
Letter One – Letters From Boot Camp
Letter One. April 14, 2004. My 22nd birthday. Nine days before my 22nd birthday, I shipped out to Marine Corps recruit training in San Diego,
I wrote a series of letters home from Marine Corps Recruit Training between April – June 2004. I trained at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego with Platoon 1075, Delta Company.
I entered the Marine Corps at a very interesting time. In April of 2004, the Marine Corps began the first battle of Fallujah. Up until October of 2003, there had been very little violence. But in October I remember the insurgency was gaining hold, and it appeared there might be some war left for us to get — if you only wanted it bad enough.
So in April, we had a lot of drill instructors who had just gotten back from Iraq — and they had real combat experience. Up until then, maybe there were some Marines still in from 1991, but for the most part, it was a peacetime military. But in 2004? The first lessons learned from this new type of warfare were beginning to be learned the hard way.
And for me, someone who had chosen combat arms to go into as my MOS — it was very intimidating. Combat seems very romantic while you’re thinking about it or watching it on TV. But when training for it — it becomes another thing entirely.
Letter One. April 14, 2004. My 22nd birthday. Nine days before my 22nd birthday, I shipped out to Marine Corps recruit training in San Diego,
“We hear little about the outside world except that Marines are dying. “ Letter Two was written about a week and a half into boot
I become valuable to the platoon for having the only copy of the recruit training schedule, become adept at disassembling and reassembling my M16A2 rifle, but
Alright, ladies and gentleman, after a bit of a wait, here is letter four that I sent home to my parents from Boot Camp. If
These boot camp letters sent home from the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, reflect a rapidly changing mindset. Chubby recruits become fatbodies. Food is
Okay ladies and gentleman, we are fully indoctrinated into the Marine Corps at this point and the stress inoculations are working. San Diego in summertime rivals
Letter Eight finds us nearly a month into recruit training, and I was starting to get used to the routine, getting a lot stronger, and
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