Just before the dawn of the Global War on Terror, Kieran Michael Lalor left his career as a high school social studies teacher, endeavoring to fulfill his lifelong dream. Lalor followed his father and brother's footsteps into the United States Marine Corps. This Recruit presents Lalor's nightly journal entries, beginning with the uneasy trip to the recruiter's office and the eerily quiet midnight bus ride to Parris Island. Lalor describes the wicked combination of fatigue, nerves, disorientation, misery, loneliness, and homesickness that conspire to keep him from his goal-along with the hours of close order drill, push-ups, hand-to-hand combat training, the pit, and the unrelenting mind games. Witness the nasty recruit-on-recruit infighting that results when young men struggle to survive while being pushed past their limits physically, mentally, and emotionally. Gaze at the target from the five hundred yard line on Qualification Day, when failure means at least an extra two weeks on the island and the added humiliation of failing the quintessential test of a Marine. Experience the rappel tower, night firing, the infiltration courses, and long, back-crushing humps. Struggle with Lalor and his platoon as they try to overcome the Crucible, the final obstacle before claiming the title of United States Marine.

THIS RECRUIT

A Firsthand Account of Marine Corps Boot Camp, Written While Knee-Deep in the Mayhem of Parris IslandBy KIERAN MICHAEL LALOR

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Kieran Michael Lalor
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-6458-7

Contents

Author's Note.........................................ixPrologue..............................................1Chapter 1: The Decision...............................4Chapter 2: Forming and Picking Up.....................23Chapter 3: Drill......................................42Chapter 4: The Range..................................147Chapter 5: Team Week..................................181Chapter 6: A-Line.....................................206Chapter 7: Basic Warrior Training.....................218Chapter 8: The Crucible...............................237Chapter 9: Transition Week............................258Chapter 10: Graduation................................271Epilogue..............................................276Glossary..............................................283

Chapter One

The Decision

Monday, March 20, 2000

I had been setting deadlines for myself to decide whether or not to go to the recruiter's office for weeks now, but I kept breaking them. My latest deadline came and went Friday. But this morning I was going out to my car before work and I saw a neighbor wearing a Marine Corps bulldog t-shirt identical to one that I got for Christmas when I was eight years old. When I saw this, I knew it was a sign and I finally decided that today would be the day I would go to the recruiter and begin the process of enlisting.

After work, I went to the Poughkeepsie recruiting station and spoke with Sergeant Hackert, a short but solid guy with a small, blond, military-style mustache. Sergeant Hackert, who appeared to be in his mid-twenties, gave me the whole ooh-rah, gung-ho pep-talk. I sat impatiently in his neatly organized office adorned with recruiting posters extolling the virtues of Marine Corps service. There I read brochures about the Marine Corps and fielded questions from Sergeant Hackert about my background to determine whether I was qualified to enlist. Then I watched a video about boot camp and spoke with Gunnery Sergeant Collins, a wiry guy, well over six feet tall who I estimate is in his early thirties. He is the man in charge of this particular recruiting station and used to fly aboard Marine Corps One, the helicopter that flies the President. He flew with both Presidents Bush and Clinton. This bullet on his resume impressed the hell out of me and was a reminder that it is a Marine that salutes the President when he lands at the White House. I am sure the subconscious correlation that the Commander-in-Chief surrounds himself with Marines is why he mentioned it.

I have been seriously considering enlisting in the Reserves for months. I decided once and for all to do it after I saw the guy with the t-shirt this morning, but there was something that gave me an uneasy feeling while I was visiting the recruiters and especially after I left. You know that feeling you get in the middle of your gut when you hear really bad news, like someone you know has died? I've had that queasiness non-stop since I left the recruiters at 6:30 pm. Just before I left, all of these recruiters dressed in their khaki uniform shirts and bright blue pants with the distinctive red stripe were congratulating me for making this decision. I guess all of the handshakes and back slapping left me feeling a little trapped. I went in there looking for information, not necessarily to finalize my commitment to go to boot camp this summer. But here these guys are, praising me for enlisting, which I'm sure is designed to do just what it has and make me feel locked in. I am scheduled to take the physical and the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) test in Albany on Friday.

I am concerned that my students at the high school where I teach might find out about my plans because two of my seniors have already enlisted with these same recruiters. I don't want any students or other teachers asking me questions or wondering why a guy with a college degree in his second year of teaching high school is enlisting in the Marine Corps. I have not even told the school that I am not coming back to teach next year.

Not too many men stick around for long in Catholic education because it doesn't pay well. Most of the young men teach a couple of years and then either go work at public schools or move on to other careers. Plus, Karl Luther, one of the few men who has taught at the school for a long time, has made it his mission to make my life miserable for most of the two years I've been here. He tried to bully me out of participating in a union-organized "sick-out" my first week of school because he was an administrator trying to quash the union. Despite his unlawful union busting tactics, I participated in the sick-out and my name has been on his shit list ever since. Because of all these dynamics I don't think anyone at the school will be shocked that I'm leaving. That I'm enlisting in the Marine Corps will undoubtedly come as a surprise.

In case you're wondering, the reason I chose the Marine Corps is a simple one. On and off since I was five years old, I've wanted to be a Marine. My dad was in the Marine Reserves and my brother was an active duty Marine. I went to the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) six years ago thinking I was going to be a Marine officer and flirting with the idea of enlisting in the Reserves after my freshman year. My dad wasn't crazy about me enlisting in the Reserves back then, and I was eighteen years old and in military school. Now I am twenty-four, I've been a high school teacher in the two years since graduating from college, and he probably will think it is really ridiculous. I know I'm going to feel that I have to defend this decision to everyone I know and they are all going to think its weird or a bad idea or that I have low self-esteem or some bullshit like that.

Anyway, there are a lot of reasons why I am doing this. The primary reason I enlisted is a patriotic desire to serve this great country that I have had for as long as I can remember. Serious thoughts about enlisting began again in January when I went to Washington DC over the long Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. While in D.C., I saw the new Korean War Memorial. Etched in dark black marble beside large silver statues of soldiers dutifully slogging through a cold Korean winter, are the words "FREEDOM IS NOT FREE." These four words made me start to wonder if I had been freeloading and enjoying the prosperity of America without meaningfully contributing to it. This rekindled the desire I've had since I was a kid to pick up a rifle and serve my country.

At parades and on the Fourth of July I always feel like I can't be patriotic because I never served my country. It sounds ridiculous even to me but I can't help feeling this way. It's not that you have to have been in the military to be a patriot; it's just that I have always wanted to do it, so I feel like I have some unfinished business.

Another reason for enlisting is the fact that there is still a big part of me that regrets leaving VMI. VMI is a military college in Lexington, Virginia. When I was there for two semesters from 1994–95 it was the last all-male military college in the country. About a year after I left, the Supreme Court ruled that an all-male, state-run college was unconstitutional. I went there for my freshman year and endured what is called...