Chapter One

Boot camp was far more intense than I had pictured. It was quite different to see people being yelled at on tv then to stand there as your eardrums are vibrating from the screams. I was a horrible recruit. I was always in trouble, because I always had a lost look on my face (as I am told). As I feared, my physical abilities proved to be mortifying and made me a target for criticism from drill instructors. My height also proved to be an unexpected disadvantage. They seemed to hate how tall I was. In a formation of sixty girls, I stood out. Every little blink, twitch, or eye movement was caught. Layla would joke with me, years after boot camp, about how the girls on the little end of the formation were able to act without being caught by drill instructors. They were all shorter. “We got away with everything”, she would laugh. At one point, my Senior Drill Instructor made me stand on my knees so she could yell at me, because I was so much taller than her. I was constantly on the quarterdeck, even if I hadn’t actually done anything wrong. I was in trouble so often, they just began to assume I should be punished every opportunity.
Because I became an easy target for drill instructors, I also became an easy target for fellow recruits who needed a patsy. Every morning, the drill instructor would count down, and we had to be standing in a line with our blue bags of our personal valuables, and our “Smart card” held out in front of us by the end of the countdown. One morning, I went into my foot locker and took these things out before the drill instructor woke up. Most of us did this every morning, because the countdown was never enough time. I slipped my card and bag under my pillow. When the drill instructor started counting, I could leap from my rack (bunk), pull out those items, and jump on line. This particular morning, my card wasn’t under my pillow where I had put in only minutes ago. I searched the bare cement floors around our racks, and found nothing. I began to panic, because the countdown was nearing the last numbers. Eventually, I had to get online without my Smart card. My drill instructor screamed at me to find it. I ran back to my rack and searched frantically. I heard my Senior Drill Instructor yell “Someone help the retard!”
Immediately, the guide of our platoon ran over to my aid. She quickly handed me my card and reached under her own pillow and grabbed her own card. I was stunned. My Senior said, “Imagine that! Berger found it right away!” The guide, Berger, was the drill instructor’s pet. She was given the position as guide because she was supposed to be the best example and showed the most potential for leadership. Later, my rack mate told me my card fell from my pillow as I was climbing down from my top rack. Berger grabbed it and jumped online. They all stood as I was persecuted, and knew I had not lost my card, but our guide had taken it. These situations happened often, and I felt pathetic to have let myself get labeled as an easy patsy.
During the confidence course, I lost my grip on a log and fell from the top of a fairly high obstacle. My knee popped twice. It hurt badly, but I tried to not show it for fear of ridicule. The next couple days, I limped slightly, but made no requests to medical. Recruits who made such requests were seen as weak – especially if they lacked in physical fitness. It was immediately assumed the injury was exaggerated to avoid physical training. Each night we had to stand in front of our drill instructors in our underwear, and rotate around in circles, saying a rehearsed song stating we have no physical complaints to address to medical. One night, my drill instructor noticed a very large bug bite on my leg, and ordered me to go to medical in the morning. Cellulitous was a serious fear in boot camp. Apparently, it caused serious infections and was often the result of a simple bug bite. I know little of it, except what I was told in rumor. At medical, the doctor assured the bug bite was nothing serious, but noticed my swollen knee and minor limping. He asked about it, and since I had been ordered to medical, I thought I would explain what happened. I was terrified when he decided I needed crutches. He explained that normally crutches would not be necessary, but with the amount recruits were on their feet walking from place to place, it was appropriate because the injury would not heal if it was strained all the time. I did not argue, although I was terrified of the reaction I would get from the drill instructors. I did not understand what the injury actually was, but wished I could just pretend it never happened, and kicked myself for telling the doctor. At the squadbay, my drill instructors lost their minds when I walked in with crutches. I hated everything about boot camp, because I couldn’t figure out how to stay out of trouble.
