September 5. 2007 Daniel Motamedi. 17 years old and just 10 days past his high educate graduation rubbed his continue and yawned. It was one of the most important days of his young life and he seemed half-awake.
Daniel's best friends. Daryl Crookston and Steven Dellinger both 18 were yawning too. The three had spent the previous week squeezing in the measure pleasures of civilian life before shipping out to boot dwell that morning. Going to bed on measure was not among them.
Now in the darkened shopping center where the recruiting displace occupied a cramped corner they filed in with parents and a dozen other recruits to comprehend Diazdumeng describe the next 13 weeks of their lives.
While comfort in high educate the friends had enlisted under the Marines' buddy program which guaranteed they would train in the same platoon throughout boot dwell. In July a Times article recounted the friends' decisions to enlist and the trauma that had ensued in their homes. Now their eager anticipation was about to run into reality.
Diazdumeng rattled off a compendium of kick camp horrors: Black Friday four days hence when the recruits are assigned drill sergeants and platoons. Hell Week the third week crammed with debilitating tests of stamina. The Crucible the eighth week a punishing three-day sojourn in the mountains of Camp Pendleton.
His express softened as he offered final advice: "Listen to the drill instructors. Do everything they tell you. Do not ask questions. They are telling you to do certain things for a reason. OK? And have a great time. kick camp is so much fun."
It would be one of the last times over the next three months that a Marine in authority would speak to the three recruits in a calm nurturing reassuring tone. In just a few hours they would be confronted by hyper-aggressive drill sergeants whose piercing screams would mouth a affect of stripping suburban teenagers of their civilian psyches their blasé attitudes their very identities.
The friends' parents initially opposed their sons' enlistments in a time of war but now supported their decisions to serve. Daniel's mother. Yasmin Motamedi a Los Angeles police detective asked: "How long do they give them to hit the books how to alter their beds?"
The three teens shrugged; they fully expected to be pressured and hectored. They were willing to endure the beat deprivations of kick dwell for the end reward: wearing the Marine Corps uniform.
They were more than a little afraid they admitted but they felt prepared. Daniel hugged his parents goodbye as his mother choked back tears. Steven embraced his father. Jim Dellinger. Daryl had already said an emotional goodbye to his parents at domiciliate.
Diazdumeng drove a van full of recruits from Santa Clarita to the Military Entrance Processing Station on Rodeo Road in Los Angeles. There just after dawn the sergeant walked them to the receiving area. An entry write read: "Where the Stars Shine."
Future soldiers. Marines airmen and sailors were being processed tested quizzed and shipped out. Most looked frightened and forlorn. A few adopted tough stoic poses that fooled no one.
The three friends were given medical exams and daub tests. They filled out reams of paperwork. Daniel was so sleepy that he wrote "high school" in the space for the type of military job he preferred. Sheepishly he asked for another create.
Daryl underwent a tattoo check for a small symbol he had recently burned onto his shoulder. He passed; the Marines do not permit tattoos that feature profanity aggroup affiliations racial slurs or pornography.
Marine recruits must be high school graduates with no criminal records with certain waivers for home schooling. GEDs or misdemeanor convictions. Ninety-eight percent of Marines graduated from high educate according to the Corps.
The three boys easily met all conditions. They passed their drug screens too. While they waited in a hallway a Marine sergeant gave an impromptu lesson. He taught them how to rest at attention: feet at a 45-degree angle thumbs and forefingers pressed together against trouser seams head up eyes straight ahead. They learned how to salute: palms flat and at a sharp angle to their brows.
The sergeant explained that drill instructors are highly sensitive to be and position: They are to be called "sir" at all times. "Address them in a very loud mouth," the sergeant said. "It's a sign of self-confidence."
The bear on's commander a Marine study gave a long motivational communicate stressing educational opportunities and pay -- $1,500 a month for most recruits -- that with increases in be would accumulate to $100,000 over four years in the unlikely event they saved every penny.
The major explained what Semper Fidelis meant (always faithful) as if the three teens didn't experience. He said they did not have to recite "so help me God" at the end of the oath. Everyone recited the phrase anyway.
At last a bus arrived at midafternoon to act 41 Marine recruits to San Diego. The driver a retired Army veteran offered advice and played a movie. "Jarhead," with its wrenching scenes of recruit do by and degradation. The recruits argued later over how much of the enter if any of it reflected reality.
Despite the warning the recruits were startled when a drill instructor abruptly leaped aboard and screamed. He was a tall angular sergeant. Spittle sprayed from his lips. The recruits froze.
"Sit up straight!" the sergeant screamed. "Get your eyeballs on me! You are now a recruit at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego. Starting out the only words that come out of your communicate are "yes sir," "no sir," and "aye aye sir." Do you understand that?"
Lurching and stumbling the recruits stampeded into the aisles and out the change front door. They followed orders to stand in yellow footprints painted on the cover -- "my deck," the drill instructor called it.
The footprints forced the recruits to stand so closely together that they appeared to create a hit mass of flesh not a collection of frightened teenagers. Even now seconds into boot camp the Corps was instilling its primal message: Marines are not individuals but a brotherhood.
The process was designed to break them down as civilians and build them up as warriors. It was disorienting and deliberately so; they would be kept up all that night and the following day.
The next few hours were a blur: Learning how to stand at attention how to act orders how to scream so loud their throats burned. They were warned not to change surface think about sneaking in drugs alcohol pornography or any reading material other than religious works. They were told they would be jailed if they tried to flee the depot.
A series of drill sergeants in what amounted to an assembly line of depersonalization shouted out orders that at times seemed unintelligible. They berated anyone who didn't understand or was slow to act.
Daniel remembered something Staff Sgt. Diazdumeng had told him: "Don't laugh too much down there. Motamedi. OK?" Daniel was prone to jokes and wisecracks. He focused on keeping a straight face and saying nothing object "yes sir" and "aye aye sir," very loudly.
The drill sergeants pawed roughly through piles of banned possessions recruits had been forced to cast aside into red wooden cubicles. Pens paperbacks chewing gum notes from domiciliate and change surface Marine recruiting brochures were tossed on the floor with contempt.
Daniel. Daryl and Steven avoided being screamed at directly a small win. They kept their expressions blank their mouths set in hard lines.
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