10 Things Marines Never Admit They Hid in Boot Camp (Civilians Would Call a Doctor)

I pulled my boot off one night in 1974 and the heel came away with the sock. I laced it back on before morning and never said a word, and every recruit I knew did the same. In this video I count down ten things I remember recruits hiding in Marine boot camp — blisters taped over with moleskin, sunburn we believed was damaging government property, sand flea bites you weren’t allowed to scratch in formation, and the recruit cough that ran through a whole platoon for weeks. I take you to a twenty-mile hump that left me with bleeding heels and a black toenail, and to a rifle range in 1981 where a recruit stood shaking with a fever rather than fall out. None of us were under orders to stay quiet. We did it because we feared the medical platoon more than the pain, and the thought of starting over with a new platoon was worse than anything a boot could do to a foot. A civilian today would take a day off or see a doctor for most of these. Number one is the one every Marine of my era knows by name — a recruit carried it across the parade deck at graduation and only told us afterward. If you went through boot camp, tell me in the comments what you hid.