Eventually, I was dropped from that platoon and placed into the Physical Conditioning and Medical Readiness platoon (PCP and MRP). This meant I was no longer in the same platoon with Layla. I was on crutches for more than two weeks. Two days after I was back to physical training, I had to run the mid-training fitness test. I failed the run, and was dropped to PCP until I passed it and could rejoin training with the next platoon. I passed the run only two days later. However, I had to wait in this limbo platoon for two weeks to rejoin my next platoon. It was depressing place. Everyone was injured, or they had failed fitness tests. I slept on the top rack above an African American girl who boasted about her days in a street gang. She often threatened me. She said she hated me because I looked like a pampered white girl. She would stay up after the drill instructors would go to bed with her friend and talk and laugh as if no one was trying to sleep. One night, I finally asked her to be quiet because they were being very loud. She told me she would cut my throat if I ever asked again, and if she ever saw me in the civilian world she would shoot me between the eyes. I was so passive; I said nothing and put a pillow over my head. Weeks later, I found out she had hung herself with a belt from her rack the night after I left.
Whether it was recognized by the drill instructors or not, my personal shining moment was probably the Crucible. It was a series of obstacles between hikes. The other girls were much smaller than me, and could lift very little. One other recruit and I were left to carry the water and ammo cans for our squad because the rest were not strong enough to carry them for very long. We were supposed to rotate between all the girls in my squad, but none of them could carry them. The other recruit and I had to maneuver them as we low-crawled in sand under barbed-wire by ourselves as the other girls stood and waited at the end. We had to lift all the other girls over walls and up high obstacles. Some girls couldn’t keep up with the hikes, so the drill instructors gave me their packs and rifles. I had my own pack on my back and another positioned on my stomach, and a rifle slung over each shoulder. It made me bitter that these girls would could perform so much better than me on the fitness tests, but couldn’t even carry an ammo can, much less their own packs. However, it was the only time I was not hounded and belittled. I felt I was an asset more than an inconvenience.
In October 2003, I finished boot camp and was sent to Marine Combat Training (MCT) after ten days of leave to visit with my family. I loved the training. It was miserable at times, but I still loved it. We hiked a lot, which I was always better at than other females because I was so tall. Mostly, no one bothered me in MCT. During one of the hikes in boot camp, I had developed a blister from poorly fit boots on my heel. As we were hiking, I felt it pop and the fluid soak my sock. It felt better to have the pressure alleviated from my heel. After the hike, I was able to see how large it was. We were supposed to report blisters that were larger than a dime, but I refused to go to medical for a blister – especially after the setbacks that resulted from my knee. When I arrived at MCT, I finally decided to talk to the Corpsman about it since we hadn’t actually started any training yet. He rolled his eyes and in colorful language asked if I was seriously coming to him about a blister. At that point I felt stupid, but said yes anyway. He took off my boot and sock and another string of uncensored words burst out. He seemed surprised at how large it was. The blister covered my entire heel. It had started to get a little infected and he told me I needed to have to top layer of skin cut off. I didn’t get why, but I never argued. He had me lay on my stomach on an old, torn sofa in one of the squadbays. He called in some higher ranking Marines to help. They put a screw driver in my mouth to bite down on, and the corpsman took out a jack knife. I would have expected a corpsman to be prepared with more sanitary and appropriate technology than a jack knife, but I didn’t really care. A Master Sergeant held my foot and a Gunnery Sergeant held my leg down while the corpsman began to cut my heel. He kept telling me I had better not move, and I had better not kick him in the face. I don’t know what kind of pain he was expecting I would endure, but it didn’t hurt at all. Actually, I barely felt anything. The need for people to restrain my legs and the screwdriver seemed a little over dramatic. The Master Sergeant handed me the chunk of skin from my foot in a Ziploc bag. He thought it was funny, and told me I should keep it. I respectfully declined. My heel wouldn’t heal for a long time, since it was constantly in wet boots and hiking for the coming weeks, but it didn’t bother me enough to care. I supposed it just made for an interesting story.