Leadership Stories - Page Fifteen of My Marine Corps Boot Camp Experience

Page fifteen of my leadership stories of my experiences at the swimming pool in Marine Corps Boot Camp.

I have now made it to week four!

So far I have been learning so much as I had mentioned before.

We have received training on military history, customs and courtesies, basic first aid, uniforms, leadership and core values.

We have had to memorize things like our Rifle Creed, General Orders, the Marine Corps Hymn, Code of Conduct, and the Marine Core Values.

We had packed a lot into the little amount of time we had been there so far. This was in addition to the Pugil Sticks, which I will talk about on a different page, the amount of physical fitness activities, obstacle course, and more.

We washed our clothes the old fashion way, by using water, a brush, laundry soap, and a concrete wash basin. It was actually kind of fun.

What we were learning was to be able to survive without the conveniences of modern life.

We become so use to being able to just turn something on, flip a switch, or turn a knob, that we forget how to do some of the basics. Keep in mind this was back in the 70's also. That must seem like a life time ago to some of you. Yes we had some conveniences back then also.

Some of the basics like washing our clothes by hand. It wasn't hard at all. It just took more time to do.

In the fourth week we were scheduled for the swimming portion of our training. After all, we were a Department of the Navy. I guess we should be able to swim!

Speaking of the being a Department of the Navy, we had a saying in the Marine Corps. No offense to anyone, but we use to say, "Join the Navy and see the World! Join the Marine Corps and Protect It!" To all my fellow Navy comrades, please don't take offense. I'm sure you had some for us too!

The swim training was also something that I was looking forward to. I was a good swimmer and this was a chance to enjoy a little time in the water. Who knows I may be able to have some fun. Not!

The purpose of the training was to give us as much insight as possible on how to survive if the ship we were on would happen to go down.

I guess when you put things into perspective you must ask yourself that in order for the ship to go down, something must be pretty wrong. Were not talking about a cruise ship here! We are talking about a Naval Ship.

Now it doesn't take long to figure out that if a Naval Ship is going down, the enemy must be close by. So in addition to staying above water, there may be other dangers as well.

But, I just tried to absorb as much information as possible. I was one of those individuals that if you told me the stove was hot - I didn't touch the stove. I have worked with a lot of people over the years that if you told them the stove was hot - they had to touch it to see.

Point is that if you are training me on ways to survive if I end up in the middle of the ocean, then I am going to pay attention. Who cares why I'm there? I must have a need to know if they are training me.

Over the next few days we got a chance to get into the pool a lot. One of the final tests was to see if you could stay afloat in the water with your full uniform and boot on. Not a problem for me. Of course I would remove my boots if this was reality, and I was truly in the ocean.

Some of the techniques were to remove your trousers and tie off the legs. Hold them over your head and try to capture some air into the top part as you pull them down into the water. The purpose was to have them try and act as a flotation device. I'm not sure you can picture this in your head, but it kind of worked. At least for a brief period.

Hope the rescue boat arrived quickly though.

Another technique was to try and save your energy as much as possible. So when you were in the water, relax as much as you could. One way to do this was to lay on your back and just float if you were able. It was easy for me.

Now again if you think about it, the pool is nothing like the ocean. Picture in your head! You were on a ship that just went down or is on its way down. You are in the ocean and hopefully it is not freezing water. If so, your time on this earth is limited to about ten to twenty minutes.

The ocean is not a perfectly calm body of water. So if the weather was bad, who knows what conditions you would be up against! So relaxing in the water may be a bigger challenge than one thinks.

But when they were training us, this was not mentioned. Age has a way of making reality even more prevalent. Must I remind you I went to boot camp in 1975! You do the math to knowing about how old I am!

The other test they had for us was jumping off the tower in our uniforms. I guess that was to simulate jumping off the ship. Didn't seem that tall, but to some of the guys it was like jumping off the Empire State Building. To me it was fun.

I'm not sure how tall it was but I would say twenty or thirty feet or so.

I am certain that we had some that had major problems with the swimming portion, but somehow they made it through. No one was dropped.

The funny thing about Marine Corps Boot Camp was that it was the great equalizer. I was a seventeen year old, wet behind the ears, naive guy from Denver going through the same training as the guys from the mean streets of Chicago or New York City. Guess what? They had the same challenges as I did, and in some cases I did better.

Toughness comes from within.

The Rifle Range was next. We would have to travel for that to Camp Pendleton.

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Thank you for reading another one of my leadership stories and may God Bless you!