36 Years Ago Today
It was 36 years ago today, that my life changed forever. Yes I know, we all have a date that our life changed forever. In my case, it was the day that I stepped on those famous yellow footprints. For those who are not in the know, the yellow footprints are the very first thing a USMC recruit sees once they are off the bus. The footprints are laid out to mark where you need to stand as if you were in a formation. So for us Marines, those yellow footprints are the divide between slimy civilian life and Marine Corps life.
In my case, those yellow footprints were at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) in San Diego, California, on March 2, 1988. We arrived late in the night or early in the morning, after a long day of traveling by plane and bus. The Marine Corps plans it this way, they want you to be exhausted, tired, and hungry. As the bus stops a larger-than-life Drill instructor climbs on the bus and howls at us, giving us instructions to get off the bus and get on the yellow footprints. As we fly off the bus and stand on a footprint, we knew that we are not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
For the next 36 hours, we are on the go, completing all the indoctrination processes into recruit training. This consists of paperwork, getting our uniforms for training, getting our toiletries, getting our Marine Corps-issued haircut, and learning the basics like making our rack. We also label everything we received, with our name and platoon number. This process is known as receiving and it is full of shock and awe. Below is a video of recruits in the very early parts of receiving.
By the end of the receiving phase, you are exhausted as you didn’t get much sleep or any sleep for the past 2 days. This is part of the breaking-you-down process. They break you down, so you are more receptive to learning, and less disruptive, think of boot camp as molding clay.
You hear all these smart-ass punks who say shit like “If a drill instructor gets in my face, I will beat his ass”. Well, I’m here to tell you that your fantasy will never happen and that is because of several reasons. First, you are tired and exhausted, second you are never one-on-one in receiving, and there is a swarm of drill instructors all over the place. Third, the shock and awe are designed to catch you off guard and last, if you do strike a drill instructor, you will be put in your place very quickly, and then escorted by two large MPs (Military Police) to the brig to cool off. More importantly, as almost every one of us is here on those yellow footprints because we want to be there, it is extremely likely that we will start a fight, we want to become Marines. The process leading up to boot camp with your recruiter is designed to weed out the “bad seed” so to speak.
Once you are done with receiving, you get to meet your drill instructors who will be with you for the next 13 weeks, day and night, you will NEVER be alone, again, this is all by design, and we wanted to be here, we wanted this experience and we want to become Marines!
