Boot camp

The Marine gunny behind the football GIF

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By Gina Harkins on September 25, 2012 Boot camp, Pop culture

A gunny’s reaction to a college football player has earned him an interesting fan appreciation: He was made into a funny GIF that’s making its rounds on the Internet. Gunnery Sgt. Stephen Roberts is the Assistant Marine Officer Instructor for the NROTC program at Ole Miss, SB Nation reported. He oversees the color guard at each Rebels home game, so he was on the field in the second quarter of the Sept. 16 Ole Miss game against Texas. That’s when ESPN cameras caught an interesting moment. Longhorns receiver Marquise Goodwin made a 69-yard touchdown run to put Texas up 17-7 — and came…

Behind the Cover: GI Bill rip-off

By Bethany Crudele on September 10, 2012 Behind the Cover, Boot camp, Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, Marines, Recruit, Recruiting

If you’ve been to boot camp recently there’s a good chance you’ve handed Uncle Sam a hefty chunk of change — $1,200 to be exact, and that’s for a set of education benefits you could have gotten for free. To date, more than 100,000 people have enrolled in the Montgomery GI Bill across the armed services, requiring a $100 monthly buy-in for a recruits’ first year of service. This week’s Marine Corps Times examines an issue that first came to our attention in July when a Marine contacted the newspaper with questions about how each boot camp informs recruits about…

Behind the cover: Parris Island purgatory

By Gina Harkins on June 11, 2012 Battle Rattle, Behind the Cover, Boot camp, Recruit, Training

Justin Henderson left for boot camp in January 2011. More than 500 days later, he’s still there. Henderson is stuck at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, S.C. after catching pneumonia 13 days into training. He’s now awaiting a Physical Evaluation Board, which requires paperwork to pass through the Defense Department and Veterans Affairs to get his disability rating. He stays in a squad bay with Leonard Carter. Carter had to leave boot camp in June 2011 to have a tumor removed from his leg. He is also awaiting a PEB. Both have since been told by their doctors they’re…

Senator stirs pot by suggesting closure of Marine Corps recruit depot possible

By Dan Lamothe on June 5, 2012 Boot camp, budget, Washington

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s recent assertion that the Marine Corps could be forced to shutter one of its recruit depots has added a new cultural dynamic to the gloomy forecast about sequestration, the series of federal budget cuts looming if the U.S. government doesn’t find another way to reduce its deficit. Graham, a South Carolina Republican, told constituents in his home state recently that the Corps may have to consolidate the recruit depots in San Diego and Parris Island, S.C., if sequestration goes through. His comments resulted in media coverage like this, and have raised some eyebrows in Washington. Kevin…

The ties that bind (and survive boot camp)

By Gidget Fuentes on June 3, 2011 Boot camp

It’s a memory just about any Marine would rather soon forget, the moment when niceties from the first moments at recruit training are quietly shoved aside when testosterone-driven drill instructors pick up their fresh prey and aim right for the jugular. On one day in 1997 at Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, Colin Burgos was a teenager facing a trio of DIs who roared like a tornado from the duty hut into the squad bay, barking incomprehensible orders at the then-17-year-old Brugos, a fresh-faced kid from Texas about to face leatherneck-style discipline like he expected from countless…

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