When I was on Parris Island, I think I was in during a sort of "transitory time". Faggotry was absolutely not tolerated- two losers in my training platoon decided they didn't want to be there, and made out with each other in view of recruits on firewatch, whom immediately reported it to our senior DI. Those morons were swiftly discharged. They were straight before they made out with each other- had girlfriends back home, which was their major hangup and distraction. This led to poor performance by them, which led to group punishments, which led to us recruits not being very nice to these idiots.
Drill Instructors were not allowed to strike us. They were allowed to sort of aggressively touch us, a "correction": like you're standing at attention incorrectly, one of your DIs walks by and notices, he might grab your wrist and pull your hands into the correct position for attention. But if they pushed you or hit you, you were told to report this.
Verbal abuse was absolutely there still. It was a lot more mild than it probably was in the past, based on stories I've heard, but it was still pretty fucking brutal and hilarious at times.
Units were still segregated by sex. I know the Army has begun integrating and I think I heard the USMC has integrated training platoons now; this is fucking retarded. Females in the USMC is already stupid, since they aren't held to the same standards as men, but they are also a distraction and liability to a group of young men training to become killers. My older Marines will know this, too: when we'd be lined up somewhere, waiting on w/e like chow, and a female training platoon came marching by, our drill instructors would order us to face away from the female platoon; THEY DIDN'T EVEN WANT US LOOKING IN THEIR DIRECTION. That's how concerned they were with females being a distraction.
My time in wasn't that long ago, less than 3 decades. It's amazing how much has changed since my term. The whole sex integration shit really blows my mind, I feel really bad for Marines who have to put up with these female "marines" swaggering around like they're hot shit badasses, getting all of the attention they ever wanted. Might sound like I hate women, but that's wrong- I hate women being in roles in the military/police where they might be expected to have to fight or carry my 210 lbs. wounded body to safety. I thought about shit like that every time I heard the discussion of female infantry being brought up. "Will a 120 lbs. female 'marine' be able to carry me through enemy fire while I'm wearing a few bullets in my guts or legs?" The answer is "no, they will get us both killed". Maybe out of every 10,000 females in the military, 1 is as competent as an average male soldier.
As for the marching (it's known as "drill" in USMC), yeah there was a shit load of that. It serves many purposes: getting 88 people to move as one individual entity is fucking hard. Being able to hear, decipher, and react to orders while on the move with 87 other men is hard. And absolute perfection was demanded of my training platoon (we smoked our competition in every area, my training platoon was the darling of our rotation); we'd often spend our free time in the barracks before lights out practicing drill on these lines painted on the floor in the back of the barracks.
Drill Instructors found a creative way to hurt us without laying a hand on us. If you fucked up, you'd hear "Recruit BloodyComet, take of your blouse." That means you're fucked, you're about to be quarterdecked/pitted. If you're in the barracks or indoors, you have to take off your blouse and walk up to the area of punishment. The drill instructor will then shout dozens of conflicting orders at you, rapidly- "GET ON YOUR FACE!" You get down and do 6 push-ups, then "NOW STAND UP! GET ON YOUR BACK, CRUNCHES!" You quickly stand up, lay on your back, and just as you begin to do your first crunch, "GET THE FUCK BACK UP! SIDE STRADDLE HOPS, GO!". Now, frustrated, you get up and start doing jumping jacks. DI gets in your face and starts screaming about your fuck-up: "IS THAT HOW WE LACE OUR BOOTS, RECRUIT?! I DON'T EVER WANT TO SEE YOUR BOOTS ALL JACKED UP LIKE THAT AGAIN! GET THE FUCK BACK ON YOUR FACE, STAR-BURSTS, NOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW!!"
