Week 3

This week Jared spent a lot of time learning Close combat skills.

Monday is Upper Strikes in the MCMAP program. Sound easy put punching for hours at a time with DIs all over you is not exactly the funnest of times. The key is to just keep going even when you are tired. If you pause for even a moment a DI will see you and suddenly you will be doing some REALLY stupid stuff.

Tuesday is Pugil Sticks. This is one of those event during boot that most everybody loves. All the aggression and anger you have been building for the last two weeks gets to be used on another person. AWESOME! There are very few rules. You wait for a whistle you run into the center and you try and land a killing blow on your opponent.

Wednesday and Saturday you do the circuit course. This is just a bunch of different exercises that you have to do. It is known simply as "bases" to recruits. There are a bunch of stages that you do for 2 or 3 minutes a piece. Each base is a pretty easy Exercise but put together this makes for a pretty tiring workout.

Thursday is the O (obstacle) course. This can be a lot of fun. Now it is a pretty simple set of obstacles to Marines because we do it a LOT of times in boot and then a couple in Combat Training but let me give you an example on how difficult it can apparently be. Buckley in Colorado has an O course but it is "Closed by order of the Base commander" Apparently 2 different high ranking Air Force officers, a Lieutenant Colonel and a Full bird Colonel, were seriously injured. On e broke his back and the other died from breaking his neck. This is a huge loss of value but seriously... HOW? you are never more than 10 feet off the ground except during the rope climb. Anyway Marine O courses are now closed on ANY and EVERY Air Force installation.

Friday is Counter to Strikes in MCMAP. You learn to block and kill the enemy with his momentum. Once again this isn't difficult until you figure in the boot camp equation. Anything Easy + lots of reps + Drill Instructors = Really stinking hard!

Just a note. All of the pictures are of Marines not Recruits. Recruits wouldn't be standing around just watching. They would be running in place waiting for their turn or "spitting knowledge"(reciting learned info) or getting ITed by a DI. All very high intensity.

Please send Jared letters. He will probably be punished for the holidays instead of getting a break. July 4th was one of the hardest days for me during Boot. Your Kill Hat(junior DI) will probably get stuck with you on the holiday and he will probably "play games" all day because he can't be with his family. Holidays are nasty business in Boot

Week 2

So this week is more fun.

Mom got her first letter from Jared. Sounds like he is doing fine so far. I didn't expect any less.

On monday you get your baby doll and you learn love(and hate) for the first time. You quickly learn there is nothing romantic about an M16. The are not fun to carry in any position your DI can think of. You will hate them during Drill. 7 pounds is a lot when you arm is fully extended and the rifle is held by the pinkie!

Tuesday is Interior Guard class. They teach you how to do Firewatch. Enough said.

Thursday is Intro to MCMAP. Marine Corps Martial Arts Program. Learn how to kick some trash. This program is a combination of the BASICS of a whole bunch of fighting styles. The difference between MCMAP and other fighting styles?

Other fighting styles teach you to incapacitate yout enemy. MCMAP teaches you to KILL yout enemy! The bad news is you only learn enough in Boot Camp to get you butt kicked in a fight! The real stuff comes later. However this helps a lot with your confidence!

Friday is Marine Corps History. I LOVE Marine History. You can see exactly why Marines in general think they are the best. I think it is cool that we teach History. I have asked James before and he said that in the Army you didn't learn history, thats a shame because every Military has great traditions. Marines just have more. You can ask any Marine and he will spit off dates and facts all day long.

You also learn the history of our uniforms. Every piece of uniform is earned and has background stories.

In Jared's case he has to earn everything. Right now his top button on his blouse is buttoned. His boots aren't bloused. He has no name tapes, he has no dog tags, he has no rank. We earn EVERYTHING in boot.

That is all the exciting stuff. He PT's everyday, he practices Drill for HOURS everyday. He is no longer the bottom of the Totem pole.

MOTIVATING!

Yesterday was probably the hardest day In Jared's life. He might be tough but I know it was the hardest in mine.


The first couple of days are pretty easy. The first night/day is kinda a blur. You get picked up from the airport in the middle of the night. I got picked up after 11:30 pm. Each story is a little different from here so I will have to tell my own, Jared can clear anything up in the future. From here you are put on a bus by a very loud Man. He is repeating everything he says with an "Aye Aye Sir" to let us know we are supposed to say it. He made us put our heads between our knees the whole bus ride over. By this time it is at least 12:30 and I thought we were going to go right to sleep. Boy was I WRONG

After what feels like an eternity you stop. A monster of a man got on that bus. He told us in not so kind words that we were at MCRD, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego. He the told us to get off His bus. We were all moving at a pretty quick pace I thought. Once again I was wrong. The first Man and 3 others are all screaming, pushing, pulling, slapping and daring you to move out of turn. You have arrived to the Infamous Yellow Footprints.


