My Misperceptions About MC Boot Camp

From February, when I joined the Marine Corps, until end of June, when I went to boot camp at Camp Pendleton, CA, I had some misperceptions or misunderstandings about boot camp, among other things. After I joined the MC, I would show up at the recruiting station once a week, where I and other recruits would get ready for boot camp. We’d run a couple miles, do some exercises, get yelled at, & basically try to prepare us for boot camp. There's nothing that can prepare you. You can only understand if you've experienced it.

We were told that during boot camp the drill instructors would build us up to running three miles. It turns out the building up from one mile to three miles happened during the first week and we never ran less than three miles during boot camp and sometimes it was interspersed with obstacles. I thought that once I could run three miles that I could always run three miles and I had this idea that I would become a runner. I was extremely wrong about this. 

I went into boot camp about 20 lbs overweight. I knew that I would lose my fat but I thought that I would gain it back in muscle. Well, I did lose about 30 lbs in boot camp and become stronger but what I didn’t understand was that the MC goal is physical fitness and endurance, not muscle. We had recruits come to boot camp who were body builders but gained weight and lost muscle mass because the focus was on cardio and not weight training.

My dad thought I’d come out saying “sir” to him. Drill sergeants really drill it in to you to say “sir” but I wasn’t going to start calling my dad that. I had never called him that while I was growing up and I was not going to start at 20 years of age.

I came out with a new confidence but I don’t think my personality changed too much. I’ve seen men and women come out of boot camp all “gung ho” and high strung but I tried to avoid this. I tried to stay somewhat normal but military boot camp will have an affect on people who go through it. For me, it was a good thing.