"For character and strength are neither needed nor revealed until things are at their worst." I leave November 16 for boot camp. Before I depart, I'm putting together a book of motivational quotes and inspiring stories to get me through 3 months of physical and mental torment. Please help me get through 'the worst' by sending quotes/stories/advice that have gotten you through hard times.


Thank you very much!


"The few, the proud, the strong...the Marines"

10/25/2009 2:02:27 PM

Failure isnt the action of giving up , its the action of not bouncing back!

10/25/2009 2:04:32 PM

Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow. Delay may give clearer light as to what is best to be done.

10/25/2009 2:07:14 PM

Risin' up, back on the street
Did my time, took my chances
Went the distance, now I'm back on my feet
Just a man and his will to survive

So many times, it happens too fast
You change your passion for glory
Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive

It's the eye of the tiger, it's the cream of the fight
Risin' up to the challenge of our rival
And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night
And he's watchin' us all in the eye of the tiger

Face to face, out in the heat
Hangin' tough, stayin' hungry
They stack the odds 'til we take to the street
For we kill with the skill to survive

It's the eye of the tiger, it's the cream of the fight
Risin' up to the challenge of our rival
And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night
And he's watchin' us all in the eye of the tiger

Risin' up, straight to the top
Have the guts, got the glory
Went the distance, now I'm not gonna stop
Just a man and his will to survive

It's the eye of the tiger, it's the cream of the fight
Risin' up to the challenge of our rival
And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night
And he's watchin' us all in the eye of the tiger

The eye of the tiger

10/25/2009 2:15:35 PM

It won't be that hard. Think of the thousands and thousands of people that have gone through it before you. If they made it, surely you can't be that much of a failure.

[Edited on October 25, 2009 at 2:17 PM. Reason : Also, you're a girl, so you probably get the toned-down version.]

10/25/2009 2:16:40 PM

Not inspirational, but very helpful:

"Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast."

This goes for target acquisition with a firearm, assembly/disassembly, and basically anything else that requires fine motor skills.

And another like it, from carpentry: "Measure twice. Cut once."

What's worse than doing something slowly? Doing it incorrectly and having to redo it.

By the way, go ahead and start lowering your food intake, regardless of how in shape or overweight you are. Parris Island apparently has some aversion to feeding people enough.

I was solid muscle, and able to get a perfect score on the PFT, when I arrived. I could easily do 30 proper pull-ups. After 1-month there, I had lost about 40 pounds, looked like a holocaust victim, and could barely do 5. They simply did not give me enough calories even to maintain muscle.

I had been eating 5-6k calories a day as an athlete and training for boot camp. Once there, I have serious doubts over whether I got 1000 a day. And that's just what I got served. Often, drill instructors cut the meal short for discipline reasons and I didn't even get to eat all of it.

My family's first response when seeing me after boot camp involved my mom crying and saying, "OH MY GOD. What did they do to you? " I was a shadow of my former self. Hardened in spirit and trained well - but ghostly looking.

The Marine ideal is to be lean and hard. Adjust your food intake now so it is less of a shock to your system.

[Edited on October 25, 2009 at 2:37 PM. Reason : s]

10/25/2009 2:31:20 PM

^I barely eat now. I pay my bills, fill up my gas tank and if there's money left buy food.

I wasn't supposed to leave to March but they offered a 6,000 dollars bouns and my top MOS position.

What are you doing now?

[Edited on October 25, 2009 at 3:01 PM. Reason : ...]

10/25/2009 3:01:17 PM

looking for work

I got out after a short while to come to State. Now, I'm professionally unemployed, it seems.

Have you seen the documentaries about Parris Island done by the Discovery Channel? Or maybe it was some other station. I'll try to find it. They're great, and reflect life there pretty accurately.

But you should be very thankful you will be there in winter months. Summer there was hell.

10/25/2009 10:33:28 PM

10/25/2009 11:55:35 PM

plz tell me you didn't enlist

10/26/2009 12:04:39 AM

When I take on a challenge, it always helps to remind myself that I wanted to be there. So when things get rough, tell yourself that it was your decision - nobody made you join! You could be sitting on the couch eating Cheetos but instead you chose to better yourself and your country.

10/26/2009 12:08:18 AM

wow good luck!

10/26/2009 12:09:57 AM

good luck man, just keep the goal of graduation in mind, when all the pain and misery will have been worth it

I, too, will probably be seeing my fair share of USMC DIs soon enough, but not on Parris Island

10/26/2009 12:44:47 AM

message_topic.aspx?topic=537519

10/26/2009 3:56:59 AM

^hey smart ass, Im making a fucking book not a video montage. I can at least get a book into camp.