You don't know it yet but this is how you will be standing, marching and running for the next three months...and incidently the rest of your Marine Corps Career. There really is a method to the madness

From there you spend the next...4 hours or so in a line. A TIGHT LINE. You are literally touching the Marine in front of and behind you. There is a Drill Instructor constantly running up and down the halls yelling "Heel to Toe" and othe more obscene things. You get your hair raped from your head. These three men are BUTCHERS! You then wait and wait and so on until you get some sort of paperwork filled out. Don't really remember and I bet Jared won't either.

From there you go to a receiving barracks. You think once again that you are finally getting some sleep. You are once again wrong. You have been given a bag with everything you will need. The Senior Receiving Drill Instructor takes you step by step of this next part. You Dump everything out. Not neat, not nice just dump it out. As he calls things off you start putting them in your brand new Sea Bag.

After all this nonsense he finally takes you outside and tells you to get in formation. You, of course, are lost. So he firmly but politely teaches you. Cover to the front, Align to the right. 40 Inches back to chest. You are already facing the way you want to go and he says step it out. We are just walking...like little kids. He takes us to morning chow and a new day has begun.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are boring days. You spend hours trying to stay awake while you sit in a formation. Try sitting Indian style for seven hours at a time without being able to talk. Try staying awake I dare ya. Your back goes numb, your legs go numb, other farts go numb. It sucks. And what are you waiting for. The Gauntlet. A series of six or seven shots in various locations. The worst are the two in the buttocks. You hear Recruits yelping as you get closer to the rear shots. You turn around, drop trousers and wait. You then get a tiny little pinprick shot. YOu start to think that wasn't so bad when you get the other one. It is called the Peanut Butter shot by most recruits 'cause that's what it felt like.

Your hiney hurts...BAD. But now you have to go somewhere else and sit. There are about 5 other things you have to do before you start training. They all take hours and you spend it all on your sore behind.

But it's no so bad. The sleep is good at night, your "Drill Instructors" really aren't that mean. You start to think that this will be an easy 3 months. No problem. You will be wrong again.

Now a Marine Physical Fitness Test, PFT is Pull-ups, Crunches and a 3 mile rune. The Initial Strength test is the same just a 1.5 mile run. This is what recruits run on thursday. It just lets you know where you are. !.5 Killed me I remember it because I hadn't run over a Mile since I was a Freshman. 8 Pull-ups out of 20 and some weak number of crunches out of 100.

I remember getting a little scarred when our receiving D.I muttered under his breath that we would learn some respect when we made him mad one night. He didn't do anything to us. I thought it was a joke.

That night we had to take a Urine sample test. We had been told about it all day so most of us went right away. The ones who didn't...Well this is were I learned what Projectile Vomiting is. If you couldn't pee the Receiving D.I. mad you drink water. You literally held the water bowl(canteen) at a 90 degree with the floor and guzzled until nothing was left. If you still couldn't go you drank another...and so on and so forth. I then say a recruit vomit nothing but water...lots of it. We would see this a lot over the next three months.

You know something is happening tomorrow but you can't imagine.

You wake up, go to morning chow, back to Receiving were you are then marched to your new squadbay.
You then meet you 3 or 4 Drill Instructors and your Senior Drill Instructor. The D.I.s repeat the D.I. creed and you think that is it. After all these men are dress in very nice outfits. Not Cammies like us. When the Series Chief D.I. says "Drill Instructors take charge of these recruits and make them Marines" ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE.


They get right in your face. They spit, they scream, they hit, they yell. They run you into the head, into the shower turn on the showers, back of the squadbay, tear your racks apart throw your belongings everywhere. It is horrific

This is the first of many times you will doubt yourself. It is the worst day of your life so far. It is known to recruits simply as Black Friday. When you get further and further in training you start to make fun of the poor guys who just got picked up, who you know will face the same monster in just a few short days.

Sunday will be bad also. You will have shelled up so far in the last two days that when you get to church and are told to relax...you break down and cry at least a little. Every week that I saw the week 1 recruits...never did I see one with dry eyes.

Most never cried again out of emotion, maybe out of sheer pain. You get REAL tough REAL fast. There is no going back now. Who's stupid Idea was this? All you got to do is hang on to this mean ride for 12 more weeks and you will become something amazing.

