Blog from the Future Past

Forty-years ago today, I awoke from a fitfull sleep to my first sunrise at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, located somewhere along the stinky armpit of the South Carolina coast. Though we we still in our civilian clothes, our heads were shaved and I had a hard time picking out the four guys I flew down with, my first time on a plane. November 10th happens to be the Marine Corps Birthday, in 1967, number one-hundred-and-ninety-two. After the three raving maniacs who would be our DI's stampeded us through processing and outfitting, they told how lucky we were that we arrived on "a holiday", and not to expect this kind of cushy treatment every day. About five minutes later, one of them knocked a recruit flat on his back with a roundhouse right and then jumped full force onto his chest. I was 18 and scared shitless, a victim of strange times and a high draft lottery number.

In Kubrick's, "Full Metal Jacket", Gunnery Sgt. Hartman teaches Pvts. Cowboy, Pyle and Joker the difference between a rifle and a gun: one is for pleasure, one is for fun.

Strange times, indeed. In late '67, we were still 'winning' the war. All that would change the following spring, when the North Vietnamese "Thet Offensive" would demonstrate to the world who really had the upper hand in Nam; who was hot and who was not. It took America four more long years to accept the fact we lost our lunch there, and in the end, millions had to die for our sins.

An odd thing for me, personally... as soon as I saw Stanley Kubrick's, Full Metal Jacket, I realized the film's Parris Island Act 1 took place around the time I was there. In one scene, the Gunny is telling the boys about Christmas Mass, and we find out later this is the holiday season prior to that watershed Thet Offensive that went down in the spring of '68. My time at PI spanned the same holiday season, from November, 1967 to the end of January, 1968.

I got curious and did a little research... Kubrick based his story on a novel called, The Short Timers, by Gustav Hasford, who apparently was at Parris Island during the latter half of '67. I greatly admire him for writing that story, and it's nice to think we may have crossed paths in the chow line or out on the parade deck.

For my own take on recruit training, go here and click on Chapter 7, Montezuma's Revenge. I've been thinking this is perhaps too much like Gustav's, or other accounts, and it may never see the light of day.

I dunno.