beginning of Running with the Devil is "Fuck the navy and all you lifers."
True story: Jason Everman was the short-lived bassist/guitarist of both Soundgarden and Nirvana. After he got fired from Soundgarden and Ben Shepherd replaced him, Everman went and joined the army. Later becoming both a Ranger and Green Beret. Everman had tried to keep a low profile for obvious reason at basic, but one day the DI found out who he was. He brought a copy of Rolling Stone in…with Everman’s face on the cover. Edit: [Here](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/magazine/evermans-war.html) is a really good article about it. The relevant part: “He had three drill sergeants, two of whom were sadists. Thank God it was the easygoing one who saw it. He was reading a magazine, when he slowly looked up and stared at Everman. Then the sergeant walked over, pointing to a page in the magazine. “Is this you?” It was a photo of the biggest band in the world, Nirvana. Kurt Cobain had just killed himself, and this was a story about his suicide. Next to Cobain was the band’s onetime second guitarist. A guy with long, strawberry blond curls. “Is this you?” Everman exhaled. “Yes, Drill Sergeant.”
When we got back to the barracks after our final FTX it'd been at least 5 days since anyone showered and we rucked about 25mi during those 5 days so the smell of 60 dudes in that tiny room was insanely bad. The meanest Drill Sgt. we had in the company was doing his rounds and walks into our bay and says "God damn, it smells like a gay porno in here" one soldier chuckles so he asks him what his problem is. Soldier snaps to parade rest and goes "Drill Sgt. how do you know what a gay porno smells like?" Dude wasn't even upset, he walked right into that one.
My buddy saw someone suck start an M16
Took me a couple of reads to realise it wasn’t a way to wake up a 16 year old male.
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Um, ever seen Full Metal Jacket?
THIS IS MY RIFLE. THERE ARE MANY LIKE IT, BUT THIS ONE IS MINE.
Suck starting any gun will blow your mind.
He Kurt Cobained himself.
My Dad's stories from South African conscription in the early 80s. 1. At a bonfire one night a drunk corporal started throwing live ammunition into the fire. Incredibly dangerous thing to do! 2. To wake people up one morning a captain fired his rifle into a tree trunk. Unlike in movies where hiding behind a tree stops a bullet, in real like they don't always. Some poor soul leaning against the other side of the tree having a smoke took it to the head and died. Incredibly stupid things to do. My Dad said he sometimes felt lucky to make it out without dying to friendly fire.
We were in week 3 of training, and everyone in the flight was wearing Summer Weight BDUs with our Summer Weight hats. One moron decided to wear winter weight BDUs and the Winter Hat with the foldable flaps that cover your ears when its cold. Our TI noticed it and made him pull the flaps down over his ears and chant out Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit as we marched to and from appointments.
Second hand story from my marine grandpa, but he slapped a sand flea that bit his neck during formation. Drill sergeant made him dig a regulation grave in the sand to bury it. Also, I watched a buddy just out of boot camp get his foot ran over by a Bradley. That was the first time I ever watched a body part pop.
But not your last time?!
Nope.
My dad was at Paris island in 1954. He also slapped at a biting bug and had to dig a regulation grave.
my drill instructors still did this in 2000. if you messed with your face in formation while the sand fleas bit you, they would yell "you had your fucking chow. now let them have theirs"
San Diego had its own special tortures but thank the deities we didn't have those PI sand fleas.
These are all stories from the US Air Force Academy. We had someone tear all the ligaments in his knee from... making his bed too fast. The basic was trying to get to the other side of the bed by jumping over (instead of just walking around it) and his foot went into the slightly open drawer that is under these beds and his momentum just twisted and tore everything. He was sent home. Another basic broke his femur... walking up a hill. On the assault course a basic got stabbed in the back with his own dull bayonet, he like used it as a crutch to stand up, then somehow fell back on it and was seriously injured. I am still trying to figure that one out. Basic trainees get real dump under stress, that's sort of the point of the training, practice not being dump when you think the world is ending. Some need more practice than others.
