thomas dunne books.

An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

basic. Copyright © 2012 by Jack Jacobs and David Fisher. All rights reserved. Printed in
the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth
Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jacobs, Jack, 1945–

Basic : surviving boot camp and basic training / Colonel Jack Jacobs (Ret.) and
David Fisher.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-312-62277-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-0244-5 (e-book)
1. Basic training (Military education)—United States—Handbooks, manuals, etc.
2. United States—Armed Forces—Military life—Handbooks, manuals, etc.
I. Fisher, David, 1946– II. Title.
U408.3.J33 2012
355.5'40973—dc23
2012009382

First Edition: May 2012

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
If It Moves, Salute It: Welcome to
Initial Military Training

You’re in the army now, you’re not behind a plow;

You’ll never get rich, by digg ing a ditch
You’re in the army now.
—traditional army marching chant

Congress judging it of the greatest importance to prescribe some

invariable rules for the order and discipline of the troops, espe-
cially for the purpose of introducing an uniformity in their forma-
tion and maneuvers, and in the ser vice of the camp: ORDERED,
That the following regulations be observed by all the troops of the
United States, and that all general and other officers cause the
same to be executed with all possible exactness.
—In Congress, 29 March 1779, By Order, John Jay, President
(the beginning of basic military training)

“I am Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, your senior drill instructor.

From now on you will only speak when being spoken to. The first
and last words out of your sewers will be, sir! Do you maggots under-
stand that?”
 Colonel Jac k Jacobs

“Sir, yes Sir!”

“Bullshit. Sign off like you got a pair.”
“Sir! Yes Sir!”
“If you ladies leave my island, if you survive recruit training, you
will be a weapon. You will be a minister of death praying for war.
But until that day you are pubes. You are the lowest forms of life on
earth. You’re not even human fucking beings. You’re nothing but
unorganized grab ass of amphibian shit. Because I am hard you will
not like me but the more you hate me the more you will learn.”
—from the movie Full Metal Jacket

T here is nothing at all that compares to basic training. It’s

a period of several weeks during which civilians are trans-
formed into soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen. There is no way
to prepare for it. Those men and women who have been through
basic will never forget it, and those people who haven’t experi-
enced it can’t imagine it.
It’s serious business, as Joseph Salerno learned on his first day at
Camp Wheeler in 1943. “Right from the start they told us the theme
was simple, ‘You either learn to kill or you’re going to be killed.’ ”
Former Marine commandant David M. Shoup once accurately
summed up the job of training depots, which, he said, were sup-
posed to “receive, degrade, sanitise, immunise, clothe, equip, train,
pain, scold, mould, sand, and polish.”
As Brian Dennehy (Marines, Parris Island, 1969) explains, “Boot
camp provides basic military training, but the real point is to indoc-
trinate you into a new way of looking at the world. The Marine
Corps has a tradition of a very tough boot camp process. They are
exposing you for the first time to the basic military philosophy—
what otherwise might be presumed to be very risky activities. Dur-

14
 BASIC

ing this time officers and NCOs will tell you to do things to which
your normal reaction would be, Hell no, I am not doing that.
“The basic objective of military training is to teach you how to
operate as a unit, to become primarily concerned with unit cohesive-
ness and protection and to respond automatically to a situation that
will achieve some goal. Boot camp is an assault on your individuality.
“The first few days at Parris Island is a deliberate assault on
your citizen sensibility. You don’t get to change your clothes, you
don’t get to stay clean, you don’t get to shower. Any obvious signs
of individuality are immediately stepped on. It’s noisy, it’s loud,
and there is always someone in your face with some type of verbal
assault. Everything you do is wrong and has to be punished, you’re
in a state of confusion and you’re always tired. All of this forces
you to respond as quickly as possible to these chaotic commands
without thinking. This is a way of fi nding those people who are
going to have trouble getting with the program. ‘Getting with the
program’ is an important phrase, but once you get into this system
of noise and confusion it all begins to make sense. And after three
or four days of this the real training begins.
“I remember telling a lot of kids when we were in the barracks at
night, ‘Hundreds of thousands of guys have gone through this.
There’s no reason why you wouldn’t make it.’ Most of them did, too.
The one thing everybody learns in boot camp is how much you can
take. For most people, that usually turns out to be a lot more than
they believed.”

The history of basic military training is incomplete and erratic.

