How it was I got busted in boot camp!
Introduction: I was in Platoon 113, 3rd Battalion, Parris Island, April thru July 1956. DI's were Sgt. Cagla, Cpl. Davis, and SDI TSgt Smith. Cpl. Davis was the harshest, and was the DI who busted me! Our platoon was being formed during our first week, first week of April, they called it "Casual Company" which was anything but casual. So while being formed we wound up in the old wooden barracks on the rifle range before being shuffled into 3rd Battalion Quonset huts. While we were in the Rifle Range barracks, we were located on the opposite end of the wooden barracks from SSgt Mckeon's platoon #117 the evening he marched his platoon into the "Rose Garden" (puff mud of Ribbon Creek) tidal basin. During those months our platoon made many visits to our own "Rose Garden" the tidal marsh behind 3rd Battalion.
The Prize: We were told that there would be a prize, a clock-radio, awarded to the Platoon "High Shooter" and that the hut the shooter was in could play it during the final week. I later found out it was intended so as to encourage better marksmanship by introducing competition amongst the platoon. The reason being that best platoon marksmanship, as I recall, was a big deal between DI's. I don't know if any other DI's or platoons did this? Although DI's competed for bragging rights and wagered between their platoons. I never heard of it other than our platoon. Perhaps it wasn't sanctioned by the higher ups? I dun no? I was the only one in our platoon to fire "Expert" on that hot and windy day. I did shoot a "possible" in rapid fire on the Dog target. Range officer would announce,"With a clip and two rounds, lock and load!", some say it should be "load and lock", M-1 of course, "All ready on the right, all ready on the left, all ready on the firing line!" "Commence firing!" So that was it, I became "High Shooter" and the winner of the clock-radio.
Why I got busted: During that final week I went to the DI hut, hammered on the hatch and requested the radio. After refusing my request and sent away I was later called out onto the street by DI Davis. Good I thought, he's going to give me that radio. In the street he gets up in my face and shouts, “I’ll give you that #$%* radio when I am #$%* good and ready! Understood private?! Do you hear me private?!, Do you hear me private?!!” Knowing that I did not have the right to remain silent, I replied "Yes Sir! Yes Sir!! Yes Sir!!!" Then at that moment, while knowing better, but lacking the ability not to, I pulled off my cover and threw it between his feet and stood there with my fists clenched! With the brim of his cover against the bridge of my nose he then asked me very sheepishly, “Shunkwiler, are you pissed?” I said, “Sir, yes Sir! The recruit is pissed Sir!” After which I was abruptly dismissed. Next thing I knew I was again called up to the DI hut for what I thought would for sure this time be him giving me the radio. Instead he shoved a folded slip of paper at me and ordered me to double-time it to Battalion Headquarters. On the way I couldn’t help myself as if he would not have known, so I looked at what I was delivering. Yikes! It was my promotion warrant with a big “X” and the word “VOID” written across it! And something about what back then was known as 'Silent Contempt'.
So that was it, I still graduated as one of the four platoon Honor Recruits, “Platoon High Shooter”, dress blues and all, except I was the only one without a PFC stripe. As if rank wasn’t hard enough to get in those days. At least it didn’t show up on page 12 of my SRB. I almost wished that it had. As it stands I am the only one who knows that I almost made it.
Forgot one thing. How the DI's came up with the money to do the radio thing was by taking up a collection. It was suggested, to use the term mildly, that we all kick in, maybe it was only one-dollar, I don't remember exactly? I can't remember how much or how voluntary it was, just that it had to be enough to buy the radio. Anyhow, it is a Zenith (tube type) clock radio. On loan for a while and is now missing some of it's small plastic knobs, but I will never part with it. It sits on my workbench in the garage. Heck, I'm a preverbal packrat, still have and shave daily with the same double-edge razor that I bought at our first PX call at PI. I had my first mandatory shave with that razor, and I have so ordered, and expect my wishes to be carried out, that my last shave, hopefully no time soon, will be given me using that same razor. And if nobody wants it, it can stay with me. Gesh, there's another story in there ain't there?
Thanks to you old salts for keeping this boot-ass Marine in mind, Ooh-Rah! Or as an salty old Marine once told me, said, "I'm too old for that shit! How's about a good old Gung-Ho!"
That's my story and I'm stickin' to it! 0141's do not retreat, they simply backspace.
Semper Fidelis,
Larry Shunkwiler
Busted in Boot Camp!