Title: Boot Camp – Parris Island

Informant info: Graham “Ossie” Osborn. Informant attends Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH as a United States Marine Corps Veteran. Informant was a member of the First Reconnaissance Battalion.

Type of lore: Customary/Verbal, Tradition, Ritual, Ceremony

Language: English

Country of Origin: USA

Social / Cultural Context: Informant was interviewed at Dartmouth College. Informant was asked about his bootcamp experience.  Parris Island, located in Port Royal, South Carolina, is where Ossie went for his Marine bootcamp training.  Here he reflects on the experience.

Associated file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/z1us1frzhrn0u2t/IMG_7545.MOV?dl=0

Transcript: Item: [I have recorded the item exactly how it was told to me in the interview]: My boot camp experience I went to Parris Island, it was really what I expected. I was lucky because my brother had gone just a few months before me. What it was really was just breaking you down and making you part of the group and taking away your individuality to a large extent. The first thing that happens once you leave the airport, they put you on a bus, there is no talking there is nothing like that. There, a representative from the Marine Corps there, but none of your trainers. First thing that you do when you get off the bus is stand along these yellow steps that are all in formation which you spend the next few months getting to learn what the formations are and how to march and do drill and everything like that. So you get in these yellow steps and the intensity really gets up at the point where you instructors come out and they are yelling and making sure that you are on the steps and all that. And then you enter through what we called “the hatch” which everybody else would call a door. [Over the door] it says, I’m paraphrasing, but “Here we make marines,” it’s the only time that you ever through that hatch and you never exit through that hatch. You are already invested in these traditions as soon as you leave the civilian world and you get on “the island” as they would call it.   Then, right from there they go and shave everybody’s heads and you do all kinds of paper work and you are up for about 24 hours. It’s a real stressful situation, which they try to do to disorient you. You’re fed, but it’s not good. You don’t know what’s going on. Then finally you get dropped to your boot camp platoon and then is who you spend the next three months with unless you get hurt or drop out or anything like that. We started with 60 guys or so in that platoon and we had about 12 guys who were dropped and picked up another 2 or 3 guys during the training so we graduated with about 50 recruits. The entirety of boot camp you never refer to yourself as “I” it is always, “this recruit.” Never “I” on the island, not until you become a Marine, which they play around with a lot because sometimes they’ll say, “alright Marines, start cleaning your weapon. Just kidding, none of you are Marines.” So they play on that a lot. There is physical reprimands, which is called going to the pit, which are sand pits that are all over the place down there, because Parris island is right down in South Carolina right across the sound from Hilton head, SC. During those times when you get in the sand, if you know anything about having sand when you don’t want it, when you’re not just at the beach chilling, it gets everywhere and it’s just disgusting and you have to stay like that. So you’d do calisthenics in the pit for as long as they deem necessary, whatever your punishment was. You’d have various duties for over the period of boot camp. Things like fire watch which is where you’ interrupt your sleep and change over and walk around in your deck where all the bunks where and everybody in your platoon was. You had to do that at all hours of the night and day. The final big training is called the crucible, which at our point lasted 36 hours or so, where you get minimum sleep, do back to back marches, back to back training exercises and after that you get an eagle globe and anchor, which is what [my tattoo is.] You get one of these eagle globe and anchors that is actually going to go your uniform and that is the understand that you are almost a full marine and you have made it through the toughest part and now it is decompressing and getting everything else for the final drill sessions and final graduation. What you complete the crucible and you get the EGA (Eagle, Globe and Anchor) then you are a Marine.

Informant’s comments: Life on Parris Island was tough, but taught the recruits what it meant to be a Marine.

Collector’s comments:  The informant recalled the time on Parris Island in a fond like, laughing to himself as he remembered different parts of his training and different men that he trained with.