June 9, 1997 - Early Graduation?

970611 - Wednesday. Monday we got our debit cards, did some drill, etc. I also found out on Monday that I graduate on August 15th instead of the 29th. Great! Tuesday was our 1st training day. We did PT (Table, 1.5 mile run, pull-ups (5), + sit-ups (29)). Then we went to a class on Interior Guard. It wasn't too bad. I was assigned to be a laundry recruit so on Tuesday night we got all the dirty laundry + bagged them + shipped them. Tuesday afternoon we went to Leatherneck square where we learned some basic punch combos. This morning (training day 2) we learned some flips + holds (very cool!) and dis- + re-assembled our rifles. We also began to talk about the Marine Corps Core of Values. Also, Tuesday night/Wed morn. I was on firewatch from 0100-0200 so I only got about 6.5 hrs of sleep. The platoon is gradually getting closer and more motivated. I'm really enjoying myself. There are certain challenges but it's still a lot of fun. I'm thankful to God that I was as prepared as I was. I've now written 3 letters + received no mail. I'm beginning to get confused but trying not to let that get me down. Our platoon is also improving in drill and in motivation. It's great.
Spoiler alert: I did not graduate early. I graduated on August 29th, as had been the plan all along.

When entering the Marines, there are a couple of different ways to go about training. Step one, is always boot camp, of course. Typically, after boot camp, you have 9 days of leave and then go to Marine Combat Training (unless your military occupational specialty, or MOS, is infantry, in which case you head to the School of Infantry). Marine Combat Training, or MCT, is a 29-day condensed version of the School of Infantry. All non-infantry Marines go to MCT because all Marines are riflemen first. After MCT, you head to your MOS school. The length of the school varies widely, depending on your MOS. Supply Admin school (my MOS), was 5 weeks long, for example. Anyway, as I said, this is the typical schedule for training. There is also a different schedule for some who enlist into the Reserves. These Reservists are called 92-day reservists, because they have something (usually college) that they need to go back to immediately after boot camp. For those Marines, once they complete boot camp, they become attached to their reserve unit for a year. The next summer, they go to MOS school, and the summer after that to MCT (unless you're me and several other Marines from my unit, in which case you don't go to MCT until many years later, but that's a story for another blog).

Anyway, there are also some Marines who begin boot camp, but need to graduate a week sooner than their platoon is graduating in order to make it back in time for the start of term. These recruits skip one week of boot camp and move from one battalion to another, moving one week ahead. I was told by another recruit that this was the case for me. It was not, and I didn't find out definitively for several weeks.

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