An article in the NY Times today tells the story of an ex-Marine (truly, an EX-Marine) about the hazing he tried to endure in boot camp. This prompted me to recall my own experience in boot camp back in January, 1968, and I thought it might be worth public distribution.

I had, and still have, a lot of respect for our Drill Instructors (DI's), especially SSGT Gonzales. All of them were combat veterans and all of them knew what we were getting into and all of them wanted us to be as ready as we could be for what we were about to experience. One of the most powerful experiences I had in boot camp came when we were leaving for Infantry Training after our graduation from boot camp and SSGT Gonzalez had marched us to the buses taking us away. He stood there watching as the buses started to leave and said "You assholes take care of yourselves!" Doesn't sound like much from this distance, but I knew he meant it and he knew that none of us would ever be the same.

Did our DIs abuse us? Well, when you consider what they were trying to prepare us for, no. Did I get punched? Yes, but not in a way that made me bleed or otherwise truly hurt me. What hurt was knowing that I'd let my platoon down, and usually the platoon got punished for something I did wrong. That really makes you want to do things right because you don't want your friends to hate you and you know that if you do screw up in combat, the penalty for your friends is much more severe than a punch or extra push-ups.

That said, it does sound like some of the DIs went overboard on some recruits, and that kind of shit has to be stopped. Seems to me that what we went through was aimed at forming us into a unit rather than a bunch of individuals ditty-boping through the bush. That is critical in war; and the Marine Corps has an unblemished view of what happens to Marines in war. The view from the point of the spear is a lot different than the view from the ass-end.