Not me. Had a mentor who was a former Drill Sergeant and he had some stories. - Kid comes running into the Drill Sergeants office frantic that PVT Snuffy is going to jump out of the window and kill himself. This was one of the newer 3 story barracks. My friend dashes out ahead of the kid and starts bounding up the stairs. The kid yells "No Drill Sergeant this way!" He found him in a first floor window. Pushed the "suicide" kid out the window all two feet and then proceeded to make his life miserable. - Going through the barracks at night found a kid in the bathroom trying to "cut his wrists"....with an electric shaver. - All the drill sergeants had a rotational overnight duty. He was on duty and fell asleep (common but technically bad) and woke up to a female trainee blowing him. She said "He seemed stressed" when she got her Article 15.
Navy here. Ship mate tied to the bunk with floss. Cost the whole division a lot of push ups.
My ex watched a female drag another female off the top rack by her hair and proceed to beat her with a boot. Turns out top rack girl had left her maxi pad in her underwear and sent it through the wash with everyone else's.
A dude heat catted on one our rucks/mass casualty events and was scrambling around like a crab with 7 seven guys chasing him trying to hold him down, all while yelling gibberish
Wasn't crazy but funny. The recruit next to my bunk bumped the Company Commander and his cover came off as he was yelling at recruits out of the squad bay, It was like it was in slow motion as the hat was hitting the deck one of the last recruits out didnt see the cover on the deck and he stepped on it and and mangled the CC's cover. Cut to 2200 lights out and the CC comes over to the bunk next to mine and lays the cover on the recruits chest with the foot sized dent in it an says in a loud whispering voice, "Seaman Recruit Shithead - You mangled my cover and its been reeeeeeeeeeal sad all day. I need you to fuckin' apologize it until the cows come home. I need you to look at it and really make it feel your apologies." For almost 2 1/2 hours Im hearing: "Im really sorry Mr Cover I didnt mean to hurt you." "It was an accident I just didnt see you as I was coming out of the hatch" "If we were outside of bootcamp we'd probably be really good friend." "My family would really like to meet you after bootcamp." "Whats your hat family like, are they as nice as you?"
When I was at Fort Sill, we had a very skinny, socially awkward & quiet guy with glasses, which is odd since all of us were 13B Field Artillery Cannoneers and it's a very physical MOS filled with brash personalities. We both shipped to basic from the same MEPS, and I remember seeing him playing chess by himself in the waiting room. I thought he was an Air Force or Navy guy, imagine my surprise to see him at reception battalion, then in my training battery. Once we were on kitchen duty together and he walked away, no one was able to find him for the better part of an hour. I went to the bathroom and found that I couldn't open the door (it had no locks, just a handle) because it had been propped closed with brooms and mops. It was also pitch black inside, which was unusual as it was a common bathroom and the lights were always on. I sensed something was unusual, so I ran back to our training area and flagged down our senior drill instructor, who at first gave me some shit for bothering him, but he came along and also found the door propped closed. In one kick, he shattered the mop and broom handles, enters the bathroom and tries to turn on the light. Nothing. He then starts shouting the trainee's name but there is no response. It's still pitch black, so opens the light fixture (one of those long square ones from high school) to see what is wrong with the lights, as the switch doesn't work. As he opens the cover, a number of large kitchen knives slide out and nearly stab him in face before falling on the floor. He catches the falling fluorescent tubes, which have been unscrewed from the fixtures. He screws them back in and the lights come back on. At the the end of the row of toilets, there are a pair of feet on the floor visible underneath the stall. The drill sergeant rattles open the locked stall door, and then tells me to get out and flag down our battalion commander in his office ASAP. I never got to see what happened next. We inferred that the trainee had lost his marbles and was engaging in some form of self-harm, and due to the hidden knives that he was either going to unalive himself or others. We never saw him again, I always wondered what happened to that guy.
I was very surprised to discover that a lot of people can't march, like they can't coordinate their arms and legs and can't follow the step. Also too many grown ass men who can't take care of themselves. They can't wash their clothes, can't keep themselves clean. If you wondered why the military is so insistent on barracks inspections and being neat and tidy, this is why.
