A factual account of the experiences of Herb Moore during the summer of 1963, specifically from June 19 until September 11.  World War II was long over, as well as the Korean War, and Vietnam was not yet a reality.  John F. Kennedy was President. Basic recruit training at Parris Island, South Carolina, a small island in along the coast near the town of Beaufort, is known as the toughest recruit training in the world.  This book relates the events surrounding one platoon's training experiences. 

This fast-moving, true adventure clutches the reader and thursts him into sterile barracks the first day of Marine Corps boot camp. The bewildered raw recruits of Platoon 340 come face to face with three glowering DIs under whose domination they must spend twelve weeks.  The DIs lose no time convincing the frightened recruits that they live up to their fable notoriety.  The constant supervision and harassment continue at every phase of the intensive make-or-break training program.  Every minute seems filled with spit and polish, drill on the smoldering hot grinder, grueling assaults of the confidence and obstacle courses, concentrated classroom instruction, bivouac at mosquito and sand flea-infested Elliott's Beach.  But all is not intolerable.  The recruits slowly find their is another side to the "monster" as the DIs are called.  And as the recruits slowly improve in competence and approach peak physical condition, they begin to see signs of order to the madness around them, due in no small part to their knowledge that graduation and evacuation from the Island is approaching.  For most of them. 

Most Marines don't want to talk about basic training at Parris Island and neither does the Marine Corps.  But it is all here in this factual account of Platoon 340.

232 pages. 2008.  Sandlapper Publishing.

 

 ISBN 10: 0-87844-187-5/ ISBN 13: 978-8784-187-7

 

Softcover $19.95