Yes I remember those days. Boot camp MCRDSD 1959. Being the only Japanese American recruit in boot camp, you can imagine what it was like. Yes I did got thumped by a Jr DI, because his older brother was KIA on Iwo Jima. The senior DI took care of him prior to graduation. My boot and boondockers , dress shoes were always shining When I joined my battalion after bootcamp and ITR, my boots and boondockers were the brightest you ever saw. My platoon sargeant and platoon commander always asked me how I did it. Just told them, spit/polish and a good polish rag. Was like that for 10 years.
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I used to spit shine my ex’s boots lol worked great.
Spit shine followed me. I always had the shineyest shoes in the office. You can’t break old habits.
Jump Boots???? (wore them too because they shined up real nice)…got lectured and threatened in A-school in Memphis because a Gunny insisted they were UNAUTHORIZED, (as I never went to jump school). Had I not graduated at the top of my class, I probably would have ended up in outland Adak, AK….Never got flak for it in the grunts, only in the wing…..
still spit shine boots today – get compliments too@! Semper Fi
I remember in Sea School…..we “improvised”….In lieu of using spit or water, we discovered Pledge (funiture wax)…when spit shining, we used a little pledge on the rag…at one time, one of the instructors (Gunny) wondered out loud, “Not much polish, but what a fantastic finish on your shoes PFC”…back then, the shoes were raw leather and we used Kiwi midnight brown…on our rough boots, we used to “bottle shine”…..looked like patent leather! When ever we went into town on liberty, you could tell who the Sea School Marines were because the index and middle fingers were permanently stained by the shoe polish!!
I remember when I was at 29 Palms after coming back from Vietnam a GOOD friend of mine Staff Sgt. Staranka from Pittsburgh ( also ) had us use Pledge for an IG inspection. I was really afraid it would CRACK. So I told my people to walk on your heels till we get through this inspection. It did look good but scared the crap out of me.
I still love that labor of love.
Yes we done the same thing over and over. I still spit shine my shoes and fold tee shirts and shorts. 1953 San Diego. Still love my Corps and will till the day I die.
If the photo is supposed to be in 1959 it is all wrong. Marines didn’t wear camo utilities in ’59. Also, the boots were “rough side out”. Yes they were still spit shined, but this photo doesn’t look right. — I went thru boot camp @ PI in ’62.
I remember spending hours sitting on my footlocker in the squad by using the small m-nu bottle to bottle shine a new pair of the old rough out boots so they could eventually be spit shined. I also spent hours rubbing linseed oil into my rifle stock to shine it. We kept our rifles in the squad bay back then. I remember contests of who could field strip and reassemble their rifle the fastest plus who could make up the best field transport pack the fastest.
In the early 50s in Korea, you were advised not to shine your boots.
Now they have it too easy!
1958 MCRD San Diego, We were issued rough leather combat boots. Had to burn the rough out down with lighter fluid before you could spit shine. Had one platoon member who showed us how to use a silk rag to get the same as a spit shine. Never used it though. Back then we were stilling Lucky Strike Goes to war green 4 pack cigarettes in our K-rations. SEMPER FI
In 1958 at MCRD San Diego we were issued boondockers that had rough leather. We used saddle soap and and a glass soda bottle to smooth the leather and don’t remember using KiWi to polish them. Of course that was 59 years ago and the old memory ain’t what it used to be..
I went to P.I. in 69 no camouflage utilities. no tile floors, wood floors scrubbed by brush so many times that they shone white.
I went to P.I. in 69 no camouflage utilities. no tile floors, wood floors scrubbed by brush so many times that they shone white.
In 56, I was in plt 268 MCRD San Diego. We shined our boots and boondockers with Kiwi polish and a rock.
The Coccorans (sp) in the picture do take a good shine. Did Marines wear jump boots back in the day? Just kidding.
I recall standing daily inspection at 2nd Motors with a sergeant who was getting out of the Corps after 10 years – he had decided there were other things he wanted to do while he was still young enough to do them. At any rate he was developing a rather creative short-timers attitude. When the platoon commander (2nd Lt.) complimented him on his exceptionally shiny boots and asked how he got them so shiny, the sergeant replay “black glossy lacquer, Sir”. It cracked all of us up, including the Lt. That comment still cracks me up when I think about it.
boon dockers spit shined ?????? boot camp mcrd Diego march 1950