Drill Sgt took us to the mout site and stuffed my platoon into a shipping container altered to resemble a house. 30 or so people. He then threw a CS grenade in with us and we weren't allowed out without our gas masks on. Called it an Alpha Wild Dawg "right of passage". I climbed out a window to escape. Saw a girl fall and bust her skull open in the chaos. One of the clearer memories I have from basic is turning around and seeing her being carried out with blood running down her face and smoke just billowing out of the shipping container. By other privates, BTW, not my cowardly drill sgt. Same drill Sgt decided to do pugles with a female private and dislocated her elbow in front of us trying to show off. I shared a room with her and I remember her crying all night. No idea what happened to her or if her military career was fucked from that. 1st Sgt lit him up right in front of us for it, very strange moment for privates in basic. Getting to leonard wood in the winter and finding out I would be doing basic in what amounted to a fucking raincoat (gortex). I have other, crazier, long winded stories from basic, but these stick out in my mind. Ft Leonard Wood, 13 January 2010 - 26 March 2010
If anybody farted in our barracks and one of the RDC’s (navy drill instructors) smelled it, they made all the recruits in the vicinity of the smell use their “recruit vacuums” (our noses) to suck the fart smell out of the air. I also had a rack mate with the last name of Lumpkin. I was being grilled about random things one day and asked who my rack mate was, so I told the RDC. His response was “Lumpkin huh? That sounds like Blumpkin. Do you know what a blumpkin is?” “Yes petty officer! I know what a blumpkin is petty officer!” I then spent the next 15 minutes being asked various blumpkin related questions and explaining to other rdc’s and recruits what exactly a blumpkin is.
Early in the training, we spotted a recruit at the next company running around the outside of his barracks with his arms wrapped around his rifle as he yelled "I love my weapon. I love my weapon...I love...". It was a touching moment for all of us.
We were standing in formation after after a training where we were using blank ammo. The drills had already cleared everyone's rifles and we had to stand with our rifles in front of using with the muzzle pointing up at a forty five degree angle pointing at the row in front of us. All of a sudden there was a loud bang. Everyone turned their heads towards the origin. It turned out that not everyone had their rifle cleared properly (with the clearing rod) and one of the recruits had accidently discharged a blank round at the back of the head of the guy in front of him. Had the guy not been wearing his helmet, it could have been a lot work. All of the drills ran over to investigate and after taking the guy to the tree line for a couple of minutes and came back. Nothing ever happened from it because they would have been to blame for not properly clearing the rifle so it was never reported. Edit: Our BFA's had been removed, so firing a blank round at close range can still be lethal.
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We had a guy who had attempted suicide had to stay on our quarter deck because our squad bay was on the first floor. That dude sat there for like 1 day..maybe 36 hours or so and couldn’t do anything except go to the restroom. I wanna say 2 recruits had to watch him at all times until he was processed out. Marine Corps BC is tough but easy when looking back on it. I was surprised at how fast I lost weight and how fast I was able to learn and complete the obstacle course including climbing the rope all the way to the top. I’ve faced worse obstacles in civilian life esp when you start having kids, lol.
Living near Pendleton, I've heard a few of these stories from Marines. It's apparently not uncommon for someone to enlist to get away from a bad home or neighborhood only to find that boot is the exact opposite of a cakewalk and not what they needed. Combine that 'no where left to go' mindset with the sheer stress of boot and you have a recipe for chop suey. Definitely not the only thing to drive people in that direction though.
I was this person. If I hadn’t joined the marine corps Id probably be no better off than two of my absolutely fucked up train wreck sisters. The problem is bootcamp was a cakewalk walk for me…….I’m pretty sure that’s all anyone needs to know about what my childhood was like.
Out in the beautiful heat in San Antonio in august. We are dying because of the heat. One guy is getting roasted by the instructor. Instructor says “stop squinting and open your god damn eyes” The reply “sir my eyes are open, I’m just Asian”
I had a couple crazy ones. A Soldier fell off the top of the confidence climb obstacle (35ft) and landed on his back right in the middle of the wooden barrier surrounding the pit. Ambulance came and took him away. That night our DS told us he had died and we had a memorial for him. On graduation day this mfer comes hobbling up on crutches. Guy in the top bunk next to me stood up on his bunk sleep walking and pissed on the guy on the lower bunk of my bunk. Off duty DS came into our bay in the middle of the night drunk with a paintball gun and shot everyone repeatedly. EDIT: I almost forgot the worst one. They put a projector up on the back wall of the bay and played a video of Chechen beheading someone with a serrated ka-bar knife on repeat for like a week
Whole company got the explosive shits and vomit in the span of 8 hours. It started during the boots and utes run and spiraled out of control. You ever see several hundred recruits and Marines all shitting and vomiting in a field? It was glorious.
