WTF did I get myself into?

Traveling took all day.  Like literally all day.  We were up at the asscrack of dawn to get to the airport by 6 am.  Who the hell are these people I’m traveling with?  Do I sound that stupid to other people when I talk about the Marines like that?  Good Lord.  Yut this and Oorah that.  Is this what I have to deal with for the next 3 months?  It’s too early for this shit.

Lunch somewhere in New Mexico.  I’m pretty sure I’m a female and going to Parris Island.  Why are we backtracking towards the west coast?  I’m seeing a pattern already, here.  Silly games just because they can.  Could be a long 3 months.

Dinner in Georgia.  This is my last meal before I eat MRE’s and cafeteria food for 13 weeks.  Wendy’s 5 piece nugget meal.  I wish she would shut up so I can enjoy my last few hours of me time.  Or maybe that’s it.  I wasted my me time already, and I’m already ass deep in Marine time.  Oorah.

Wheels down in South Carolina.  I am jolted awake by the force of the brakes.  My eyes shoot wide open.  This is it.  The last few minutes I am me.  Then I become Recruit Miller + social security number.

We walk together, the 3 of us, terrified, silent.  Well, 2 of us were terrified.  The male recruit was jazzed as fuck. He even showed us how "squared away" his green digital backpack was that his Marine father had given to him his sophomore year of high school. He’d been dreaming of this shit his whole life. He bleeds green.  That makes one of us.

The female and I left the male recruit at the bathroom as we went to walk around a minute.  WRONG.  We found out REAL quick not to let our defenses down at any second.  The minute we walked away from the restrooms, we were pounced on by a man in a bright red drill instructor shirt and jungle green cammie pants, or boots-n-yoots as we would soon learn to call it.  He let us know real quick, fast, and in a hurry that no man is left behind, and that letting your defenses down at any second could be a death-wish. Right you are.  That booming in my ear might just make my head explode, thank you very much.

As soon as the male recruit caught up to us, we were marched around the airport like assholes for what was easily 30-45 minutes.  We marched to a room that looked just like every interrogation room in every movie ever created about airport interrogation rooms, complete with computer and internet access.  I remember feeling amazed at how the USMC had connections to the airport to be able to use the special interrogation room in the airport.  Then again, I was raised on a farm in a tiny town in Texas.  What did I know about how airport interrogation rooms worked?

The male Marine shouted at us to lean over the big metal desk at attention with our arms plastered to our sides, and scream our social security numbers at the top of our lungs, aye sir.  We screamed our socials, aye sir, for what seemed like an eternity.  Then, suddenly it seemed like, we were marching around the airport like assholes again to collect the newest arrivals to the airport, and then to the bus.  On the way to the depot, the bus driver informed us that this would be a fairly short trip, but to get some sleep if we could because it would be a long few days, and an even longer 3 months.  Sleep?  I can’t sleep.  What the fuck did I get myself into? It’s not even day one and I’m already exhausted.

It had to have been after midnight when we arrived at MCRD Parris Island.  I had drifted off to sleep somewhere along the way, and the stop at the gate woke me up.  I tried to see out to get my bearings.  It was too dark to see out the window, not that I knew what any of the buildings were yet anyway.  The bus stopped abruptly in front of the receiving building.  The bus driver turned to us and said with a chuckle, “Welcome home.”  A big male drill instructor stomped onto the bus.  We had a split second to blink at him before he began to shout to get off the bus right now, aye sir!   We all stood up and scampered out of the bus. Welcome home, indeed.  We were instructed, not so calmly or politely, to find a set of footprints and stand on them, aye sir.  

In all of the chaos, I was able slow down the moment to see that here I was, on the famous yellow footprints.  These footprints are where all of the Marines before me had stood.  These foot prints had seen many successes and many “failures.”  Many boys and girls have come thru this very corridor, stood on these steps, made it through boot camp, and have come out on the other side men and women.  Not all are crazy enough to even attempt to be here.

We stomped all over those prints over the next 13 weeks, but there was something truly magical [and extremely terrifying] about that first time.