The Few And The Proud; Marine Corps Drill Instructors In Their Own Words, by Larry Smith.
[rating:4/5]
Okay, if I gave out C+ or B-, this would be there. The book contains profiles and interviews of various drill instructors from the WW2 era to today. Some of these are very interesting, and others are not.
“There was a kid, some bohunk kid from Mississippi or somplace who didn’t know his left foot from his right, kept marching badly. The drill sergeant walked over, very cordial and sweet, and said to him, ‘Are you having trouble, keeping the rhythm of the march?’ And the kid said, ‘Yes, Sergeant.’ He said, ‘Well you seem to be having trouble knowing which foot to pivot on when we’re making those fast turns.’ And the kid said, ‘That’s right, Sergeant.’ So the D.I. lifted up his foot and he slammed it down on the kid’s foot and he said, ‘Now, pivot on the one that hurts.’ I never forgot that.”
That one was from the 50s. Here’s a guy from the present day, Will Post:
“The thing that really ticked me off in Kosovo was, you know, they called this crap peacekeeping. How do we keep peace? We kill the bad guys. If you act up, we’re going to kill you. After what happened in Kosovo when the bad guys shot at my guys, I believe that 99 percent of other units would have let go and just radioed in. But I asked the Marines, I didn’t know if any of my guys were hit yet, and I asked them, Can you see them shooting? They said yes. Are they shooting at you? They yelled back to me yes. I said, ‘Kill ‘em. Kill ‘em.’ And that’s why we wound up doing what we did. Peacekeeping to me is horseshit. It only takes one bullet to end your war, and I’ll be damned if it’s going to happen to one of my Marines on my watch because of being restrained. And those Marines understood: My God. This ain’t peacekeeping. These people are trying to kill us. You turn your back on them for one minute, they will kill you. Damn right.”
Another bit from Will Post:
“As for Iraq, a lot of my friends, first sergeants and sergeants major are over there, and they report the Marines are just performing superbly. Nearly all Marines are chomping at the bit to get over there. You don’t hear them complaining about deployment time. This is what they came in the Marine Corps to do. They’re warriors, dealing with snipers and IEDs, Improvised Explosive Devices; I’m old school. I call them booby traps, because that’s what they are. Mostly, it’s very frustrating, but they’re doing their job wonderfully, and as usual 99.9 percent of the stuff that’s going on don’t make the papers, just the bad stuff. The people over there absolutely love them.”
The Few And The Proud; Marine Corps Drill Instructors In Their Own Words, by Larry Smith.
[rating:4/5]
