you want, but eat all you take.”
Approaching him, I held out my tray. On it he placed a piece of toast in the large compartment, then poured some kind of white gravy over it. The gooey mixture looked and smelled awful. The next cook slopped a large spoonful of peaches into one of the two smaller compartments. At the end of the line were cartons of milk and large pots of coffee. Taking two cartons of milk, I moved to an empty table, a few yards away. Moments later, Kurt from Ketchikan sat down across from me. At first, I didn’t even look up. I was more interested in the white slosh on my tray. Taking my fork, I scraped the gray off the toast and cut into it. The soggy toast tasted like grease and moldy milk. It was awful!
From across the table, Kurt whispered, “Do you know what SOS stands for?”
His whisper caught me off-guard. Slowly looking up I shook my head no.
“Shit On a Shingle…that’s what it stands for. I’ve had this before. It’s not so bad after you get by the grease,” he whispered again, with a big smile.
Returning to my food, I started to wash it down with my milk, and finally I got a good look at Kurt. He couldn’t be much older than eighteen and still had freckles on his light-brown face. His hair was blonde, his eyes green, and when he smiled, his young face lit up like a candle. His body looked firm but seemed to fit loosely in his civilian clothes. He didn’t look like much of a Marine, but I liked him, even through he talked too much.
From the Mess Hall, both groups were marched back to the barracks, where we used the head and made our beds. Then we marched off to the post barber shop, this time following the first-floor group. Upon arrival, we were again placed in single file, standing at attention while we waited for our turn with a barber.
The line moved surprisingly quickly. The recruits entered the shop looking like normal people and left, a few moments later, looking like bowling balls. This was not surprising to me, as my recruiters in Ketchikan had warned me about the first Marine butch haircut.
Sergeant Brice was directing traffic at the front door. Giving me a hand signal, he shouted, “You’re next, Boot…move-it, move-it. Take the chair in the back.”
When I entered the room, a recruit in the last chair was just standing up. The well-lit room was long and narrow, with five barbers and chairs. Behind the chairs were the barber stations with sinks and, above that, each station had a mirror. On the floor were piles and piles of cut hair. It looked dirty, it felt dirty. As I slid into the still-warm chair, the barber snapped his cloth around me and turned the chair towards his mirror. Grabbing his electric shears, he turned to me with a smile. “How would you like it, Mac?”
Not thinking, I smiled back at him and answered, “Give me a trim, just enough to keep the hair out of my eyes.”
At that instant, from the other end of the room, Sergeant Brice screamed out, “There will be no talking in this goddamn room. All I want to hear is hair hitting the floor! Do you read me, Boot?”
“Aye, aye, sir!” was my loud reply.
Smiling ear to ear, the barber winked at me and proceeded to shave my head in just under sixty seconds. As he removed the dirty apron, I rubbed my head and stared at myself in the mirror. Damn, that was fast, I thought.
Getting to my feet, the barber turned his back to the front of the room and whispered, “It will grow back…trust me.”
From the barber shop, we marched some dozen blocks or so to the quartermaster’s warehouse. Along the way, we saw many other units marching up and down the side streets between long rows of barracks. We could hear the cadence of their DI’s shouting out, “Hup two, hup two, hup two three four.” The morning air was still cool and, on my now-bald head, almost cold. At one point, we passed a group at parade rest, with their Sergeant nowhere in sight. The group must have been close to graduation because, below their caps, I could see hair almost a half inch long. As we passed one of them yelled out, “Ha, look at these ‘Mop Heads,’ just back from the barber. Sorry, boys! It’s going to be a long ten weeks!”
Another chimed in, “Rainbows…a whole group of Rainbows.”
He then changed to a cadence call, “Rainbow, Rainbow don’t feel blue. My grandfather’s Four-F, too.”
With our haircuts and civilian clothes, everyone on base knew who we were and where we were going. That was everyone, except us.
At the quartermasters, we were all issued clothing and gear, the standard 1041 outfit for all new recruits. The standard issue had ninety-six items, from shirts to socks, from belt buckles to boots, from a sewing kit to a shaving kit. There were fifteen or more supply stations, with stacks of clothing and gear. Marines working in front of the stacks were passing out all the different items to our long Rainbow line. God help any man that didn’t know his size, for the men passing out the items only asked once. If there was silence, you got what you got. There was no measuring, no fitting, no trying it on, just screaming out your size and hoping the guy behind the counter grabbed from the right stack. Later, we found out that one poor sap got boots two sizes too big, and another got his dress uniform two sizes too small. As we received each item, it was packed into our Marine green duffle bag, which had been the first item issued. Slowly moving down the line, I watched the haphazard way the thousands of items were passed out to recruits who had no idea of what they were getting. At the end of the line, the last station, we were issued two pair of black boots, one pair of black dress shoes, one pair of canvas shoes and one pair of rubber shower clogs. Sitting at a desk next to the station was the quartermaster. Each recruit was shown a list of the items just issued and instructed to sign a form regarding items received. Looking down the list, I wasn’t at all sure I had all the items, but I said nothing. No one said a word; we just signed and trusted that our green duffle bags had all the right items.
We were back at our barracks by 11:00 AM -- or, in military time, 1100. After we stowed our duffle bags next to our bunks, Sergeant Nelson blew his whistle and called the group to attention.
“I’m Sergeant Nelson.” He turned to the Corporal standing next to him. “And this is Corporal Johnson.”
The sergeant was tall and lean, with a body built like a Marine recruiting poster. His features were square and clean, with a bronze complexion from the hot sun.
“We will be your daily DI’s for the next ten weeks. You Mop Heads are the 4th Platoon of Dog Company. The floor below is the 3rd Platoon, and in the barracks next to us are the 1st and 2nd Platoons, who are halfway through their basic training. As you learned this morning, Gunny Sergeant Crane is the lead Drill Instructor for this Company. Lieutenant Cunningham is your platoon leader. Captain Roberts is the commanding officer of Dog Company, and his boss is Colonel Jacob, the CO of the 2nd Battalion 3rd Marine Training Regiment. I tell you this so you know the chain of command. You do not, I repeat, do not want to be called in front of any officers in this chain of command. If there is a problem, either Corporal Johnson or I will take care of it, or, God forbid, if we can’t, Sergeant Crane will. Do you understand?”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
Holding one hand to his ear, he barked, “I can’t hear you!”
This time, with gusto, the barracks floor replied, “Aye, aye, sir!”
He continued, “We will march to noon chow in one hour. In the meantime, you Mop Heads will shit, shower and shave. But because we have only ten showers, you will do this in groups of ten, and take no longer then five minutes to complete your business.
