THE DAILY GRIND
At right in the first picture we're drilling with our rifles and exercising. Next on right is haircut picture. That's me the arrow is pointing to. No. We didn't have any camera's. These pictures are taken from the 'Keel'. The yearbook from boot camp.
Our day started at 5:00 am. We were awakened, many times by a coke bottle being ran around the inside of a large metal garbage can while the Company Commander was yelling "Anyone who's feet ain't on the floor in 10 seconds will earn a demerit". That's kinda paraphrased. We had 15 minutes to S, S, and S and be standing at attention on the parade ground in formation. After assembling, we marched about a half mile to the chow hall for breakfast. Now remember, the temperature was usually below zero. At the chow hall, our 'runner' had to go report us in while we waited our turn standing out in the cold. Sometimes, well, many times, our runner would screw up when reporting in and have to go back to the end of the line, behind all the other company chow runners reporting their company in. I'll have to insert at this point that we were Company 35. The first company formed in boot camp for the year would be #1 and sequenced from there. So reporting at Boot Camp on January 26, there were already 34 other companies started that year. So, with basic training taking 10 weeks, you can see how many companies were reporting for breakfast at the same time.When reporting in, our runner had to recite a certain phrase the correct way then answer any questions he may be asked correctly, and with proper phrasing. They often asked questions concerning things you should know from you training. Sometimes, just to mess with you they'd ask you what your Company Commander's date of birth was, or something like that. Needles to say, many times we stood outside in the cold for 30-40 minutes before our runner got us in. Any runner who screwed up a couple of times was replaced the next meal by somebody else, until he screwed up, and then we replaced him with another person,who would.....well, you know how that went. We went through a lot of chow runners. As a 'Squad Leader', I never had a turn as 'Chow Runner', thank goodness.
After breakfast, we had a small group head back to the barracks to do final preps for our daily barracks inspection and the rest of us headed to the drill haul for morning *personal inspection. After that, off to classes.
Classes on what sailors need to know. We had classes on things such as knot tying, using portable pumps, generators, fire fighting, radio operation, aircraft/ship identification, recognizing all military insignias and ranks, using safety equipment, morse code, swimming, firearms, Navy terminology, *proper wearing of gas masks, first aid, and many other things such as these that you would need to know on a ship.
We would go to lunch the same way as breakfast, then more classes in the afternoon. During the hours we didn't have a class we were in the drill haul marching and learning the 16 count manual of arms.
After dinner, to the *drill hall. All our marching type training was done indoors at this time of year. In good weather it was done outside on large paved areas. These areas were called 'Grinders', for good reason.
After drilling for an hour or two, back to the barracks. Unless you had demerits to work off or failed swimming lessons to make up.
Back in the barracks, it was *wash the clothes you wore that day, *clean barracks, fold and stow clothes dried from the previous night's washing, spit shine shoes, lights out for bed at 9:30 pm. Of approximately 80 people in our company, 4 people were on duty as sentries all night, changing at 4 hour intervals. So a turn of *sentry duty came around fairly often.
*these items will need further explanation. It really wasn't done as simply as you might think.
to be continued................
2 comments:
I would have quit. I mean it, I would have quit.
You hear of the training being hard on you - but this is way beyond that!
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