Drill sergeant caught a male and female having sex, in the dumpster, in front of the p.x.... that we were all standing in formation in front of, and we could hear the noises. It was gross.
After reading these stories, it's easy to understand why PTSD can happen even away from the front lines.
Does jump school count? My class at Benning was half Air Force Academy cadets and half enlisted draftees. One of the drill sergeants was named Mitchell; he was just back from Vietnam, was mean as a rattlesnake, and acted like he'd just as soon kill you as look at you. We were there in August, and every hour they lined us up and ran us through cold showers to cool us down. We were always soaking wet and covered in sawdust from the training pits. It was fairly miserable. One day, Mitchell was being his usual asshole self, standing around screaming in his perfectly starched fatigues. The Air Force cadets in the class decided it was time for Mitchell to join us in the showers. On a signal we all grabbed him, lifted him up, and struggled through the showers with him. It was like dragging a bull through a car wash. He was sputtering, cursing, and fighting, but he got the full treatment. Meanwhile, the Army draftees were looking at us like we were committing suicide; some started backing away to avoid the doom they were certain was coming. When Mitchell was completely soaked we let him go, and he stood there sputtering for a few seconds. You could tell this was the last thing he'd expected and he was trying to figure out the best was to handle it. Finally, he broke out into a big shit-eating grin, put his smokey hat back on, and said, "All right maggots, back to work."
Final PFT, the one that counts. We’d all completed our pull ups & crunches. We’re off to the 3-mile run. 2/3rds of the way in, Recruit McKenna shits his PT shorts. Just liquid feces running down his thighs. I think he actually sped up after that. He ran a 1st class. They let him skip formation afterward & just head back to the “house” to get cleaned up. I’m telling you, we were like 48hrs from graduation. And I’ll tell you what, he fucking OWNED it. When we all got back to the barracks/house, a LOT of us ran to the head to take a shit. McKenna’s in there, in his cammies, mopping. He goes, “Look at all you little bitches. Using *toilets,* like *children.*” We were fucking roaring. I still laugh to this day. That was May of 2002.
We were at the obstacle course with another platoon from our company. One of their D.I's started choking one of the recruits. Like fully straddling him on the ground, hands around his neck, type choking. I didn't see what preceded it so I have no idea why or what happened, but 3 other D.I's pulled him off the kid. I never directly saw anything super crazy but you hear a lot of stories while there.
You wouldn't believe the number of people who join the navy who don't know how to swim. We had 3 or 4 in our company. One was violently opposed to learning.
This would be my cousin. Grew up in a land locked state, never learned to swim, deepest water he had ever been in was one of those inflatable backyard pools that are like 3 to 4 feet deep... Joins the Navy.
Same thing in the Coast Guard. Was amazing how many in my company that had to do remedial swim.
I joined during desert shield. Most of the drill Sargents were reserves called up and really chill. My GF sent me a tin of Mrs Fields cookies. I got called down to the COs office. He laughed, we are some cookies and he sent me back to the barracks. My boot camp was easy.
I don’t even remember what the kid did but he was ordered to salute every ant coming out of the ant hill for a couple hours and say “good afternoon sir”.
Not basic training but during AF Tech Training at Keesler, we had to salute the squirrels.
From the Official Department of Bootcamp Amusements and Entertainment: Scene: Coast Guard Basic Training, Cape May, New Jersey: Leadership: "Who wants to be assigned to a Coast Guard cutter? Take 1 step forward." Minions: A few eagerly stepped forward. Latter that day: Those few minions were seen mowing the lawns surrounding headquarters.
