San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
Drilling in
CHAPTER II
Recruits at MCRD meet their drill instructors, who still manage to get close and bark orders through face masks.
The early days of boot camp are designed like a whirlwind — recruits learn new ways to walk, talk and act.
Marine Corps training in San Diego is organized into three battalions of four companies each. Each company is divided into platoons. Each platoon has its own drill instructors and a handful of recruits assigned to leadership positions during training, such as squad leaders and as a guide.
Alpha Company was divided into six platoons.
After administrative processing, each platoon is assigned its own squad bay in the company barracks. The recruits, wearing masks, stood at attention at the foot of their bunks awaiting their instructors, who remained behind a closed office door.
The drill instructors marched single-file out of the office. Their traditional flatbrimmed hats, known as “campaign covers,” lay close to their brows, almost covering their eyes, making them look menacing.
After instructors swore an oath, the senior drill instructor lectures recruits on what they can expect. They’re told abuse and mistreatment, among themselves or from drill instructors, isn’t allowed and should be reported.
Last year at least 20 Marines at the depot were punished for misconduct that included physical abuse and racist and homophobic slurs from 2017 to 2019, The Washington Post reported. Depot leaders told the Uniontribune that efforts to crackdown on those issues with drill instructors have been effective and that substantiated cases of misconduct were on the decline. For these recruits, the first minutes of training are hectic and stressful by design. Conflicting orders yelled by the three drill instructors echoed off the concrete floors, ceiling and walls as recruits were led through a series of menial tasks, such as placing sheets on their racks and closing their foot lockers.
The recruits make and unmake their beds several times, often being corrected and told to start over by the drill instructors.
Although some coronavirus precautions are evident, such as face masks and the expanded 3 feet between racks, drill instructors still get close to recruits to bark orders.
While the pressure, the yelling and the confusion of recruit training hasn’t changed, the end goal has, said Gunnery Sgt. Jasper Sicz, the operations chief for 1st Battalion, in an interview later.
“Before we were more robotic,” he said. “Now we want critically thinking Marines.”
For Rafael Bardales-villa, a 17-year-old whose Linda Vista home was so close to the base that he could almost see the neighborhood from the depot, the first few days of boot camp were challenging — especially those first moments learning how to make his rack.
Growing up, Bardales-villa’s bed was a couch in the family’s living room. Instead of making a bed, he’d just take his blankets and sheets and stuff them into a closet.
During training “it was actually my first time making a bed. It was really intense due to the yelling from the drill instructors,” he said.
Bardales-villa soon began to miss his family.
“I told them not to write to me,” he said, “because I knew that if they wrote me back, I would, like, feel more homesick.”
Wilson, the recruit from Oceanside, said the constant attention from drill instructors kept him on edge.
“At any given point, any given time, if you’re doing something wrong — it could be the slightest thing — they’re on you,” Wilson said. “But, you know, it’s all part of the process.”
For Glasson, the unrest unfolding in American streets when they went into boot camp was never far from his mind. Unplugged from the minute-by-minute news cycle, he was left to wonder what was happening beyond the depot’s walls.
“When I get out, is it going to be over,” he wondered. “Or is it going to have escalated?”
In training, recruits are encouraged to yell a lot — they yell to respond to questions and to acknowledge when they’ve heard orders.
After just a few days with the drill instructors, Meier’s voice was scratchy and thin during an interview.
“I’ve been screaming at the top of my lungs,” Meier said.
Five weeks later, the recruits of Alpha Company were nearing the end of phase two of recruit training. It was the last week they would be in San Diego before moving north to Camp Pendleton for the next phase.
At the depot’s bayonet assault course, recruits ducked behind cover, crawled through dirt and struggled over a rope bridge as Hollywood-effect battle sounds were continuously pumped through overhead loudspeakers.
During such outdoor training events, recruits do not wear masks.
After the bayonet course, the recruits took turns in hand-to-hand combat, hitting each other and knocking each other down with padded weapons called pugil sticks.
Recruits were drafted into the one-onone matches based on size. Those who failed to engage their opponents, or who lost without putting up much of a fight, were sent back to the end of the line and told to fight again.
“A lot of them who have shown up here have never had to fight anyone before,” said Staff Sgt. Jake Mclellan, a drill instructor with Platoon 1009 overseeing the training event.
Mclellan said in his opinion the specter of the virus hadn’t changed much about what the Marines are doing.
“We’re still making Marines,” he said. “They just have to wear a mask, and there’s social distancing that’s been implemented. But, other than that, we’re still hitting everything as far as the training schedule is concerned.”
Glasson, who lost 150 pounds before boot camp, was physically transforming.
“I’ve lost 15 pounds since I got here from the hotel,” Glasson said. “When I got here, I couldn’t even do one pull-up. Just yesterday ... I did 10 pull-ups, so I feel very happy about that.”