Making a Marine: 'It's a lot more intense than I was anticipating'
Tony Gist and Beth Ford from KVAL News spent the first week of boot camp with new Marine recruits. Watch their three-part report Making a Marine on KVAL News @ 6 p.m. on Monday Feb. 6, 2012, through Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2012.
SAN DIEGO, Calif. -- The first steps into life as a Marine aren't steps at all: they're seats in front of televisions at the San Diego Airport USO.
All male Marine recruits from west of the Mississippi River report to San Diego for boot camp.
Before the bus takes them to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, recruits gather at the USO.
Some play Xbox; some try to sleep.
All have one thing in common: they leave behind their familiar hometowns and family.
"They're really thrilled that I'm going out and starting my life and going after a dream," said Jordan Broyles, a 21-year-old from Everett, Wash.
When Broyles told his family he was going to enlist, they had just two words for him:
"About time."
Broyles said he knows boot camp isn't easy.
"I'm actually pretty nervous," he said.
But he said it's the right step for him. And for those last few moments inside the USO, recruits' lives are their own.
Then, those moments are over.
A drill instructor walked into the lobby of the USO, hollered something, and all the young men were sprinting to the curb in front of two buses.
They lined up, facing the drill instructor, ready for his orders. The drill instructor demanded their paperwork, the recruits scrambled to produce it.
The recruits were told to only wear one shirt; they scrambled to change. Then, the group of recruits scrambled onto the bus.
The Marine Corps Recruiting Depot is located adjacent to the San Diego Airport, a very short drive from the USO. But the driver took the long route to the MCRD; the goal was to disorient the recruits for their arrival.
Finally, the bus pulled up to the MCRD, in front of dozens of yellow painted footprints on the sidewalk.
A new drill instructor stepped aboard and screamed directions, to which the recruits shouted "aye aye, sir!"
The recruits poured out of the buses onto the yellow footprints for further instruction.
"If you leave this base without the proper authority, we will hunt you down and throw you in jail for the rest of your life!" bellowed a drill instructor.
Judging by the looks on the faces of the recruits, they didn't doubt it.
Recruits were hurried into the contraband room, where they emptied their pockets. A lead drill instructor barked directions, two others walked around the room, ripping documents, pictures, and mementos out of wallets and tossing them on the floor. One recruit got an earful when he wasn't able to produce his medication fast enough.
Next, the recruits called home, in scripted fashion. The young men lined up and were instructed to read from the script pasted next to the phone, and to scream it. Drill instructors let them know when they weren't screaming loud enough.
Then, electric clippers went to work, leaving the hair on the heads of recruits non-descript. The buzz of the barbershop was a brief reprieve from the screaming, but perhaps the quiet gave recruits time to wonder what they signed up for.
"It's a lot more instense than I was anticipating," said Broyles after his haircut.
"It's a culture shock for the recruits," explained drill instructor Justin Hansen. "You're trying to give them that stress, that fatigue, to let them know they are at recruit training. They're not at home with their mom or dad anymore."
This is just the first night for the recruits, of 13 weeks.
"One day down, another hundred to go, or so it seems," said Broyles.