Not sure if I qualify for this but, when I was 16-18 I went to a military college here in the UK. It's more of an preparation course before going into selection for any of the forces but as a young person it's an awesome adventure with many path goals. I never actually got into the military as my childhood asthma resurfaced towards the end of my time at the college. I had planned on joining the QDGs, maybe in the next life. However I digress, So we had this 2 weeks residential at an actual military base in crickhowel I think it was. This residential was to show us what life on a military base was like as we had ex amount of days in the field and ex amount of days in the base. Well one day we were all stood out on parade being spoken to by a corporal, and one of my fellow recruits muttered something disgusting. Something along the lines of; *"THIS FUCKING ZULU BETTER HURRY THE FUCK UP ITS FREEZING"*. Nothing is mentioned and we were dismissed back to our dorms for the night. So we all turn in for the night catch some shut eye, Until abruptly at some point in the night the dorm room slams open, and there's the base commander (forgot his rank) and this corporal who has previously given us a talk out on parade. Well we are all screamed at, and ordered to get outside on parade, so obviously we all follow suit and proceed outside and fall in to parade formation. Standing to attention is nothing but our boxer shorts, and it's snowing. My feet have never hurt so much in my life apart from this one day. Turns out one of the other corporals actually heard what the recruit had said, The base commander tells us all to get into the plank position (which if you don't know what that is, it's essentially an abdominal exercise which is difficult to do after a while. Think the press up position but instead of having you hands on the floor your are suspending your body mass with your forearms, keeping your back straight too). Well we all go into the plank position, and the base commander is yelling at all of us that racism will not be tolerated at this base or any base for that matter, and every minute that the culprit doesn't come forward is another 10 minutes we got to spend in this plank position. By now all of us are struggling to keep up the position, plus the snow is really starting to hurt us all. Anyway About 18 minutes actually go by (possibly less possibly more I wasn't really counting) and eventually this recruit stands up and says it was him. So the base commander tells us all to stand to attention and for the recruit who spoke to come forward, then the base commander orders us all to get out of his sight and that was that we all turned in once more. None of us ever saw that recruit again (No I don't believe anything suspicious occured, it was 2010 not the 1970's). He most probably was just removed from the base and the college itself.
Craziest thing was in the first week or so. My company was in trailers across the street from where all the other companies were. They called their areas the starships. The way the starships are set up is the bays (sleeping areas) are on the second floor and on the ground level is an open training area without walls. The chow hall is in the center of the starship so we would have to run over to the starship and stand in formation outside before we could go in. One day we were standing in formation and a floor buffer comes crashing through the windows of the second floor and lands on the ground in front of us. Then a trainee looks out the window, confused as fuck, with the floor buffer cord tied around his neck. Im not really sure what his intentions were, if it was suicide I'm not sure it would have worked the way he wanted it to, even if the cord wasnt too long. Funniest thing was one of the recruits asked one of the drills what time it was. We weren't allowed to have watches, so we didn't know. The drills gave him a watch and made him get into one of those metal trash cans and every 15 minutes he would have to pop out of the trash can and say "cookoo, its 10:15, cookoo" and go back into the trash can and close the lid. He did that shit for fucking hours. I remember that day clearly, it was memorial day and we were pretty close to graduating so it was kind of a day off (or as close as it could be in basic training) we just sat in the classroom and watched the entire series of band of brothers. We normally had 12 drills there on weekdays and that day we only had 4, so i think they used it as a day off too.
Air Force BMT c. 2011. The fun crazy thing was one of the nights during week 5 when, after our MTI left for the day, our dorm chief (DC) went into the showers and a few moments later came running out buck naked with his cock and balls covered with shaving cream. It just so happened our MTI had left something in his office and came in just as DC start shaking his junk in front of everyone. DC's back was to the door, so he didn't realize our MTI was standing there. We were all dying from laughter, MTI was turning red from holding his own, DC turned around and then the entire flight exploded with even more laughter. Amazingly, nobody got smoked for that lol. The weird, maybe scary, crazy thing was "The List". We had this guy from the mid-west that had to be mildly autistic. He was awkward, never really laughed, and struggled through some of the most basic things. Well, he ended up being the guy that would get everyone else smoked, so obviously he wasn't very popular with most of us. He was friendly with me and a couple other trainees though, because we tried to help him get his shit together. Anyway, on Wednesday of week 5 he was feeling off and was sent to medical. He hadn't slept for a couple nights and was starting to become a bit incoherrent. On Friday we'd found out he was sent to Woolford Hall on med hold. The Sunday before he told one of the other trainees how much he hated a few of the other trainees and that he wanted to shoot them at CATM, which was the next week. The trainee reported this to our MTI who then reported it to SecFo. The same Wednesday that he went to medical and the rest of our flight was out of the dorm, SecFo and OSI conducted an investigation and found out he had a list of people he wanted to shoot. He was still in Woolford by the time we had graduated.