The Few, The Proud, The Marines

Here we go

After very little sleep in the past two days, two sacrament meetings, saying goodbye to my friends and family, and a four hour drive, I'm finally on my way. Right now I'm in Butte, Montana at the processing station and this time tomorrow I'll be in San Diego getting my head shaved. Yippee.

Since I won't have any internet access this is the last blog that I'll actually post myself for the next three months, but John has my password and stuff and is going to post updates and letters and stuff while I'm at boot. Mom will get my address in a couple weeks when I'm done with processing and forming and is going to send an email to everyone with my address, so pleeeeaaassssse write, especially around the holidays.

I love you all and can't wait to come home as a United States Marine. Wish me luck.

22:12:12

Ask anyone who knows me even just a little bit and they'll tell you that I'm a sprinter and hate running with a passion. Anything longer than 100 meters is no bueno. Why did I join the Marine Corps? I ask myself every time I go for a "motivational jog". But in this last week I've forced myself to get out and run and I've managed to cut almost three full minutes off my three mile run time, with tonight's finishing time of 22 minutes and twelve seconds, which in my book is excellent for my first week running since high school track, which ended five months ago in case you were wondering. I wonder what I can do after three months of the hardest training in the world.

I surprised myself tonight when I finished in that time cause last night it took me 23:30 and I felt great. Tonight I went to a football game where the only warm thing they were serving was a big, greasy hamburger. Throw all the Halloween treats on top of that and 3 miles seems like an eternity with that "everything on my insides wants to be on my outside" feeling that sits in your stomach. With all that I wasn't surprised when tonight's first one and a half of three miles took 30 seconds longer than last night's 11:06, but when I finished my three miles, I was very surprised to see the clock under last night's 23:30. I realized I had actually pushed myself hard enough and ran the second half of my three mile run in 10:36; exactly a minute faster than the first. I was stoked! The best I expected was to match my time from last night, but I didn't even think that was going to happen.

I find myself more and more motivated after cutting minutes off my time every night, and my goal of a 20 minute three mile by the end of boot camp suddenly doesn't seem so far out of reach anymore. Who knows, maybe I can push myself hard enough to get that perfect 18 minutes.

Lesson Learned: Running at boot camp, or any PT anytime for that matter, is gonna be more about motivation and how hard I am willing to push myself than actually being in shape. The term "in shape" is kinda silly to me now, cause you're only in shape if you plan on doing that same thing you're "in shape" for over and over again, but never for the next step up that might take just an ounce more, but that's where the motivation and drive comes in. I can't wait.

It's official

Although I had already committed to joining, I still had to go up to the Butte Montana Military Entrance Processing Station to sign my contract. I had to miss work to go sit in Butte, Montana for two days, during which I did a whole lot of nothing. The actual process of signing my contract and swearing in took maybe a half hour tops but I still had to sit there and wait for the other guys doing the full physical, which usual takes most of the day before we can go home. But it was well worth it since I am now officially in the Marine Corps Reserves.....again. I have a new eight year contract as an Infantry Rifleman(MOS 0311) and will drill at the S.L.C Infantry unit. Only 18 more days until I ship! Woot Woot.

United States Marine Corps

Well kids, since I didn't think joining the Marine Corps and then getting out didn't throw you for enough of a loop, I thought I'd throw another one right at ya. Some of you may already know my latest news since word seems to spread a million miles and hour with resources such as facebook, myspace, and your good 'ol fashion mouth to mouth gossip, but I wanted to write about my experience so maybe everyone will see that I'm not as crazy as it sounds the first time you hear about it. Yet again, Jared has joined the Marine Corps, and yes, is still serving a mission, and ships out in three weeks. I will ship to Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego on November 3rd and will begin my initial training in the Marine Corps. If all goes as planned, I will graduate boot camp as a Marine on January 30th(which is probably the coolest b-day present I could ask for) and will come home on boot leave for ten days and submit my mission papers, after which, I will go back to Camp Pendleton to the School Of Infantry(SOI) for 8 weeks of infantry training, where I will most likely get my mission call unless I get lucky and it comes during my ten days of boot leave. Doubtful to say the least. Upon returning from SOI I have to attend one weekend of drill and then can serve my mission.

Quoting Kate from facebook: "What! When did this happen? What changed your mind you crazy kid?" Let me esplain, no, it is too long, let me sum up, starting from the beginning. As you all know back in June I decided to get out of the Marine Corps and just go on my mission. A firmly stand by my decision and have never had a doubt since, that it was the right decision and that it was what the Lord wanted me to do. Keeping that in mind, with events of late; mainly the break up and my best friend John serving in Iraq, my feelings for the Marine Corps were very strong and overwhelming and the thought of having to wait until after my mission was very hard, although I stood by the decision, thinking it was what the Lord had in store for me.

