Marine Corps
Finally… after 3 months of screaming, yelling, pain, sweat and yep… even a few tears, I finally made it off the God-forsaken Parris Island Recruit Training Depot. Seeing my wife for the first time was surreal. It was the first time I had seen her visibly pregnant. I can’t even begin to explain what it is like being home right now. I keep waiting for a Drill Instructor to jump out of the closet yelling for me to “fix the formation,” or to “hit it.” I guess that’s normal.
I leave Parris Island with a great respect for the Drill Instructors and the training that they instilled into us “nasty” recruits. They had a lot of work to do in 3 months. Mission accomplished in my book… or blog, I guess. I don’t want to waste all my time off blogging, so peace out. Love all of readers.
Stay tuned.
Congratulations! I just wanted to say thank you for this blog. I have been following it for awhile, and it is one of my regularly visited websites. Im hoping to join the Marine Corps in another year and your blog has been a constant source of motivation for me.
Thank you for your service.
God bless.
hello, love your blog. i was just wondering, what MOS did you choose?
PFC Webb,
I just stumbled upon your blog tonight, and read all of your boot camp letters. I feel ya on missing out on all of the holidays. Between boot camp and MCT, I missed all of the same ones including my 22nd birthday. Your letters sound very similar to mine in regards to the frustration with immaturity and lack of teamwork, and I had to deal with a platoon of 64 FEMALES! Congratulations on finally making it off the Island! MCT sucks, especially in the cold, but it’s only four weeks. The fleet is where I have grown the most. Use your life experience and mature outlook on life to influence the Marines around you.
Best wishes, and Semper Fi,
Cpl Lawrence
Thanks for the post. How does MCT compare to boot camp in terms of head calls, chow and sleep?
Good for you… thanks again for your sacrifice and service from my family to yours. We appreciate your perspective and pray health and protection over you and yours always.
God Bless,
B
Congratulations! Just came across this today, really enjoyed reading all of it. Brought back some good memories from boot camp. And Sgt Cheek… hoo boy. Haha. He was in a different platoon than me and still got on my case. Good times.
As far as MCT goes, head calls are usually easy to get, “meals” don’t usually exist (you eat pieces of MREs whenever you can throughout the day), and sleep is usually a little better than bootcamp, but you’ll still be doing firewatch, and most of the time you’ll be in a sleeping bag instead of in a rack. (I realize that you were asking someone else, but I figured I’d throw that in.)
First of all Congratulations, Marine!! Thank you for the commitment you’ve chosen. I am the mom of a recruit that is in Marine bootcamp now (graduates Feb 12). Thanks for your blog … it was so instrumental in helping me pray for him, not just generally, but very specifically. Be safe. The Mom
Thanks to everyone who has kept up with my blog. Please feel free to ask me any questions about the last 3 months of my life. I’d be happy to share.
my boyfriends son is facing the rifle week right now, he is freaking out about his son not passing the rifle qualification. How hard is it to shoot 500 yards? I am sure he will do great but this is taking a toll on his dad. thank you for your help!
The rifle range is no big deal. Each recruit will get a full week of classroom and field training with their platoon PMI (Marksmanship Instructor). That week will consist of everything you need to know to shoot expert, as well as learning the different positions. You’ll spend hours laying in the grass building muscle memory for when you actually hit the range.
On the second week you’ll spend 3 days actually shooting for practice with your coach. There is almost one coach for every 2-3 recruits, so you get personal training. The first day you’ll shoot random relays. The second and third day you’ll shoot the actually course (as practice) that you shoot for the actual qualification. Day 4 is pre-qualification and day 5 is your qualification day.
If for some reason you don’t pass on your qualification day, you’ll have 3 more times the following week to pass during Team Week. If for some reason you don’t pass those 4 times, they’ll recycle you a total of 2 times before you get dropped completely from the Marine Corps. I don’t know of anyone that that has happened to.
Overall, I wouldn’t worry about it. He’ll be trained properly and will have more than enough chances to qualify.
I qualified expert. 219 out of 250 on Table 1 and 96 out of 100 on Table 2.