The Maggot

"Une fois qu'une Marine - Toujours une Marine"

The enlisting in the United States Marine Corps was the least stressful part; you just walked into a recruiting station of your choice, for me it was located in New York City even though I was not a native, and told your up-to-date life story to the recruiting Staff Sergeant, then gave him your reason for deciding to join the Corps. Easy as pie, people were wanted, and what better type than a volunteer.

In those days, if you still had all of the body parts with which you had started off in life with, and didn’t have an outrageous police record, you were accepted. The periods you could enlist for were two, three, or four years. I signed up for an initial two, with extension options.

A “cooling off period” was in place but you could chose to forego it. It was there just as a precautionary measure until the FBI had time to check you out, for if you had lied to the recruiter it was a federal offence which carried serious jail time. Otherwise, as you had signed there was no way, other than by death; they were going to let you renege on the contract with the Corps. It was like doing a deal with the devil; they now owned you body and soul, and on which they planned to collect.

Seven days later I received instructions to make my way to Beaufort, and there to stay in a bug infested Marine Corps approved, and paid for motel, before being moved by bus, along with others, to “Sandy Rock”, an 8,095 acre island where my summer of transformation would begin. Ever since I can remember I have admired the way Mother Nature conducts herself in that monumental struggle called life. At the very moment in which the spark of life ignites everything has an even chance to make it, or fail. And so it w...

... middle of paper ...

...rine’s Hymn as we did our set piece drill, and passed in review. Halting in front of the review stand we listened to the standard set piece speech welcoming us into the Marine Corps. Being ordered to dismiss we took one step back, bawled out at the top of our voices, “Aye,aye,Sir! “. Just as a runaway freight train would come to a shuddering, mighty crashing halt, boot camp was numbingly over!

My time at Parris Island has followed me throughout life, in one way or another, like an accompanying ghost from a time long past, and I cant say that it bears me that many happy memories, other than perhaps my first promotion. It was nothing more that an unpleasant means to an end. However, even as I write there is no escaping its influence, and thus proving, at least to me, that the time worn phrase, “Once a Marine – Always a Marine”, is a powerfully true one.

Semper Fi !