I'm sure 1962 was a lot different from later years. The training itself has become harder and harder and more like the male's training, based on what other women who enlisted in the Corps have told me. We had no slack but a lot of our time was spent in the classroom preparing. Preparing not to fight, but to free men to fight. That was our role, so there was no rifle range. We did go through the gas chamber, the high dive off the board with full combat gear on (sans a rifle). There were no long hikes or obstacle courses at that time for women.
Graduation day was the first day we had any freedom. We went main side, where most of us had ice cream sundaes to celebrate. As I sat there, I could hardly believe that I made it. I would miss the camaraderie and the girls I had gotten to know through these eight weeks. Only seven others were out-posting to Camp LeJeune. We had a ten-day leave waiting for us the next day.
As I sat there still thinking back on the training and trying to really believe I'd made it, I heard a man call my name. None of my family had come to graduation. Hardly any parents were there. In 1962, traveling further than fifty miles was a major event. I turned to look and saw a boy from my hometown with whom I'd gone to school.
He was in the band at Parris Island. I'd heard he'd enlisted but to run into him on the only day on the Island that I had a two-hour window of freedom was a minor miracle. We talked for a few minutes and then I walked back to the barracks with my friends, standing tall and feeling prouder than I ever had in my eighteen some years. We sang Sentimental Journey that night after lights out and the next day we said good bye to PI. It was over but in reality, it had only just begun.
Third choice
Boot leave was a short ten days. But in a way, I could hardly wait to report to Camp LeJeune. We were asked to put down three choices as far as where we might like to be stationed (nothing was guaranteed). They tried to give us one of those choices. I chose those closest to my home, LeJeune was my third choice. HQMC was my first but at the time they had no need for a 2500 MOS.
The sounds, smells and memories of Parris Island stayed with me during leave. I could hear the oscillating fans that were going day and night during the first four weeks I was there. The smell of wax on the squad-bay floor, even the smell of the freshly ironed clothes hanging in the laundry room stayed with me. The sounds of cadence rung in my ears. Day-to-day routines were embedded in my brain.
I remembered the eerie quietness of the base one night when I was sent to secure a classroom where the lights had been left on. It was after lights-out and I was alone, probably for the first time ever during training. I looked up at the sky brightly lit with stars and was in awe about where I was and what I was doing. I was at Parris Island, walking down a road with keys in my hand to unlock a building belonging to the United States Marine Corps.
In less than two weeks, I'd earn the title of Marine. Only a few short weeks ago I was a civilian on the road to nowhere. Now I had purpose and commitment. I loved the cleanliness, the orderliness of the Corps. Everything was squared away, and if for some reason it wasn't, it would be in short order.