10/26/2009 8:30:16 AM

I had this fatass buddy in high school who joined the Marines after graduating. He came back the next year to say hi to everyone (he was a year ahead of me) and he was so much thinner it was almost scary. It was like he was a whole new person under all those layers of fat. Good for him for toughing it out, I'm sure his weight didn't make things any easier for him.


PS - You should watch Full Metal Jacket before heading out.

10/26/2009 9:24:22 AM

aren't there certain height/weight restrictions for even starting boot camp?

10/26/2009 9:25:39 AM

Don't let pride lead you believe that you should die for your country. Kill that other bastard and let him die for his country. Then go back and party in yours.

10/26/2009 10:07:24 AM

Quote :

"aren't there certain height/weight restrictions for even starting boot camp?"

yep. My max weight as a female and 5'7 in height is 163lbs.

10/26/2009 10:39:47 AM

you are joining the marines????

hahahahaha, you are gonna be knocked up within a year MARK MY WORDS

10/26/2009 12:09:36 PM

Quote :

"aren't there certain height/weight restrictions for even starting boot camp?"

The real restriction is not height/weight, but ability to pass the Physical Fitness Test (a run, sit-ups and pull-ups, as I recall). If you are outside of the height/weight requirement, but can pass the PFT, they will wave you on through. They aren't going to reject a good athlete just because his muscle mass makes his weight go up.

I was 20 lbs too heavy for boot camp, but got a perfect score on the PFT upon entrance. That's all they care about - performance, not some artificial standard on a chart.

Similarly, if you are the right weight, but cannot pass the PFT, they are likely to put you in a "rehabilitation" platoon at boot camp as soon as you arrive. Your progress there does not count toward graduation - it's only to get you in shape enough to join a real training platoon. Fatties don't get a free pass, nor do skinny weak folks. I know some people spent 6 months at boot camp. It took them 3 months to get strong enough to pass the PFT, and then they had to join a real platoon and start at Day 1. Their lives were hell, but that's what they get for showing up to Parris Island totally unprepared.

[Edited on October 26, 2009 at 2:45 PM. Reason : a]

10/26/2009 2:39:53 PM

I had to spend a week in EHP (evaluation holding platoon) while I was down there because I cut my leg pretty good in the first couple of weeks dropping down off a pull up bar, hit one of those steps to get up and gashed it. Everything checked out fine so I joined up with another platoon the next week, but that week was probably the shittiest one down there. It's about 90% or more full of people trying to act crazy or do whatever they can to get kicked out and sent home, and a couple of folks who are legit about wanting to go through with it. I know we ran a couple of PFT's with the PCP (fat people and weak ones) and I can assure you that you don't want any part of being in there with that group. I felt like a world-class athlete between people who couldn't do it and people who tried to make it look like they couldn't. Don't bother going down there unless you are 100% sure you can handle the physical standards.

Quote :

"hahahahaha, you are gonna be knocked up within a year MARK MY WORDS"

at the very least there will be several opportunities to make this happen

10/26/2009 2:56:42 PM

do you have any advice for me? I leave in three weeks. I walked in the office 3 weeks ago. I was Dep-ed in a week later. I'm doing my IST tomorrow. This has been a very fast process...

For girls we have to:

run 1.5 miles in 15min me-10min 17secs.
44 situps in 2min me-70
arm hang 12sec * I haven't tried this one yet

I've heard that boot camp is more challenging mentally. How do I prepare for the mind games??

[Edited on October 26, 2009 at 3:00 PM. Reason : ...]

10/26/2009 2:58:52 PM

With those numbers, physically you will be just fine. In fact, probably bored at some points.

It is 90% mental, especially given that you are already in shape.

Learn to laugh at everything. But do your laughing on the inside - good, bad, ugly, make sure you take it all with a grain of salt. The vast majority of drill instructors enjoy being crazy little fuckers that have an unending supply of funny shit to say when you are at attention.

Being fit and not an idiot makes it highly likely that in the first few days or weeks you may be named Platoon Leader. This is a thankless, impossible position, but go for it anyway.

You will miss home and people you never thought you cared much about. Make sure that at least a couple people are sending you mail regularly. It's a life-line.

Go to church, even if you never have before. The rest of the platoon will be back cleaning the barracks, so it is a chance, if nothing else, to finally have an environment of relative peace and quiet and relaxation.