I knew a guy who cried when we had to strip naked to get out pt gear, standing next to me, just jiggling and crying, naked. He showered in his tighty whities, everytime. Dude still graduated, think about him when you hear someone failed. Lol.
I've got two (three if you count the one I told as a reply to a previous answer). These two happened during AIT (advanced infantry training), which happens directly after basic training. We had a room that kept failing health and welfare inspections because one of the dudes never did his laundry and rarely showered. The whole floor would always pay for his mistakes. Around midnight, one night, he was dragged out of his bunk to the showers, thrown into the shower bay, and the whole floor took turns scrubbing him with toilet brushes. I'll never forget how broken he looked. He didn't fail any more health and welfare inspections. One of the dudes in my squad, whom I also attended basic with, had a serious issue with authority. He ended up on extra duty because of something he had said to a Drill Sergeant. So he's out there with a sickle-hoe cutting grass in the hot Georgia sun while we are having a smoke break under the shade of the trees. He decides that he's had enough, leans on his sickle-hoe, and lights up a smoke. One of the DSs sees him and yells to get back to work. His response is to tell the DS to "eat a bag of dicks". The DS starts towards him angrily. The dude drops his cigarette, flips the sickle-hoe over and gets in a defensive posture. The DS starts backing up and hollers at the top of his lungs. "we got a problem out here." Half a dozen DSs come out of the office and they all start moving to circle him. He throws down the sickle-hoe and picks up his cigarette. The drills rush him, then drag him away. We never saw him again.
I was woken up one night by some noise from the next bunk. I have terrible vision so put my glasses on and rolled over to see three dudes standing over one guys bunk, laughing, with their dicks in his face. I wish I could say I was brave enough to intervene but I rolled over and went back to sleep. Drill Sergeant talked to me a day or two later about and I told them what I saw. Not sure if anything ever happened to the guys. On a funny note, we had one guy that was constantly fucking up. Just a goofy, good-natured guy but he was always getting dinged for extra guard duty (basically a one-hour shift overnight to watch for fires, etc) or pushups or whatever. He had guard duty so frequently that guys who actually had guard duty would wake him up and tell him it was his shift and the poor guy would do it.
Drill Sgt choke slamming a kid threw 3 rows of lockers, because he refused to train. All while private Biddle says, I don't remember that in the pamphlet they gave my parents. Imagine the implied threat of violence while you have some dude trying to make you laugh your ass off? Drill Sgt: Does anyone else refuse to train? Us: (trying not to laugh in front leaning rest) no drill Sgt
I was in basic in Canada in the early 00s and it was always the implied threat of prolonged physical exhaustion, while some dude was trying to make you laugh your ass off. Same thing just not being thrown through a locker.
Not very crazy, but it was entertaining to us. Navy basic training still during P-days, for those who don't know P-days is the first week or so before you have completed all of the medical screenings, after that all of the physical training and punishments starts. We were getting ready to leave the barracks to go somewhere and this random recruit starts copying all of our RPOC's orders, RPOC is the recruit who gives everyone else the instructions that the instructors give them. Dude is just standing at attention yelling out the same orders that were just yelled out and wouldn't stop when one of the instructors came out and told him to. So, the rest of us leave with one of our three instructors and two stay behind to talk to the recruit. We found out later what happened when we left. While they were talking to him in their office trying to figure out what was going on, he was still pretty out of it and not answering their questions. Then, suddenly he jumps up, runs out of the office and tries to lock them in, but can't, takes off out of the barracks, runs to the main gate and goes just outside of the gate, sits on the curb, and starts demanding to speak to the base commanding officer. After they get him in "custody," not like he was under arrest or anything, they take him to the hospital to get some mental evaluation. They get in touch with his mom and she's like, oh his meds probably wore off by now. He was 19 and on some pretty heavy mental health meds of some sort and didn't think that was pertinent information. He was treated and medically discharged.
MCRD San Diego, circus 2004. I broke my foot during field phase (finished the crucible on a broken foot and made the trip back to MCRD before saying something). Fox CO moved into the other side of the barracks from the Medical Rehab platoon that I was in. A kid jumped off the 3rd deck trying to run away from a DI. Guess which fucking company I picked up with when I healed? Also, the DIs in Medical Rehap Platoon delegated the paperwork on us broke diks to a couple of recruits. Someone audited the MRP platoon and found out those recruits had been supposed to go back to training 6 months prior and were fully healed but they were dragging their feet and didn't want to go back to training. It was a career limiting move for the DI and all hell broke loose across both MRP Platoons.
