The Journey to Enlistment: Part 1

Imagine: You're laying comfortably in your bed, snuggled deeply into your pillow and blanket. Perhaps you're asleep in the fetal position, drooling heavily from the bottle of Jack you downed the night prior. The sun has yet to bring the Earth into its warm embrace, birds have yet to whistle their cheerful tunes, the night sky serene and peaceful. You may be dreaming of winning the lottery, maybe the thrill of that game winning touchdown, or even of the attractions of an old crush. It's as if everything in this moment is absolutely perfect. Then that wretched sound tears away the fabric of serenity and you open your eyes to the horrors of reality. You are an 0311 in the USMC during peace time.

Whenever you meet someone new, you tend to ask questions to get to know them. Who are they? What makes them tick? How did they get to where they are today? For some, the answers are laid out for all to see. For others, it's as clear as mud. Everyone has a different story; some are filled with drama, others are about as dramatic as an orange peel. Still, even an orange peel deserves to have its story told.

So who am I? I'm currently a 25-year-old man in his third year of enlistment as an 0311. What makes me tick? The sound my wallet makes three days after payday — its tearful shrieks of fear and loneliness are a constant reminder that eleven days of ramen are a very real possibility. How did I get where I am today? That is a much harder question to answer. I had the idea of joining the military as a child. I would run around pretending to shoot strangers, I'd play only war games, watch only war movies, and knew the history of any major conflict the US had taken part in since the beginning. Throughout high school, I kept a serious eye on the military, using it as a back-up in the off chance I didn't make it into college. I graduated high school with high honors and was given a full scholarship to the University of Florida.

After three-and-a-half long years of futility in pursuing a degree that served no purpose, I lost my scholarship, and, for a while, my will to continue in education. After taking a semester off, I decided that the military had waited long enough for me, and I requested information on the USMC website. Less than twelve hours later, a recruiter drove up to my apartment without warning, and less than three days later, I had signed the contract and was ready to go to MEPS. Scoring high on the ASVAB, I decided that the only job I wanted was to be in the infantry; my recruiter wasn't quite as happy with the idea and attempted to steer me away from it. Apparently, he thought I was intelligent enough to go into a job more suited for my ASVAB score. I proved him wrong. My logic was simple: If I was going to join a military branch that everyone looks to in war for changing the tide of battle, I wanted to be on the front lines. I wanted to be like the guys in the movies, running and gunning, explosions and bullets everywhere. Little did I know, I'd be sent to a unit that gets its jollies off of Okinawa deployments, ITX sandstorms, and Bridgeport blizzards.

They say the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. In this case, those first steps were yellow. Before we start there, let's back up for a minute. Long before my recruit training started, I had been training my body for the rigorous training I knew was to come. The problem was this: I was never the poster child of fitness. Quite the opposite.

Delayed Entry Program

During my time in the Delayed Entry Program (DEPs), a program designed to help Poolees (new joins) toughen their bodies for Boot Camp, PT (Physical Training) would regularly result in me going home so exhausted, I would fall into a 12-hour power nap. No, the PT itself wasn't too difficult, I was just horribly out of shape. My first fitness test in the program wasn't exactly stellar, either. During the crunch test, a test which required at least 54 crunches in two minutes, I was cranking out a whooping 36. The pull-up test, which required a minimum of three pull-ups, I'd knocked out two. During the mile-and-a-half run, which had a minimum of 13 and a half minutes to complete, I barreled through in just under 18. As I said, fitness was NOT my strong point. It took months of constant PT, gym time, and the occasional skipping of my bi-daily pizza and beer order to meet the requirements to ship to Boot Camp.

Whilst training for shipment, I had constant doubts on if I would ever be truly ready to ship. I often wondered if the Marine Corps was even a path I should continue to go down. I had begun to lose faith in my abilities when I injured my arm during training — improper form at the gym coupled with a lack of stretching seemed to be likely culprits; it probably helps to point out that I knew my way around the gym about as well as a blind man in an art gallery. My faith was challenged once more when my shipment date was pushed back by three more months. It was challenged a final time when my recruiter attempted to change my mind for what job I would be training for. He again attempted to sway my mind with an Administrations job, which included a signing bonus, but an infantry Rifleman was something I felt destined to be. That sign on bonus sounds pretty nice right about now!

After seven long months, and some self physical therapy reps I found for my arm, I was ready for my final fitness test before going to the Island. On this test, I had improved my pull-ups to 14, not amazing, but much improved from the previous numbers. My crunches were up to 84, still not perfect, but once again, a vast improvement. My run time was the only thing that hadn't improved too much, clocking in at 12:58, but it was better than the bare minimum, and so I was off to my date with destiny. The night before shipping off to Parris Island, I was a nervous wreck, wondering once again if I was doing the right thing with the path I chose, but, at this point, I figured there was no way out and decided it was time to put up or shut up. Over the next few months, I heard the latter of those two phrases quite a bit, but I got enough practice in both.