Informant info: Craig Serpa, marine. He was stationed in San Diego.

Type of lore: Customary, Music

Language: English

Country of Origin: USA

Social / Cultural Context: Craig Serpa was interviewed at Dartmouth College. Craig was asked about any folk songs that he remembered singing during training or being stationed at base camp. Craig was a drill instructor, so he remembered many. I asked him to talk about they they sang.

Associated file: 

Transcript:

C: There’s, we have, so our cadence is something we are known for. I was a drill instructor so I made marines. You can look up on youtube a video of me singing cadence.

Interviewer: Oh just type in your name?

C: Yeah so just put, idk how long 5-6 min when I actually start singing and walking the group. Another thing that we do that I am sure that the army does too, I’m not sure, but instead of doing just regular walking cadence and stuff, a lot of runs are done with cadences, where we sing songs that tell funny stories. And then hiking. When you’re doing the long hikes and you have your packs on and everything, we have like hike specific songs that tell stories about being back home, and what happened like if I die tell my mom I did my best with my medals across my chest. And they do that I think just to keep your mind off the shit you’re going through. Like you have 80 lbs on your back, its been 3 days and you’ve slept an hour and a half, sing a song. And its like, if you have a good platoon lader, they like actually sing and get into it. It kinda gets you going. Really what I was told, the purpose of doing all of that—forces your to expand your lungs- It benefits you from hypervenhilating. It keeps you breathing in a rhythm.

Interviewer: Do you remember any of them? You probably remember all of them. Do you have your favorite song? You can speak it, you don’t have to sing it.

C: Probably Hey Josephine. 1^st sg. Pharo when I was a drill instructor with bravo company. I’m not going to sing or anything, if you look up the legendary marine core drill instructure—there’s a cd with some of the more famous DI in the last 20-30 year. Actual cadence song. All of us use it and kinda memorize it and stuff and try to get all of the songs down. Some of them tell stories of WWI, Korea, Kayson, Bell Wood and all of that stuff

Informant’s comments: Craig told me that singing was something that helped them get through the hard times, which we often see in history. Craig said that men would buy the CD full of hiking songs so that they could memorize them. The songs never change from year to year.