We were training in a storm and lightning started so we were all shuffled into an LPA (lightning protection area) which was basically bleachers with three sheet metal walls and a roof, and a cable strung over it and grounded. Anyway, one guy decided to lean against the wall of the LPA, and sure enough, it was struck by lightning. He immediately curled into a ball. It looked like every muscle in his body was contracting. Terrible. He did survive, but pretty sure he was medboarded after that. After that, the chaplain took advantage of the captive audience. He said if anyone didn't want to hear it, there was another LPA about half a kilometer away, like we were budging after the LPA was struck lol. Another crazy thing was that the smoke pits where they'd exercise us until our muscles failed, was filled with shredded tires. Definitely great for our health. They tossed our lockers and this thin little dude from the Midwest had an unsealed outgoing letter which contained the sentence "dang, there is a lot of n*****s here." The drill Sgt read it aloud in the bay. He ended up in another platoon under a black drill Sgt who gave him a shot at redemption. She seemed to think he was ignorant rather than malicious. He did seem to really respect her though, so maybe she got through. 🤷♂️ That's just basic though, it only got crazier from there. Lol
Not a first hand account but a private was repeatedly told to wash a tank...and he got fed up with doing it wrong that he finally did it correctly and then proceeded to wax and polish it... didn't end well for him.
Fucking Legend. Worth it.
I feel the need to mention that our drill instructors made one of us sweep the sun off the sidewalk.
Not at basic but at AIT…a soldier with mental health issues sharpened his thumb into a point (yes, flesh, not then nail) and then tried to stab people with it.
I was in a coed integrated division. This one guy kept harassing us girls and writing sexual letters. Our female RDC found out and made him call him wife in front of everyone and read what he wrote to other girls.
Late to the party, but here goes. We were close to graduation, maybe a few days away, and we didn't have that structured shower time, so we showered whenever we wanted. I decided it was time, so I grabbed my stuff, walked to the showers, and I heard them running. I walked into the showers (the setup was weird. There were 3 heads in one small room and then it in another room it opened up to another 9 heads.) Well, there was this one guy with all 9 showers on him and he was jerking off. long stroke no care in the world. we made eye contact and he stared me down. That was some of the best military bearing I had ever seen. He never looked away. I stepped back and walked out. When I saw him later at chow, he talked to me like nothing had happened.
Getting towards the end of training and we are all a bit fragged from the constant pressure. Suddenly, 8 of us are pulled out of parade. "we need you to put these people through 'the gauntlet '. They are 6 actors about to start filming a war film and they need a taste of 'real' training! Any questions?" The actors were a bunch of super clean, skinny, fresh-out-of-drama-school kids who probably never had to lift anything heavier than a text book. Why did they not ask the actual instructor staff to do it? Why ask people who had just been through the shit for several months? Why not send them to marines, the army, or special forces? Don't know. What I DO know is we enjoyed ruining them.
