Hell on earth

After a long speech, the drill instructors opened a pair of large steel doors that had the USMC insignia on them in gold.

Once inside we were processed, handing our documents and other papers to the drill instructors.

The whole way the drill instructors continued to get close up and yell in our faces.

It was like a spit and saliva shower on your face.

After being processed, we went to a room with small boxes on the wall.

The instructors went on to explain that we could either call our family members or our recruiters and read what was on the inside of the box then hang up and nothing else.

Of course, while we are being screamed at the whole time, making people make mistakes, and be yelled at even more.

I had to wait in line for five minutes before I reached the phone.

Grabbing the phone I input my family's home phone.

Ring, Ring, Ring.

The phone rang for a moment before it was answered.

"Hello," I heard my father say.

"This is recruit Cole. I have arrived safely at Parris Island. Please do not send any food or bulky items to me in the mail, I will contact you in 7 to 9 days by letter with my new address. Thank you for your support, goodbye for now." I read the paper quickly and in one breath.

As I went to hang the phone back up, I could hear my mother on the phone say.

"We love you, Andrew."

Clink.

Once done with that I fast marched to the line waiting for everyone to finish their calls.

One of the drill instructors yelled at me as I marched.

After a few more minutes, we were marched farther back into the building.

We were handed blue totes where we would put the uniforms and other items they gave us.

They asked for shoe size, pants size, and shirt size.

After getting all of that into my tote, we waited in another large room where we were given another large bag with hygiene items.

Once we had everything, a person came in and explained what everything was and its uses.

Then we went to our new uniforms and how we would wear them, and how if we were to wear them wrong or mess something up, our drill instructor would shove his boot so far up our rears we would be able to taste his rubber souls.

That night we only got a few hours of sleep before being woken again for PT.

For PT, we put on the shorts and shirt that we got with the supplies yesterday.

Leaving the building, we went onto a large field barely visible in the early morning dark.

As we jogged out of the door we were handed a reflective sash to wear.

Then the real hell began.

I'm in good shape from my years of physical training and maintaining a good routine of physical exercises, but that meant nothing here.

If you were in good shape the drill instructors just pushed you twice as hard as the regular man.

Hundreds of sit-ups, pushups, and pullups, killed me.

Then after all of that, we were led on a 3-mile jog.

My throat was starting to hurt from the constant yelling of "AYE SIR".

Thankfully though I was able to stay with the pace that was being set for the exercises, but some were not as lucky.

Any time someone fell behind there would be an instructor waiting to scream in their ear and make them not give up and keep pushing.

After the morning PT we were led back to our bunk room, where we were taught how to make our beds and how to keep our footlockers organized.

God forbid you don't do any of it properly.

If you mess it up the drill instructors would toss your bed and make you start all over again.

I only had that happen to me once, thankfully.

After that was done we were told to sit on the floor, once we were seated on the floor, our head instructor told us, or more like yelled at us, about what was to come and what was expected of us.

I listened intently to his every word.

After he was done talking we went to the food hall.

Thankfully I was able to get twice the normal amount of food due to my intake needs.

Talk about hell from the instructors when they saw how much food I had on my plate.

Thankfully the head instructor knew why I needed it and didn't make me take it back or mess with my food.

I don't think I have ever eaten my food so fast in my life, every second that we ate someone was being yelled at about something they did wrong or something.

Later that night I was exhausted, it felt like my legs were about to give up and quit on me and walk away. (stupid joke I know)

I also realized that for the whole day, I never got the name or even talked to any of the other recruits.

It was just a hectic day with no rest or time to talk to anyone.

But that was fine with me, not that I didn't want to make friends, but I knew that it was just a matter of time before things would slow down again.

3 weeks later. August 25th

I was wrong, so wrong.

The training did nothing but slow down, now we were doing agility courses made by the devil himself.

The ones I hated the most were the monkey bars, because, by the time I made it to them, they were already covered in mud and wet from the people who fell in the water and had to try again.

And so much damn PT.

I thought that I was actually in good shape, talk about a joke.

Every day I would go to bed feeling beat to shit.

The good news is I did meet some of the guys.

Mike and Tony are two guys that have bunks beside me.

Mike was a skinny guy with sandy blond hair and had a USMC tattoo on his chest before he even joined up.

Tony is a tall man and is or I should say was, a chubby black man, who now that he lost almost all of the chub, looks like he could crush walnuts with his pinky finger.

We met each other in our second week when we weren't dead Tired after PT.

And I couldn't be happier, I never had many friends growing up.

All I had were opponents to fight or to learn with but that was it, I never had real friends to talk with.

A few days ago I started to get a bad feeling in my stomach and flashes of a massive fire and screaming people in my head causing me to lose sleep because of the flashes in my head.

I would stay awake long after everyone else was asleep and try to figure out what they meant.

I had never had these premonitions like this. Normally they were just a feeling in a fight or a quick picture, but this was different, way stronger, The sound of screaming people haunted me.