A taste of boot camp

As wide-eyed parents and younger siblings looked on, 36 young Marine Corps recruits dove to the floor of the Red Bank High School cafeteria and jumped back up, again and again, following the directions of their screaming future drill instructors.

But after the recruits had been chased out of the room by drill instructors bellowing, "run, run, run!" their parents had the chance to question Marine Corps recruiters and officers as part of the local Marine Corps substation's annual family night on Friday.

The event was intended to give both the recruits and their families a taste of the intensity waiting for them at boot camp and assure parents that their children would be in good hands with the Marines.

"I'm not here tonight to tell you that there aren't going to be a lot of sleepless nights from time to time," Maj. Dave Banning, commanding officer of the Marine Corps recruiting station in Nashville, said to the parents. "What I am here to do tonight is hopefully provide a little bit of reassurance."

The recruits, some still in high school, already have taken the oath of enlistment and are part of the area's delayed-entry program. Sometime between now and December they all will be starting a 13-week boot camp at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in Parris Island, S.C., said Staff Sgt. Matthew Wolf, station commander at the Chattanooga recruiting substation.

The young recruits, known as "poolees" in Marines lingo, had a separate question-and-answer session following an intensive training session in the school's gymnasium.

Maj. Banning fielded questions ranging from how soon the poolees could see combat to what kind of physical training will ready them for the rigors of boot camp. He emphasized to parents how extensively Marines are prepared for combat and stressed the importance of arriving at boot camp in top physical condition.

Facing his future drill instructor brought home the reality of boot camp for 21-year-old John Carr. The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga student heads to recruit training in May.

"You expect it, but you go in there and it's so nerve-racking when you're sitting there getting yelled at," he said. "But it was fun."

The event brought some relief to Jeannia Bell, whose 19-year-old son Andrew Thearp leaves for boot camp a week from Sunday.

"It was totally, totally reassuring," the Athens, Tenn., resident said afterward. "This is what he chose and from the very beginning I have been with him. I might be squalling on Sunday, but I'm fine with this."