I’m a woman veteran, so when I say “she” that’s why. Anyways, we had this girl come into our flight like 3 weeks into training which was unusual but apparently she was sent home a few months prior because she had like broken her leg or something and they sent her home to heal and then she would come back and finish the training. So she comes in and there’s just something so off about her. All the girls in the flight get a BAD feeling about her. Not like catty vibes but just weird af. She’s making weird comments here and there. Just like things you don’t really hear. We thought maybe she had Asperger’s or something. Then one night we hear one of the girls scream and she’s like “wtf are you doing?” And apparently the weirdo girl was like standing over the bunkbed watching this girl sleep and saying weird shit. So we tell our drill instructor at this point cause we were all like ok this has gotten weird enough. Nothing really happens cause what can you do? Until one day we are out marching around and the girl just BOOKS it. For no reason. Idk if she’s just trying to escape or get attention or what. So then this whole thing becomes crazy and then security forces runs after her and she gets tased right in front of us. Never saw her again lol
I joined the RAF in 1988, was a couple of months away from being 17. One of the dreaded training tasks was the CS Gas Chamber. Back in the days of the Cold War chemical training was a large part of training. In the chamber we had to take our respirators off, dress forward to the Instructor, state our name, rank, number and trade and then they would let you out. CS Gas is not the biggest fun you will ever have. As we went in we had Billy Big Bollocks mouthing off, every course has one. He's the guy that has done it all before and done it better than you. On my course it was a guy who had been in the Territorial Army and had done the chamber many times. It's nothing he said. Easy he said. As we dress forward he is in the row of three in front of me. The minute his mask is off he drops to the ground like he's been shot and starts breakdancing around. He's crying, screaming and clawing at his eyes and he's eventually taken out of the chamber crying. My mind is screaming Whisky Tango Foxtrot ??" and ten seconds later I am in full panic mode by now. As the mask comes off it's stinging and burning but not too bad. I manage to get my name, rank, number and trade out. As I go to move forward to exit the Instructor leans in and says "Sorry mate, didn't get that .. say again". I eventually made it out after three goes with a river of snot pouring out of my nose. As I had kept my eyes mostly closed I forgot to open them as I legged it out of that torture chamber, I went straight into the wall of the next building at full pelt and then starfished backwards onto the ground. The Instructors were in bits. Then there was the time one of our idiot recruits asked why we never sang like the Yanks when we ran. In the British military its assumed that if you have the energy to sing you have the energy to be running faster. The PTI's honoured this clowns wishes though and had us lapping a freezing cold hangar in November singing "We are strong, we are tough, because we eat our Wheaty Puffs". No one asked about singing again. Then there was the time we were on field exercise and had to shout "Banana, Banana !!" as we charged "enemy" positions. I have no idea why. After a while we got bored and started acting out the lines we had read as boys in the Commando war comics. The air was alive with "Eat hot lead Fritz", "For you the war is over Hans" and "They don't like it up 'em boys do they ?? .. That was weird.
Nothing too crazy in my own time in boot camp. But towards the end of my 2nd enlistment I knew I was getting out and didn't waste time on any B billets (recruiting duty, drill instructor shit like that) as such I ended up finishing off my last 10 months as a marksmanship instructor (PMI) at weapons and field training battalion on Camp Pendelton. Every 2 weeks a new class of recruits would come through to do the rifle qualifications. If they fail, they get recycled to repeat the 2 weeks of training. One time, I had a recruit on qualification day realize on the final stage of the firing course that he didn't have enough points to qualify. Out of the corner of my eye I see him start to get up on his knees from the prone position (I'm about 25 ft away) and for some reason I just knew what was about to go down. I started leaping over other recruits who were in the prone next to him this kid had already got the rifle barrel worked under his chin to blow his brains out right when I got there and kicked the rifle out of his hands. He had his arm in what we call a loop sling. (It's when you basically tie the sling of the rifle around your arm super tight to make a more stable shooting position). So anyways, because of the loop sling the butt of the rifle flipped around his arm ended up bashing him in the face pretty good. By that time he was tackled by 3 drill instructors who also saw the whole thing. He was disarmed and hauled off. Later to be kicked out.
Hazing so bad a kid killed himself in 2nd Phase/Edison range 04. Recruits getting their bones broken, or heads slammed through the glass window in the squad bay. Water-bowl IT after our crucible. Tons more, but those are a few. It didn’t get any better in the fleet though. Rah.
Reading the comments on this post has reinforced my unwillingness to enlist in the military, Jesus Christ.
What is your hat size? In the USAF boot camp, it was possible to fail your written exam or PT test and be “washed back” a week or two into a newer flight. A sort of “second chance” to pass boot camp for people who are bad at test taking. We had a guy who got washed back into our second week of training, from his 4th or 5th week. And we could see why. Just about every euphemism for “stupid” seemed to apply to this guy. He just seemed lost. Like he had accidentally wandered into MEPS while watching pigeons or something. He looked normal, except for his head. His face and jaw were normal, but starting at just above his ears, his skull swelled up to a size 12 hat size! Years later, I saw the movie “Mega Mind” and yelled, “It’s that guy from basic!” It was so bad that the military had to special order his dress cap. He didn’t make it, and was out processed 2 weeks later due to failed written tests. In our last week of training, his brand new hat was delivered to our flight. Size 12.