Bootcamp IV (Make a Sailor Hurt)
We were told at the beginning of our training that every last one of us would be attending Marching Party at least once during our time at RTC. Marching Party is where Recruits were sent to be punished for minor infractions. It was basically what we called a Mashing (Make A Sailor Hurt, get it?) under the stars. To get Mashed was a common punishment for us all, but to get sent to Marching Party was supposed to be worse. Lots of push-ups, lots of Sit-ups, and even more eight-count body builders.
My Company was described by most CC's as 'Dicked-Up'. To be perfectly honest, we were. Our test score averages, were mediocre, our PT tests were average, and our drill was just above par. We were basically eff-ups. The company's Guide-on indicated to things. The Company's number was on the flag, and it also had stars and other icons placed on it to indicate how well the company was doing during training. Ours was pretty bare, we were definately not in the running for Color Company, which was the Company that received the best record during training.
It got so bad at one point, that one time as we were leaving Water Survival and Physical Training (WS&PT), one of the instructors came over to us and put an erect penis icon on our Guide-ON. The symbology was to show how 'dicked-up' we were.
If you were really bad, individually, one of your last stops before being kicked out, was a place called POSMO, or Positive Motivation. Those poor guys were sent there for a couple of days, I think, had to wear those old Steel Pot helmets that the Army used to wear before the Kevlar helmets came into service. The POSMO troops would PT all day long with Steel Pots, and M1A Garand Rifles. (Those M1A's are quite heavy) I wasn't bad enough to have been sent to POSMO, but I did go to Marching Party.
We were on our last week of training. The only two guys left in the whole company that had not been invited to the party, were me, and the Laundry Petty Officer. The Laundry P.O. and myself were both able to get away from the company during the day, because I was the ERPO, and he had to go and get our Laundry. We were targets, we both tried like hell not to take any sort of hits on inspection. We both thought we made it....until one day we had a snap inspection on our lockers.
There was a certain way all clothing had to be folded. The end result was that if you looked at the side of any piece of clothing, besides socks, you better see folds that gave you what was called Thin-Thick-Thick-Thin. You better have a thin layer, two thick layers, and a thin layer.
I was busted for having one of my T-shirts folded wrong. I swear to God that T-shirt was folded correctly, I honestly believe the CC had someone fold it incorrectly so he could get me. Needless to say I was headed out on the next Marching Party express.
It wasn't that bad to be honest with you, in fact I had a hard time keeping myself from laughing. Like I stated earlier, we were a dicked-up company. We were getting dropped all of the time, Push-Ups were nothing at this point. It was no where near as intense as some of the Mashings we went through. We made the windows fog up in our barracks....I was in San Diego...during a heat wave, that made that little feat very hard to accomplish. Many a time we would come out of the barracks for chow with our Uniforms soaked clear through because of the Mashing we just went through.
Marching Party....it wasn't that bad, in fact it was a joke. What made it funny to me and my compadre, was all the moans and groans from the new guys.
USO Night was held right down the street from us at the HQ Building. Every Thursday there would be a night before a graduation where the families would be given a presentation by the RTC Command, and then would get to see their loved ones for an hour or so. Let me tell you...we could smell the perfume from our barracks. We were 1/2 a block away, and could smell the women. One day we were practicing our drill on a grinder (Parade Ground) near the USO site. We got a little cocky and started to show-off for all the nice people. Big mistake...we got Mashed right there in front of them all. We were laughed at, and had our pictures taken like animals in a zoo. We deserved it though....it was pretty dumb to show off like that...especially since at that point we weren't very good.
Next Stop.....A-School
My Company was described by most CC's as 'Dicked-Up'. To be perfectly honest, we were. Our test score averages, were mediocre, our PT tests were average, and our drill was just above par. We were basically eff-ups. The company's Guide-on indicated to things. The Company's number was on the flag, and it also had stars and other icons placed on it to indicate how well the company was doing during training. Ours was pretty bare, we were definately not in the running for Color Company, which was the Company that received the best record during training.
It got so bad at one point, that one time as we were leaving Water Survival and Physical Training (WS&PT), one of the instructors came over to us and put an erect penis icon on our Guide-ON. The symbology was to show how 'dicked-up' we were.
If you were really bad, individually, one of your last stops before being kicked out, was a place called POSMO, or Positive Motivation. Those poor guys were sent there for a couple of days, I think, had to wear those old Steel Pot helmets that the Army used to wear before the Kevlar helmets came into service. The POSMO troops would PT all day long with Steel Pots, and M1A Garand Rifles. (Those M1A's are quite heavy) I wasn't bad enough to have been sent to POSMO, but I did go to Marching Party.
We were on our last week of training. The only two guys left in the whole company that had not been invited to the party, were me, and the Laundry Petty Officer. The Laundry P.O. and myself were both able to get away from the company during the day, because I was the ERPO, and he had to go and get our Laundry. We were targets, we both tried like hell not to take any sort of hits on inspection. We both thought we made it....until one day we had a snap inspection on our lockers.
There was a certain way all clothing had to be folded. The end result was that if you looked at the side of any piece of clothing, besides socks, you better see folds that gave you what was called Thin-Thick-Thick-Thin. You better have a thin layer, two thick layers, and a thin layer.
I was busted for having one of my T-shirts folded wrong. I swear to God that T-shirt was folded correctly, I honestly believe the CC had someone fold it incorrectly so he could get me. Needless to say I was headed out on the next Marching Party express.
It wasn't that bad to be honest with you, in fact I had a hard time keeping myself from laughing. Like I stated earlier, we were a dicked-up company. We were getting dropped all of the time, Push-Ups were nothing at this point. It was no where near as intense as some of the Mashings we went through. We made the windows fog up in our barracks....I was in San Diego...during a heat wave, that made that little feat very hard to accomplish. Many a time we would come out of the barracks for chow with our Uniforms soaked clear through because of the Mashing we just went through.
Marching Party....it wasn't that bad, in fact it was a joke. What made it funny to me and my compadre, was all the moans and groans from the new guys.
USO Night was held right down the street from us at the HQ Building. Every Thursday there would be a night before a graduation where the families would be given a presentation by the RTC Command, and then would get to see their loved ones for an hour or so. Let me tell you...we could smell the perfume from our barracks. We were 1/2 a block away, and could smell the women. One day we were practicing our drill on a grinder (Parade Ground) near the USO site. We got a little cocky and started to show-off for all the nice people. Big mistake...we got Mashed right there in front of them all. We were laughed at, and had our pictures taken like animals in a zoo. We deserved it though....it was pretty dumb to show off like that...especially since at that point we weren't very good.
Next Stop.....A-School
posted by Tall Molly Man at 2:54 AM
3 Comments:
damn it. you made me late for work this morning. I had a few minutes extra to kill this morning so I thought I'd do a quick blog reading, and I spent way to much time here. I should have just made a mental note to comeback after work, but NOOOOO. I just had to read.
Sorry.....
I didn't do so well on the pt tests, so they sent me to that special training where they exercised and ran my ass off all day for two weeks solid. I did just fine after that, I never stopped running again, for fear they'd do that to me again.
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