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How Running Up That Hill in Marine Corps Boot Camp Shaped Me for the Rest of My Life
Chasing Sergeant Stinson, I ended up finding a new version of myself.
I stepped off the bus on to the hot asphalt of the Marine Corps Recruit Depot early in 1988 to begin three months of hell.
It was consensual hell — I enlisted. It was intentional hell — the USMC has fine-tuned the Drill Instructor’s goal that “Attrition is the mission!” and anything you’ve seen portrayed on screen is, I guarantee you, watered down to make it palatable for civilian audiences.
Out of the one hundred twenty five recruits who were in the platoon with me at the beginning, only fifty-two stood on the parade ground three months later, all of us changed into lean green killing machines with a thin veneer of gentility to keep us suitable for public appearances.
We’d gone through it all together, but each of us had our own particular moments that would stay with us the rest of our lives.
This is one of mine.
Running. We did so much running.
We ran to the chow hall. We ran to the range. We ran to the classrooms. We ran to the parade grounds, where we would march in formation for hours, and then we’d run back…