If there is anything that can piss a DI off it's a recruit who lacks a sense of urgency - you pour out everything you have on the task at hand, every day, and eventually you'll stop getting as much shit from him/her as everybody else.

You probably got a list of things you were supposed to memorize - I don't remember all that is on it....the Marine Corps Hymn, general orders for various posts or watches, ranks, etc. If you have all that down by heart when you get there, that's another quick way to respect from a DI. They expect you to know it when you arrive. Yet, only 1 or 2 people per platoon will have actually done that. If you think you know them all, try to recite them with your scariest friend screaming in your face while you are out of breath from exercise - if you can do that, then you know it

Learn basic marching steps now and practice them. You will get 5 seconds of instruction there, and the be expected to be perfect. It's easier to just learn it now.

There's probably more that I might think of later.

[Edited on October 26, 2009 at 3:49 PM. Reason : a]

10/26/2009 3:39:45 PM

Didn't you graduate from college? Are you not going to be an officer?

10/26/2009 4:21:44 PM

don't officers have to go through boot camp too?

10/26/2009 4:31:47 PM

USMC OCS is a different beast than boot camp but still very physical, talk to Fareako about that.

Marine Corps drill instructors run USMC Boot Camp, USMC OCS, and Navy OCS though.

10/26/2009 9:34:43 PM

good call on church, it's about the only hour of the week that you're not asleep that you can take a break

10/26/2009 10:31:00 PM

just remember that everything is a game. study your general knowledge before you get there... you'll be way ahead and less punishment. but you dont want to stand out too much because youll get punished for not helping your fellow people.


blend in be a ghost

10/26/2009 10:37:11 PM

10/26/2009 10:46:12 PM

Quote :

"How do I prepare for the mind games??"

just knowing it's a game is all you have to remember

think about the good of the team in every instance


and if you're not going in as an officer, i suggest you stay in school and get a degree first

good luck

10/27/2009 12:12:37 AM

Quote :

"USMC OCS is a different beast than boot camp but still very physical"

By every single account I've ever heard, from people who either did both or were DIs at both, OCS is much, MUCH more physical and just generally harder. The majority I've heard say that recruit training is just all around significantly more miserable, though.

Quote :

"blend in be a ghost"

Yep, that isn't to say that you shouldn't excel at whatever you can, but you don't want everyone to know your name wherever you go.

Quote :

"If there is anything that can piss a DI off it's a recruit who lacks a sense of urgency - you pour out everything you have on the task at hand, every day, and eventually you'll stop getting as much shit from him/her as everybody else. You probably got a list of things you were supposed to memorize - I don't remember all that is on it....the Marine Corps Hymn, general orders for various posts or watches, ranks, etc. If you have all that down by heart when you get there, that's another quick way to respect from a DI. "

Yep.

...but nothing you do is going to be good enough, at least until towards the end.

10/27/2009 3:43:29 AM

Watch this and write down the quotes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI1FP3czJnY

10/27/2009 8:14:36 AM

^ i'd watch out - you're linking to a video. i did the same thing and got bitched out.

Quote :

"^hey smart ass, Im making a fucking book not a video montage. I can at least get a book into camp."

10/27/2009 6:51:17 PM

I went to Army Basic, boot, whatever...but its the same game.

1. Go to church, best hour of sleep you will have all week

2. when one person fucks up, you all fuck up, so be prepared to get smoked a lot. know its all a game, so try not to get pissed off about it. drill sgts will create the dumbest most asinine or physically painful punishments, just play the game.

3. be prepared for NO sleep. that is easily the hardest part. I could take getting yelled at, smoked, stupid jobs and punishments....but the sleep deprivation messed me up. You CAN fall asleep standing up. there is no good way to get used to it either, it just straight sucks.

4. have people write you, it helps the morale.

5. try to laugh at stuff, drill sgts are some of the funniest people on earth. they will say the funniest shit to try and get you to laugh and lose your bearing. we were at formation one night before lights out and this one sgt said "dont stay up late writing letters to your girlfriend, because she is at home right now with a dick in each orifice and one in each hand"

6. dont practice pushups....practice spending 10 minutes at a time in the front leaning rest position.

10/27/2009 7:32:18 PM

If anyone gives you shit, just start crying loudly and they'll back off pretty quickly.

10/27/2009 8:00:27 PM

Thank you all very much!

Today I qualified for boot camp. I passed my initial strength test! 20 days till I depart.

10/27/2009 8:02:15 PM