The Basic School. Research for Book

Please post your thoughts and memories about the best, worse and most challenging or unusual things that occurred while at The Basic School.

If my book gets published, you will be mentioned and thanked for your help with the research.

The book is Sci Fi fantasy. The main character becomes an Astronaut, and I need this research to make him a realistic person. This is the hero of the story; any data collected will be portrayed in a positive manner. The Marines are a blessing to this character, and the foundation of his ascent to greatness.

Thanks
Ken

Thank You! Good stuff, keep it coming.

Worst part of TBS: Driving through the Camp Barrett gate the very first time.

Best part of TBS: Taking the picture of the Camp Barrett gate in my rear view mirror as I headed out to Pensacola. I have never been back to Camp Barrett, and if things go as planned, I shall never return.

Best - getting away every weekend to Richmond to spent time with relatives in my own bedroom with private hot tub while drinking home made beer.

Worst - having our company accused of stealing NVGs, enduring complete destruction of our spaces to include carpet tear down in some rooms, only to find out armory misplaced them

Worst - My SPC.

Best - Time out in the field away from my SPC.

I think this picture is mandatory for everyone.


Best- Fam shoot on the .50 cal and the Mark 19. CAS demo day and getting to call it in. Getting on the HMX-1 helos and flying into the FEXs. Oh, and leaving that god awful soul sucking place.

Worst- All of the worthless waiting around to be secured for the day. All the bullshit busy work, being treated like a PFC instead of an officer on a regular basis, and packing way too much stuff that you know you'll never use to take to the field.

I sense a trend here...

Wait a second, after hearing all the TBS stories during flight school, I thought you guys were doing fast roping, HALO drops, gun shoots, orgies, more gun shoots, shooting guns from helo doors, throwing grenades, and basically blowing sh!t up every day.

You mean the Marines I went through flight school exaggerated what you guys did in TBS??? I don't know what to say....

Worth a little repost:

By far the most accurate depiction of TBS, as told by a fellow AirWarrior.

i remember zipping up 95 with our cars in fire team formation,alternately forming a wedge,etc. with arm signals out our respective windows,heading for g -town,and alex old town,after sessions in the Hawkin's room,way back in '83,when IOC didn't even have its own building yet,and we wore steel pots,and carried .45's,ahhh the Old Corps !!!

We had a female in my company named XXX XXX, and when we were on the rifle range, on qual day, she missed every single shot on the 200 yd line rapid fire. When scoring the rapid fire from the pits, you have a "lollypop," about a 6 foot stick with a circle on the end, one side white and the other red. When scoring, they call out a number representing the shot fired, 1 through 10, and if there was a hit in the black, the guy who is scoring holds the stick straight up, white side out for the shooter to see, and if there is a miss, he holds the red side up and swing it once from left to right as viewed by the shooter. The guy scoring for XXX was YYYY YYYY, and he swung the red circle correctly about twice before he started having fun just wildly swinging the lollypop back and forth. XXXX sees this and starts crying. Up on the 200 yard line, the SPC, ZZZ ZZZZZ, walks up to XXXX and asks "why are you crying?" She just points at her target and the SPC sees the lollypop flying back and forth. I was in the pits on the target next to XXXX's watching YYYY work his magic, laughing histerically. YYYY ended up getting an ass chewing over that.

SWACQ - please don't post names.

Best- Walking out of graduation in my dress blues with by graduation diploma, flying on helos into the FEX's, shooting automatic weapons, going through a shitty experience with your best friends

Worst- Getting treated like a PFC by other enlisted folks, WAITING FOR THE WORD, rifle range in rainy 35 degree weather, our douchebag XO

worst - holding a billet when some dumbass lt turns in a live round during the line out after MOUT fex. It was a long night.

best - meeting some great people who I became really good friends with.

My bad. Since the names are now removed, we can note that YYY was one hell of a great dude, and XXX was a, well, if you can't something nice...

Best - Old Town Alexandria, road trips on long weekends, the friends I made, not having to live in the barracks because they were renovating it, riding on helos, urban patrolling at the FBI Academy, leaving Camp Barrett.

Worst - Having to stay for Leatherneck, humps (mainly the 12 miler), D-week, seeing every possible season in one day, cardiac hill, not realizing I brought my "spitter canteen" vice two real canteens until I started running the endurance course for time.

This is great stuff, and there is a lot of good material here for me to use. What about class room challenges and academic obstacles?

When I was there in '04:

1. Classroom challenge: Narcolepsy. The only cure for the narcolepsy was to drink the Kool-Aid, which I never have...and never will.
2. Academic obstacles: Random ceiling tiles coming loose and falling, usually on our heads. (This was the most effective cure from the Death by Powerpoint-induced narcolepsy.)

The Narcolepsy was usually combated by one of three things:

1. Coffee
2. Dip
3. Standing up

Not necessarily in that order and sometimes all three at the same time!

*post removed*

So what you're saying is you drank your entire company's share of TBS Kool-Aide?

Holy crap - we need to get this guy 15cc's of Anti-Aid....STAT!

I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

Forget the anti-aid. Get that man a kick to the skull.