\"Did you order the Code Red!?!?!?!?\"

Incident #1.5

Graduated from boot camp and went onto Marine Combat Training (MCT).  They no longer have this school/training, but it sucked.  30 days of hell.  We lived in quanset huts and were out in the field everyday.

When we actually bivouac'd out in the field for 2 weeks, we were in 4 seperate platoons.  "E", "G", "H", "I".  Easy Echo, Go Easy Golf, Humping Hotel, and Insane India.  These were the nicknames associated with the "companies" for our MCT training.  And they lived up to their names.

I was in "Golf" and I thank god to this day that I was.  The instructors in MCT were basically the dregs of the Corps.  These were the Marines who couldn't get a training billet in the School of Infantry (SOI) or washed out of DI School.  So the majority of them were basically assholes.

My company instructors were fairly easy going, but Hotel and India's?  Holy shit.  Out in the field, there was a mountain with a well earned nickname.  All Marines hump "The Grim Reaper" in boot camp on the west coast.  That name is well earned, but, the mountain at MCT was even more ominous.  Mount Motherfucker. 

Mt. Motherfucker had an extreme incline of around 60 degrees (appx.).  The instructors from Hotel and India, made their companies hump that fucking mountain every morning for 2 weeks while we were in the field.  Full 80 lbs packs and weapons.  Some Marines were carrying the weapons their MOS (job) specified.  That meant some were carrying M60s, SAWs, Dragon Missles, and 60mm and 80mm  mortars (broken down).  Mortars had it the worst.  The base plate for a 80mm mortar is pretty fucking heavy.  (Anyone ever get to experience or witness 81mm mortar explosions?  Holyshit are they fucking loud and huge.  I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of them.)

Not only that, if the companies didn't finish it in a certain amount of time, they had to do it again.  Or, the companies would compete against each other to see which could make it down fastest.  Of course, the company who lost, would have to do it again.

Hotel also had a reputation for having the fastest forced "Humps" for the 10 and 15 mile marks.  So every new company that came in would have to attempt to match those marks.

I got to experience Mt. Motherfucker 3-4 times, and hated every one of them.  But those other 2 companies got to experience it a lot.  But, the attrition rate from the instructors sadism was pretty high as well.  Stress fractures would take out 3-4 Marines from each company before the end of training.

Paris Island Marines may give us "Hollywood" Marines shit, but y'all trained on flat lands.  Y'all had sand fleas, well we had "The Grim Reaper", "Mount Motherfucker", and "The Washboard".  The last of those, possibly the worst.

Again, not really hazing, but it sure looked like it.

Incident #2

Flew through SOI.  Went onto Security Forces Training School (got to practice ship clearing and CQB.  Fun stuff!)  and finished that up without a hitch.  Then, onward to my first duty station:

Sicily, Italy

This is where the shit hit the fan.

A bunch of us arrived in early August of '91.  The war in Iraq was over but we were the first new Marines assigned to the Security Force Company there.  The Marines who were there had been there for quite some time.  When the war broke out, they had all been put on "hold" and not allowed to ship out to new units as many were scheduled.

We also arrived to a unit that had just gone through multiple hazing incidents in the past year, with numerous Marines receiving NJP (Non Judicial Punishment) and losing rank from their actions.  There were NCOs who were now PFCs (Private First Class).  There were Lance Corporals (1 rank from being an NCO) who were now Privates.  The lowest rank possible.

I thought Italy would be awesome, but the unit sucked.  The CO was a boot-licking brown noser.  The 1st Sgt. was an asshole... to everyone  (He's the one who basically stripped everyone of their rank, although it officially was the CO).  And the Gunny was fixated on keeping everything clean.  Everything.  In hindsight, I think he may have had OCD.

Basically, the unit was rotten.  Rotten to the core.  There were Marines who were using steroids (obtainable over-the-counter in any Italian town).  Drunks, check bouncers, etc...  I went along on their rides into town where they got drunk on Sambuca and Grappa and went to "The Gut".  The Gut was the local red light district.  A well earned name, the Gut consisted of a back alley where the "ladies" plied their trade. 

I never partook of the Gut, as it just wasn't my type of thing, and there were a good number of transvestites mixed in with the normal women.  And they were hard to tell apart.

I did partake in the Sambuca, and to this day, still enjoy a Sambuca Sniffer (involves lighting it on fire.)

So, one evening, after a night on the town with some of the older Marines, a lot of the ones who had been busted, I got a knock on my door around 3am.  One of the "busted" Marines told me to come with him, and being the n00b Marine I was, I did. 

We entered into a room, where I got to experience my first hazing incident.  I was punched, kicked, and had my head slammed against a wall locker.  It wasn't anything compared to some of the hazing stories I had heard, but they worked me over fairly well. 

I was reminded that I was a n00b Marine, and even though I held higher rank than most of the guys who were beating me, that they were still senior to me because they had been there longer.

I was then told to go get one of the other n00b Marines and bring him to the room for his "initiation".  I left, and went by his room, but since they weren't watching me, I went back to my room, locked the door, and went back to bed.  My door was knocked on a couple of more times again later that night, but I ignored them and was ready for them to bust into my room (the On Duty Marine had master keys to all the doors) by wearing my cammies and boots.

Thankfully, nothing else occurred that night, and nothing else major happened the rest of my time in Sicily (other than some assholes shocking us with field telephones in our duty racks (When we were "On Guard" we slept and ate inside a special compound, so we all slept in an open squadbay.)) which was short lived...  (January '92...  Hello Crete, Greece!)

Next up...  I go from victim to perpetrator.  Not good.