This would go on for as long as the DI felt was necessary. It actually felt like you were being beaten up. Your muscles are on fire, your brain is frantic trying to keep up with the orders so the pain isn't worsened. I've seen grown men in their mid 20s cry, fuck I felt like crying both times it happened to me. Of course, in the moment, you aren't thinking long-term. You don't realize they're using pain to teach you a lesson, while also building you up at the same time. Every single recruit in my platoon had a six pack by our second month or so, and we were proud of that- about 1/10th of the recruits in my platoon were overweight, so they got a little extra attention. They were hard workers, though, and they really wanted to be Marines, so we lucked out with our fatties- they shaped up pretty fast. Overweight recruits were shamed. They'd have these white stripes spray-painted onto their skivvy shirts, identifying them as fatbodies. That shit has to be humiliating, because everyone else in your platoon looks/dresses the exact same, but there you are, standing out with your little flabby tits and white stripes.
Don't think I've ever seen a young man more proud as when he got to start wearing unmarked skivvy shirts. That shit actually had me choked up, watching this kid being told by our Senior Drill Instructor (this man fills a sort of "father figure" role; he might scream at you, but generally he is more even-headed and approachable than your other DIs) that "Congratulations Recruit So-and-So, you're no longer a fatbody." as he hands him a bunch of brand new skivvy shirts.
My brother! You know. That was 30 years ago? Times have changed. This bullshit started long before that, though. I was in the first bootcamp company that integrated females. They were sequestered in their own barracks and only drilled with us for a few hours a day. 5:15 was revelry. 5:25 was roll call. The girls showed up and did calisthenics. Then they dropped out one by one (I think there were only 3 or 4 of them) as we ran the morning 2 mile run. It was my first taste of diversity. I don't think diversity is a source of strength. In fact, I think it serves the opposite of what I've been taught about, you know, uniting us all together under one banner to fight off the evil Chinese that plan to invade Taiwan and Tokyo and Honolulu and shit.
Wait, revelry was at a different time for the females?
Our typical schedule: lights out at 20:00 hours. Revelry and on the line at 04:00. Did you guys get to sleep till 05:00?
What'd the girls look like? Were your fellow recruits attracted to them, was it distracting? It might've been hard to tell, since this was a fresh experience for you, but how did the DIs handle it? Did they seem frustrated? I imagine them sort of walking on eggshells, especially when a male DI has to deal with a female recruit. Drill Instructors should never be required to walk on eggshells. Their job is to stomp on those shells until they're a fine carpet of razor-sharp shards, and then force you to crawl on your belly through said eggshells while calling you a pussy.
YOUR TRAINING WILL NOT BE AS GOOD, YOU WILL NOT BE AS PREPARED FOR A VICIOUS LIFE-DEATH FIGHT IF YOUR INSTRUCTORS WERE CONCERNED IN THE SLIGHTEST ABOUT HOW YOU FUCKING FEEL, EMOTIONALLY. Every second they spend trying to figure out how to phrase a vicious reprimand in a way that it won't hurt Becky's feelings is a second wasted that could've gone to teaching you how to fucking fight, because here's the thing- in combat, the enemy doesn't care how you feel. They don't know, and all they know is they want you dead or surrendered. A sniper isn't going to line up a shot on you, unaware, as you sit and cry over your Dear John letter- no, he's going to fucking kill you. This is a massive advantage that every other military on earth has over "Western" militaries. We might have the fanciest tech, but fucking POLITICAL CORRECTNESS of all things is coloring almost everything we do with our modern military.
I saw a photo of a "marine" wearing a dress in a chow hall the other day. I really, really hope that he's just a civilian working on base and he's just there for food (I think it was Camp Lejeune); you can see all of the other Marines staring at the freak. Imagine what this does for unit solidarity. None of the straight men are going to want to be around the fags or trans freaks. This will have an effect on combat effectiveness.
We got to sleep until 5:15. lol We must have been pussies too.
As to the rest of your comment... ALL OF WHAT YOU SAID AND MORE.
Back in my day, the 2 or 3 females were sequestered away from the rest of us. They showed up at morning muster and answered roll call with their screechy voices but when we started the morning run, they quickly dropped out.
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