A letter to home

A typical farm or ranch raised kid (NOW IN SAN DIEGO FOR MARINE CORPS RECRUIT TRAINING)

Dear Ma and Pa,

I am well. Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer the Marine Corps beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before all of the places are filled.

I was restless at first because you get to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m. But I am getting so I like to sleep late. Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot, and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay. Practically nothing.

Men got to shave but it is not so bad, there's warm water.

Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc., but kind of wea k on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie and other regular food, but tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit by the two city boys that live on coffee. Their food, plus yours, holds you until noon when you get fed again. It's no wonder these city boys can't walk much.

We go on 'route marches,' which the platoon sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it's not my place to tell him different. A 'route march' is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks.

The sergeant is like a school teacher. He nags a lot. The Captain is like the school board. Majors and colonels just ride around and frown. They don't bother you none.

This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing.. I keep getting medals for shooting. I don't know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don't move, and it ain't shooting at you like the Higgett boys at home. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don't even load your own cartridges They come in boxes.

Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be real careful though, they break real easy. It ain't like fighting with that ole bull at home. I'm about the best they got in this except for that Tug Jordan from over in Silver Lake .. I only beat him once.. He joined up the same time as me, but I'm only 5'6' and 130 pounds and he's 6'8' and near 300 pounds dry.

Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before other fellers get onto this setup and come stampeding in.

Your loving daughter,
Alice





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:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Oh boy Jiggs you sure brought back some memories with that post. I remember basic training and one of our guys who was so large he had to have two of our web belts made max and then connected to each other.

He was a real mommys boy cause he had never been away from home before. Used to get food parcels each week that you could start a grocery store with. He also had absolutely no co ordination. So he had to march between two guys with broom handles connecting the guy in front of him to the guy at the rear. He had to hold onto the broom handles and they pulled his arms in sync with theirs while he tried to keep his legs following theirs. It was quiet the site when our platoon marched down the road.:rofl:

But all kudos to the army, by the end of basics this guy had lost one belt and had co ordination.:thumb:
 
:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Oh boy Jiggs you sure brought back some memories with that post. I remember basic training and one of our guys who was so large he had to have two of our web belts made max and then connected to each other.

He was a real mommys boy cause he had never been away from home before. Used to get food parcels each week that you could start a grocery store with. He also had absolutely no co ordination. So he had to march between two guys with broom handles connecting the guy in front of him to the guy at the rear. He had to hold onto the broom handles and they pulled his arms in sync with theirs while he tried to keep his legs following theirs. It was quiet the site when our platoon marched down the road.:rofl:

But all kudos to the army, by the end of basics this guy had lost one belt and had co ordination.:thumb:




Now Rob if i didn't know better I'd say both Jigs and you story sound a lot like what we would have called a Sea Story..
 
:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Oh boy Jiggs you sure brought back some memories with that post. I remember basic training and one of our guys who was so large he had to have two of our web belts made max and then connected to each other.

He was a real mommys boy cause he had never been away from home before. Used to get food parcels each week that you could start a grocery store with. He also had absolutely no co ordination. So he had to march between two guys with broom handles connecting the guy in front of him to the guy at the rear. He had to hold onto the broom handles and they pulled his arms in sync with theirs while he tried to keep his legs following theirs. It was quiet the site when our platoon marched down the road.:rofl:

But all kudos to the army, by the end of basics this guy had lost one belt and had co ordination.:thumb:

I think his brother was in my navy boot camp company... :rofl:
In my company, we were aligned by height... I was actually 4th tallest squad and was supposed to march behind this big guy.. but as the 3rd man in the squad, his job was to be road guard when the company crossed roads... he was supposed to run out front of the company, stand in the middle of the road and stop any cross traffic then run to catch up with the company... on a fast march, he never caught up... so the chief switch me to road guard and he had to follow me. Problem was he stayed in step by watching my feet... when I would be road guard and had to catch the company, I had to get back in place, then coordinate my step with the company.... that confused him and he would always get out of step.... so I learned that I could be hiking along, skip out of step, skip back in step and he was screwed up until we stopped the company and restarted so he could be in step. Great fun huh! :rofl: :rofl: My guy never learned coordination.
 
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