For the most part, the story of the torment of Private “Gomer Pyle” at Parris Island was accurate. It’s that accuracy that makes the movie so endearing to Marines, especially the older ones. We recall our nick names like Rafter Man, Snow Ball, and Joker. Squad bays had the Secretary, King Rat and his House Mouses, and the most unfortunate of all, Joe S**t the Rag Man. My name was “The Demonstrator” because I had college. The platoon commander hated me because he thought all college graduates were protesters. I also had the dubious honor of being classified as a “K” or reservist, a status prominently stamped on our SRBs (Service Record Books). He hated me because I had not gone to Vietnam, but I think he just hated everybody.
Private Pyle, driven to madness, has the last say the night before graduation when he locks and loads, Charlene, his M-14 and dispatches Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. This is probably the most popular scene in the movie; what private hasn’t wanted to take out his sadistic and abusive drill instructor? That’s where Hollywood made the movie suspect. The suicide of privates in boot camp happens, but not in such a dramatic or unrealistic way. Rifles are turned in long before graduation. A round could have been smuggled in from Edson Range or Camp Pendleton during live fire, but how would he have fired it? We knew from the start that the tips of the firing pins were shaved at MCRD (Marine Corps Recruit Depot) San Diego.
Normally a recruit expects the culling process to be hard. My Platoon had 76 recruits to begin with in November, 1975. We finished with 50, but along the way most of us anticipated harassment, sleep deprivation, “bends and thrusts forever,” and sentences to Magic Valley when we got to the rifle range. MOTO (Motivation Platoon) and the chain gang breaking rock outside the chow hall alerted us early on as to our proximity to the Gates of Hell through which we eventually passed. I had no problem being blown off the ground during the infiltration course at Camp Pendleton or being cold-cocked in the pugil stick ring. They were to be expected.
The first indicators that something was extraordinarily wrong at San Diego happened at night in the squad bays. Because I was on perpetual punishment, I drew a lot of fire watch. Early on I started seeing ambulances back up to adjacent barracks to pull bodies out, sometimes with sheets over their heads. Private X tried to kill himself on my fire watch by slashing his wrist. The next day we had a course on how to commit suicide the right way. On other occasions before lights out our platoon commander would call off the names of those who were to “report for punishment” in his hooch. That’s how the culling went: slapping, “Where would you like it private?” punches, beatings, or, in my particular case, hobbling. The goal was to eliminate undesirables before final testing and inspection.
I suppose that’s how Private Lynn McClure was killed when he refused to fight in the pugil stick ring. He was two weeks ahead of me and in a different platoon. He died in March, 1976 from his injuries. Some called him retarded. The Drill Instructor sicked more recruits on him until his brain looked like hamburger. I remember reading the LA Times article about the incident to the guys in the squad bay one Sunday during our one-hour free time. It went on to be one of the Marine Corps’ worst scandals also reported by Rolling Stone Magazine (September 23, 1976) and Time Magazine (July 12, 1976). It led to a Congressional investigation and a review by President Ford himself, but I did not know that until the Internet came along. At the time I did not connect all the dots, but MCRD San Diego was out of control.
The black guide to another platoon nearly drowned during survival training in the swimming pool. Being black probably saved his life because he told me that the way life guards found him was because of his black form on the bottom of the crowded pool. My turn came when I was almost drowned by a Drill Instructor who apparently thought I was faking being able to breathe. They tried to kill me by pushing me under with a pole that slashed my wrist. I was only saved when a staff sergeant life guard told the DI to leave me alone.
After the pool incident, I was hobbled in the Platoon Commander’s hooch by having to stand at attention with one DI in front and another in back who alternated kicking my left knee until the cartilage tore. At about the same time my left eye had swollen shut due to infection and the only thing that saved me was a rare appearance at the mess hall by an inspecting major who noticed me limping. He ordered me to sick bay. The Platoon Commander was furious and even more furious when I returned with a chit and exemption from the final PFT (Physical Fitness Test). It’s hard to run three miles when you’re crippled or can hardly breathe.
It gets more interesting. While in sick bay the Navy doctors brought me an ex-ray of my lungs showing them to resemble peanut lobes in the ground. I had acute bronchitis. Then, all of a sudden, five doctors started running into the room next to me to revive a fat recruit going into a coma from heat stroke. From what I heard he did “bends and thrusts” too slowly on the asphalt grinder where close order drills are practiced. He was in a bath tub up to his neck. His veins had burst splattering the whole room with blood while they tried to keep him conscious by telling him count backwards from one hundred. A returning graduate to Headquarters 24th Marines who was several weeks behind me said he had died. I wonder if the guy in the tub was Lawrence Warner also mentioned in the Congressional hearings (Committee Serial No. 94-59).
Telling it like it is can be emotional. We can enjoy fiction when it reminds us of something approaching the reality we knew. That’s where real people draw the line. Too often fiction, like Full Metal Jacket, is just the tip of the iceberg whose depth no one wants to plumb. It’s the absence or white washing of real events that bothers me. The big boys do a masterful job in telling seemingly isolated stories and limiting investigation. The truth eventually surfaces, but it took me more than thirty years to put the pieces together and I was there.