Generally though, the introduction of organized military training
is credited to Chinese general Sun Tze, the author of The Art of
War, at about 500 B.C. According to legend, King Helu of Wu hired

15
 Colonel Jac k Jacobs

Sun Tze to teach the approximately 180 women living in his palace
close order drill and the proper use of the dagger-axe. Sun Tze ap-
pointed unit leaders, and when the troops failed to follow his or-
ders those unit leaders were beheaded—thereby setting the
standard for drill instructors that any recruit can easily identify
with.
The concept of drilling soldiers, teaching them how to march
and maneuver in formation, dates back to the Roman Empire, when
Roman generals discovered that the infantry moved more efficiently
when everyone was in step. The object of training was to teach
soldiers how to maneuver in step. The Romans even defi ned the
length of one step and marched to the beat of a drum.
Basic training began unofficially in the United States in Valley
Forge, Pennsylvania in February 1778 when General George Wash-
ington brought in Prussian officer Baron Friedrich von Steuben to
instill discipline in his unorganized, rag-tag Continental Army. Von
Steuben trained a company of 120 men in basic military conduct and
drilling. Because he spoke no English, he recruited an aide to curse at
the troops for him. Troops were instructed to march at a seventy-six-
step per minute cadence, rather than the current 120 steps. In battle
at that time, troops maneuvered as a single unit, and the army best
able to coordinate its moves gained a significant advantage.
When von Steuben’s original model company was trained to
his standards he dispersed them throughout the Continental Army
to train other troops. He then wrote down his lessons in the “Reg-
ulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United
States,” which has become known as The Soldier’s Blue Book. As he
wrote in chapter five: Of the Instruction of Recruits, “The com-
manding officer of each company is charged with the instruction
of his recruits; and as that is a service that requires not only experi-
ence, but a patience and temper not met with in every officer, he is

16
 BASIC

to make choice of an officer, sergeant, and one or two corporals of

his company who . . . are to attend particularly to that business.
“The recruits must be taken singly, and first taught to put on
their accoutrements and carry themselves properly.”

17
In the Beginning There Was
the Heaven, the Earth, and
the Drill Sergeant

E very military career begins when the recruit raises his

or her right hand and takes the Oath of Enlistment. It is just
about the only thing that every recruit throughout American
history has in common. The moment a recruit’s hand comes down
he or she has surrendered almost all of their constitutional rights.
They have entered into a new world, and the transition is some-
times difficult, often funny, but always memorable. The first
such oath was created in 1775 for members of Washington’s Con-
tinental Army. Enlistees had to affi rm: “I _____ have, this day,
voluntarily enlisted myself, as a soldier, in the American Conti-
nental army, for one year, unless sooner discharged: And I do
bind myself to conform, in all instances, to such rules and regula-
tions, as are, or shall be, established for the government of the
said Army.”
The current Oath of Enlistment became law in 1960. It reads:
“I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and
defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies,
foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to
the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the
United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me,
 BASIC

according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

So help me God.”
Few people know what to expect when they enter the military
world. Olaf Casperson (air force, Lackland, December–January
1978–79) intended to use the military to get his education. “I had
heard that the air force had veterinarians. Truthfully, it never oc-
curred to me ask why the air force needed veterinarians, but I was
hoping to go to school and become a veterinarian. At the pro-
cessing center I was told politely, ‘Son, we don’t have veterinarians
in the air force, but you don’t want to do that anyway. That’s a bor-
ing job. All those guys do is go around all day inspecting vege-
tables in the commissary.’ So I asked about being a cook. But the
recruiter looked at my aptitude test and put me into aircraft elec-
tronics. When I got home my Dad laughed at my story and said,
‘They sure saw you coming.’ It worked out very well, though. That
became my career.”
Susan Kincaid “Sparky” Allen (air force, Lackland, 1974) had a
very similar experience. “I went in and told my recruiter I wanted
to be a spy. Somehow he translated that to mean that I wanted to
sign up for a six-year hitch in avionics.”
There is a classic joke told about the first few days of basic train-
ing: In 1968 Richard Langsam, from the mountains of North Caro-
lina, was drafted into the army. On the first day of basic training
the army issued him a comb—and that afternoon the army barber
cut off all his hair.
On the second day of basic training the army issued Langsam a
toothbrush—and that afternoon the army dentist pulled out six of
his teeth.
On the third day of basic training the army issued Langsam a
jock strap—and the army has been looking for him ever since!
“I didn’t have the slightest idea what boot camp was about,”

