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Mr. Luddite

On 9/2/2014 10:27 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 02 Sep 2014 20:25:06 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 9/2/2014 7:25 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 02 Sep 2014 18:44:27 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

I just tried googling it. It *was* called the "96 Count Manual" but I
couldn't find any examples or videos of it. Apparently it is no longer
done in boot camp.

All I remember was the march music playing and you lifted that rifle
over your head three times, then straight out 3 times, then to the left,
the right, down and whatever ... over and over and over until you
reached the count of 96. Then you started all over again. After a
half hour (or more if your company commander was sadistic) it got tough
to lift the damn thing over your head.

The one we had close to that was "high port", basically double time
with your rifle over your head.

We called that the "goon squad".

This wasn't a punishment. The whole company was doing it.
I was not sure why but they put a lot of emphasis on PT. I guess it
was because we spent a lot of classroom time and they wanted to give
us a good workout along the way.

The other one that was more fun was the 26' Monomoy surf boats.
It was a heavy assed wood row boat that we took out in the ocean off
Cape May in the winter.
I managed to work myself up to coxswain right away because I could
remember all the commands and knew when to use them. We usually had an
E-4 on board making sure we didn't do anything too dumb
In the end I was commanding my own boat..
Lugging those boats down the beach was still a chore tho. It was still
more fun than just doing calisthenics.

The amazing thing was how low our failure rate was. If you failed to
advance, each week, you had to start over (no getting out easy with a
GD in those days). Nobody in our company or our sister company failed.
The rumor was, if you failed twice, they sent you to the army or gave
you a UD.

I recall the term for being sent back in training was being "asswalled"
or "azwalled" or something like that. It was my biggest fear and it
usually happened because you got sick or injured. I remember doing PT
sessions while running a high fever and being sick as a dog but I
refused to go to sick bay in fear of having to "go back" in any of the
training. All I wanted was out of there. And yes, I remember the threat
(maybe just rumor) that if you didn't make it through your were
transferred to the Army. I know a few people didn't make it but I doubt
they were transferred to the Army. They just couldn't deal with the
pressure and flipped out mentally. This was in 1968.

I have two sons and a son-in-law who went through the Navy boot camp
over 20 years later. Very different program by then.