What Are You Doing For Excitement Today?

[jarhead]

Maybe you're on to something there Larry---the troop movements after dark. Never really thought about it before.
I do know by talking to my old senior drill instructor, that arriving at MCRD in the middle of the night is a planned deal. The "shock factor"---and it works.
When I went back to Camp Pendleton after my boot camp leave I milked it for ever minute I could. Got to Pendleton late on a Friday, the day I was ordered back. Every one had went home for the weekend and no one to check me in until Monday morning. I set there pretty much alone,in an empty barracks , all weekend kicking myself in the butt for not waiting until Sunday evening. The ol boot camp mentality and fear of being UA was too fresh in my mind.

[Wilma]

I just had enough excitement to last the rest of the day and into tomorrow.  I was looking out over the rose garden and what should appear.  A miniature cottontail rabbit.  A baby one anyway.  He was only about 1/6 the size of an adult.  Not as tiny as the one that I took pictures of a couple of years ago, but still a baby.  He was eating the leaves off the yarrow plants.

[larryJ]

Jarhead, this brings back some memories.  In the first few days of service, we were flown from El Paso to Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, in the middle of the night.  Upon arriving, we were told to sit still until we were told to get off the plane.  Exiting the plane, we came down the stairs onto a red carpet, a band playing march music and were taken to a mess hall where we were fed steak and eggs.  This was at about 2 AM.  Then to the barracks where regular army soldiers were standing by each bunk to show us how to make a bed and stow our gear.  NICE!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Then the drill sergeant came back about two hours later and got us out of bed, out on the field in formation, called out names, and started us on our morning physical training.  Breakfast?  Hell, no.  You just had steak and eggs.  Rest period?  Ain't no such thing in the Airborne.  Your name the same as the drill sergeants?  Automatic 25 push ups every morning.  I often wonder why they went to all that trouble on the first night there.  I sure never saw anything like that again.

Larryj

[Diane Amberg]

It gave you something to write home about....and you still do!

[larryJ]

 

[jarhead]

Quote from Larry:
Exiting the plane, we came down the stairs onto a red carpet, a band playing march music and were taken to a mess hall where we were fed steak and eggs.

Steak & eggs? Larry are you yanking my chain ? That sounds more like the Air Force than it does the Army.
   I think the most cruel thing our senior DI ever did to us, was something he has told me he did to every platoon he put thru boot camp. We could see across the bay into the Navy boot camp, when we were on a 5 mile run---in the sand. We would be eye-balling them Swabbies playing volleyball and just lounging around. Two weeks into BC we all lined up one night and the "smoking lamp was lit" for smokers. Non smokers stood there and got their kicks from watching the smokers get light headed from hot boxing their first smoke in two weeks. Gunny Hensley came out of the Duty Hut and announced the Corps had too many people but the Navy was short on getting enough recruits so any one interested in switching from the Marines and going over to the Navy to line up outside his Hut . Then he walked back inside. I swear, almost half the platoon was standing arse hole to belly button outside his hootch waiting to switch. Them "suckers ' played silly little games almost all night long out in the sand.

[W. Gray]

Speaking of airborne, and someone did above, I was in the Buckley AFB BX this morning.

A female Army captain was walking out and had jump wings on her chest. First time I had ever seen those (jump wings) on a female, let alone a female captain.

[Diane Amberg]

There are female smoke jumpers too...Can you imagine?

[Janet Harrington]

larryj, did you really get steak and eggs?

[larryJ]

Yep, I did.  At that time, Ft. Campbell was being tested as a basic training facility.  I think my class was maybe the third or fourth one to go through basic.  I don't know who the 101st Airborne was trying to impress, us or the Department of Defense, but, yes, they did feed us steak and eggs upon arrival in the middle of the night.  Like I said, it never happened again.  Also, because this was an airborne base, they were always trying to recruit troops to go airborne.  If you were doing good, learning how to be a good soldier, keeping your nose clean, then the DI's and officers would quietly and casually mention to you privately about the benefits of going airborne, i.e. $55 a month jump pay, prestige, yada, yada, yada..........

About the fourth week out of eight weeks training, they took us out to a drop zone, (DZ), and we watched a C-130 come over at about 1,000 feet and drop some big crates with chutes attached.  When the crates hit the ground, some bounced, some shattered, one chute didn't open at all......................."No thanks, Sarge, I'm gonna stay a leg."

So, for excitement, (change of pace here), we have the two older granddaughters today and my wife will take them swimming later on this afternoon.  She will also pack a bag and her and the oldest granddaughter and her brother will leave tonight for a vacation in NYC.  So, I have a week of relaxing with no "honey-dew" on a daily basis.  If you watch the Today show on NBC, you might see them in the crowd outside the studio.  I am pretty sure one or two of them will be wearing those stupid Statue of Liberty crowns.  Tall guy with dark hair, tall redhead with glasses and a 4 foot tall blond girl with two missing front teeth.  Peace and quiet for a week.........

Larryj