ROAD TRIP - Part 3

So Thursday - FAMILY DAY - rolls around. Group gathers to go see the Marine Emblem Ceremony. This is when they symbolically become Marines, in a sense. They have these little emblems (hence the title for this event) that they wear on their caps - they are the Marine Emblem, of course (even more the reason for the ceremony's name). They are given these emblems to pin on their caps.

Of course, the fact of the matter is that they've had these emblems on since way back before, but it's a nice little symbolic ceremony, as most ceremonies are.

There was a huge amount of fanfare and "OORAH" that went with the whole deal and I tried my best to get good video footage for a future DVD to give to the boys. Of course, we got there NOT EARLY and thus I was relegated to a difficult shooting position in a far corner of the hall. Now, there were 6 platoons here, numbering about 90 recruits each... and with their shaved faces and heads and uniforms, it was difficult in the least to locate the 2 boys, no matter how hard I scanned - even with the zoom on the camcorder, the best I could do was locate recruits that were POSSIBLY the boys we came to see. Ahh well. Should make for an interesting video anyway.

A quick note on Parris Island. This place is a tiny little island located, basically, in the middle of a swampy marshland area, surrounded by gators, infested with the worst sort of sand fleas imaginable, swelteringly humid and hot in the summer, chilly and windy in winter, covered in sand that gets everywhere... a perfect place to separate the chaff from the wheat and make a boy into, well, a lean mean fighting machine for Mother Green. Nice enough place to visit. Wouldn't wanna live there. Now, back to our tale in progress...

After the ceremony, the recruits were given about 6 hours of on base liberty. We first went to their barracks, where we saw where they slept and dormed for the previous 13 weeks. If you want an idea of how this place looked, I suggest watching Full Metal Jacket, one of the finest movies ever made. No, really - it is an excellent film with some very memorable boot camp scenes. Definitely worth a viewing. The boys told us some of their stories of boot camp and they all sounded like hell or entertaining, depending on your viewpoint. Definitely something they will NEVER forget.

After this, we took the boys for a game of bowling and a bite to eat. On base, they actually have a Subway and a Pizza Hut, and some Greek-Italian joint. We chose Pizza Hut, only because it seemed like their line was shorter... This meant, of course, that the lines were just slightly less ridiculously long. Figure all the friends and families that came to see these appx 588 recruits graduate and put almost all of them in lines for the same places to eat. Oh, by the way, the Greek joint was closed... so that left just the 2 spots. Hooray! (or should I say, "Oorah?"

Me personally? Not a Pizza Hut fan. Being a half-Italian boy with family in New York - I know what REAL pizza is SUPPOSED to taste like, and that just ain't it.

Also, it came as a bit of a surprise to me, but they graduate a class of Marine recruits EVERY WEEK. That would be appx 600 Marines * 52 weeks/year = some 30,000 new Marines each year. The mind boggles at the numbers until you consider that, well, there are Marines retiring and being discharged all the time. And while not every Marine makes a career out of it, please remember to NEVER refer to anyone as an EX-Marine. As their saying goes, Once a Marine, Always a Marine. There is not much else you could say to a retired or discharged Marine than calling them an EX-Marine. Trust me on this one. And they've definitely earned the right to their badge of pride and honor, so give them their due, okay?

Now then, just an hour or so after getting into the line, we finally got our "delicious" lukewarm pizza product. Yum. Well, not really. But it was better than nothing. By this time, the 6 hours were almost all spent, so we bid our farewells and left base.

Now, in Part 4 - the activities got very amusing. Seriously.

Stay tuned...