Graduation Day
Here is one of the newest US Marines, my son, PFC Stephen Sensing. He graduated yesterday from Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island. It was a fantastic day! Behind him is the Iwo Jima memorial on the base, next to the parade deck (parade field for all us dogfaces).

Eight platoons of new Marines graduated, including two platoons of women. Unlike the Army, the Marines segregate initial-entry training of men and women. However, the requirements are the same for both sexes.

Like most recruits, Stephen lost weight during boot camp, almost 25 pounds. He also dropped several minutes off his three-mile run time, more than quadrupled the number of pullups he can do, and almost doubled the number of situps (the Marines call them "crunches," he did 138 in two minutes a weeks or so before he left, with a drill instructor counting).

Also like a lot of other recruits, Stephen said the Crucible was not the toughest part of boot camp. The Crucible is a 54-hour wargames exercise in which the recruits get a total of three MREs and no more than four hours sleep per 24-hour period. After it ends, boot camp's challenges are over and the two weeks left are spent in classes and preparing for graduation and personnel transfers.

Stephen said the toughest thing was Basic Warrior Training, a very intense, two-day field exercise focusing on day and night combat skills. He found it physically and mentally more demanding than the Crucible, and said that it almost broke him (and many other recruits, too!). But he perservered with help from his buddies and they all made it.

Unfortunately, my son has a large and deep suppurating wound on his left forearm (hence the bandage) for which he was hospitalized from Sunday evening to late Thursday morning in Beaufort Naval Hospital. The whole time he was on IV antibiotics and still has three stout oral antibiotics to take now. The wound probably was caused by an insect bite becoming infected during the Crucible which took several days to develop into an abscess.

Hence, while Stephen has graduated from boot camp, he has not been released from Parris Island and will have to return there when his leave expires Oct. 31. He'll be on medical hold at PI until the doctor certifies his wound has healed. The Navy physician told us it will take at least one week after his return, probably more. Eventually, Stephen will go to Marine Combat Training at Camp Lejeune, NC, then he assigned to another school where he'll learn his specific job in the Marine Corps.

But for the coming week we are just elated to have Stephen home!

Update, Oct. 24: Last night my father hosted a dinner in Stephen's honor. Both my brothers and sisters-in-law were there (older brother and wife flew from from Delaware for the weekend) and three of their four grown children. Really a special time! This is a shot of Stephen explaining what boot camp was like.

There's no getting around that the Marine uniform is a killer.

by Donald Sensing, 10/23/2004 01:45:52 PM. Permalink |