About a week and a half ago I was thinking about the situation and it occured to me that I still had the option to go to boot camp and become a Marine before my mission. The spirit sparking my thoughts or me simply finding a way to get what I want? At the time I didn't know either and wasn't sure how to handle the situation. This happened Sunday night after conference and the next day I had to go to the recruiting office to pick up my eagle scout award from my last contract and while there, I asked my recruiter about my options. Everything fell into place as if it was what was supposed to happen. They had a mission reserve contract left, spots in the SLC infantry unit that I want to be stationed out of, and a spot to ship in November, and this is the best part, with another young man planning on serving a mission after boot camp and SOI also.

With everything falling into place as easily as it did and my recruiters being as supportive as they were(usually Marine recruiters aren't too gung ho about a recruit getting out and then asking to get back in), I felt like I strongly needed to consider this option but wanted some guidence. So I went home to Arimo to talk to the parentals about it and get a blessing from Dad. Lets just say that dropping a bomb like this on Mom and Dad went over not quite as good as I thought it would. That wasn't a good night for me. All the things that I thought felt right suddenly didn't and I started second guessing myself and the option didn't seem like an option without Mom and Dad's full support, which I now realize I always had, it just didn't feel like it at the time.

After a lot more prayer and consideration and a night of looking at a friend's mission pics, I decided against joining again and prayed about it that night(Tuesday). Surprisingly, at about 9:30 Wednesday morning SGT Larreau called me and asked if I was going to do it. Since I had made the decision not to join the night before I told him no, not really having got an anwer to my decision after praying about it. The rest of my week went by uneventfully but I couldn't seem to get the nagging thought out of my head. I kept trying to ignore it and get it to go away saying I've already made my decision and told SGT Larreau, I can't change my mind again.

Saturday rolled around and it was a totally different story. I finally let myself listen to what I thought might be the promptings of the spirit and started seriously and deeply considering the option again. After reading my scriptures and my patriarchal blessing time and time again I prayed about it and started feeling better about it, which was a good feeling I had felt since before I talked to Mom and Dad about it. The only way I can explain it is that I couldn't stop smiling at the idea cause it felt so right. I called Mom that night just to see what the weather was like back home since it had snowed here in Poky the night. I heard the last thing I expected. Mom had come around and was seeing the good things that could come of this and said that I had her and Dad's full support no matter what I did, and that they trusted that I would do what the Lord wanted me to, and they had faith enough to believe that what I chose was truly what the Lord had planned for me. I wanted to cry and jump for joy and shout to the world all at the same time. I knew right then that the incredible feeling I had from that support and her changed of heart gave me my answer.

Still a little skeptical to whether or not this was the spirit telling me what the Lord needs me to do or if it was just my personal feelings, I held off on a final decision. I decided I would ponder the question more and submit my final decision to the Lord Sunday morning. After waking up I felt more comfortable saying that kind of prayer and making such a huge decision in my dress clothes so I got ready for church and studied my scriptures a little more. I said my prayer and made my decision to join and opened a fast, praying that the Lord would give me some kind of affirmation to my decision. You know those promptings that people talk about getting that they need to get up and leave sacrament meeting and do something and you wonder why they try to ignore them for so long before they actually follow up on it? Well, now I know why people ignore them. The thought of leaving sacrament meeting to call my recruiter and tell him I wanted back in just seemed so wrong to me, but you can only ignore those feelings for so long. After a now ridiculous and hilarious internal struggle, I got up and left sacrament meeting and made the phone call and set up a meeting with SGT Larreau for this morning at 9:30. I still haven't figured out why the spirit might tell me to do such a thing, or if it was just my own desire to finalize what I knew was right, but it happened and the rest is history.

This morning I met with SGT Larreau and began my stack of paperwork for the second time in a short year and I am on my way to being a Marine. I've already gotten quite a bit of criticism for my decision to put my mission on hold for another six months and I know there will be more, but I know that this is what I'm supposed to be doing right now. Just as I firmly stand by my decision to get out in June, I will firmly stand by my belief that this is now my time to go; That whether the reason is that I'm supposed to go with this other young man who also has the goal to serve a mission, or if it will help me bring someone specific into the gospel on my mission, I know without a doubt in my heart that for whatever purpose, this is what the Lord needs me to do right now and that this is the next step in his plan for me. I've wondered myself if putting my mission of for another six months is the right thing to do, but I know that this experience will give me the self confidence I lack and will make me a better missionary, and as long as I'm doing what the Lord wants me to, time has no relevance in any matter.