19
 Colonel Jac k Jacobs

recalls John Langeler (navy, Great Lakes, 1966). “I was a college

freshman twice, so obviously that didn’t seem to be working out
for me. I decided to join the navy to see the world. Before report-
ing I went to Brooks Brothers and bought two suits, several ties,
and a leather suitcase. I wanted to be well dressed when I saw the
world. When I got to the recruit training station there were fi f-
teen other gentlemen there, each one of them holding a paper
bag with a sandwich in it. I wondered, ‘How are they going to get
by without clothes?’
“It was pouring when we fi nally got out of the bus at Great
Lakes. I was carrying my new suitcase with me. A senior petty of-
ficer came running, literally running, right up to me and pointed
at it and said, ‘Boy, what the fuck is that you’re carrying?’
“It seemed obvious to me, ‘It’s a suitcase,’ I said.
“His mouth dropped open. ‘Boy, you call me Sir and what the
fuck are you doing with a suitcase?’
“That seemed like a ridiculous question to me. What else is a
suitcase for? I said slowly, ‘It has clothing in it, Sir.’ When he ex-
plained that the navy provides clothing for recruits, I pointed out,
‘It’s for the weekends.’ I knew so little about boot camp I just as-
sumed I’d need a jacket and tie for our weekend trips into Chicago.
“With that he opened it up and stared at it. Everything inside
got soaking wet. The navy took it from me and shipped it to my
home. My mother assumed the navy had given me a new suitcase so
she just threw this one up in the attic—where all those wet clothes
sat mildewing for several months.”
The army even tried to change the MOS, military occupation
specialty, of Audie Murphy, who eventually became the most dec-
orated soldier of World War II. As he wrote in his autobiography,
To Hell and Back, “During my first session of close-order drill, I, the
late candidate for the Marines and the paratroops, passed out cold.

20
 BASIC

I quickly picked up the nickname of ‘Baby.’ My commanding officer

tried to shove me into a cook and baker’s school, where the going
would be less rough.
“That was the supreme humiliation. To reach for the stars and
end up stirring a pot of C-rations. I would not do it. I swore that
I would take the guard house first. My stubborn attitude paid off. I
was allowed to keep my combat classification; and the army was
spared the disaster of having another fourth-class cook in its ranks.”
No one knows how many millions of American men and women
have gone through basic military training since the Baron first laid
out his rules. In 2011 there were about eighteen million veterans in
the United States. Although basic training, or boot camp as the
navy and Marines call it, has been as brief as three weeks and as
long as three months, depending on the needs of the military, tra-
ditionally it lasts between eight and ten weeks. After graduation
recruits attend schools for advanced individual training in their
military specialty.
Until 1918 each army division trained its own reinforcements,
but the massive number of replacement troops needed to fight in
World War I made that impossible and for the first time, central
training depots were established. As the Center for Military History
later reported, this was dismal failure. Many troops received less
than a month of poorly conducted training before being shipped to
the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe and thrown completely
unprepared into combat. They were sent to whatever units needed
replacements and too often had not been trained on the equipment
they were assigned. Their lack of preparation not only put their
lives in jeopardy, it also endangered the troops they were assigned
to support.
To make sure that mistake wouldn’t be repeated, in 1940 “a
system designed to provide a continuous stream of replacements

21
 Colonel Jac k Jacobs

trained in the necessary jobs” was established, although these re-

placement training centers weren’t ready to receive recruits until
March 1941. While basic and specialized school training was sup-
posed to last thirteen weeks (it was eventually extended to seven-
teen weeks) after World War II began many troops shipped out
after receiving only three or four weeks of basic combat training,
often arriving in a war zone without ever having fired their primary
weapon and sometimes even without being issued the necessary
equipment. In the rush to feed troops into World War II combat
zones, the established physical and psychological standards were
very low. For example, when the army realized that too many re-
cruits were being washed out of basic for “dental fitness,” the dental
requirements were lowered to the “ability to masticate the army
ration.” Meaning that if you could chew, you were in.
The centralized system wasn’t really capable of training the
number of troops needed for the war, so in many instances recruits
were sent directly from a reception center to their assigned unit for
basic training. For New Yorker Jerry Leitner (army, Fort Sill, Okla-
homa, 1944) that was an artillery unit. “I was a Jewish college stu-
dent from Queens. Sometimes they tried to match your interest
with your assignment, but this was not one of those times. After
I got to Ft. Sill they sent me to a large room, and hanging on the
walls were photographs of the various types of field artillery, start-
ing with the 75 mm left over from World War I right up to the
155 mm cannons. A lieutenant asked me, ‘Anything here interest
you?’ I didn’t know anything so I pointed to the biggest cannon,
the 155 mm. He smiled, then said, ‘Look, you’re six feet tall and in
good health, how’d you like to be in the roughest toughest group
in field artillery?’

22