All Idaho Platoon 3056….………Welcome Home

Pat McCormack

Thirty five years ago we gathered at these Capital steps for a very special purpose. We came from large cities, small towns and rural communities. We weren’t political activists, and it wasn’t popular to do what we were about to do, but 80 young men made a decision to join the Marine Corps, and we did.. The State of Idaho blessed us with a ceremony, kissed us on the cheek and told us, “Good by”. Our adventure had begun.

We were boarded on two aircraft at the Boise Air Terminal and headed for San Diego, California. We were relaxed and I remember someone on our flight drinking too many little liquor bottles.

We arrived in San Diego late that night and as we stepped off of the plane, all hell broke loose. We were loaded into gray, wooden, “cattle cars”, back-to-back and belly-to-belly like vertically stacked, cord wood.

When we arrived at our destination, we were herded out of the cattle cars like a flock of wild turkeys and ordered, in words that I had never heard before, to stand on the Yellow Foot Prints. We were prodded into a room, our heads were shaved, our clothes were removed and placed in cardboard boxes and we were issued uniforms that didn’t fit, all the while receiving our instructions from individuals who yelled everything at the top of their lungs.

Finally, like a stampede in slow motion, we were moved to Quonset huts and were allowed to sleep. It had been a long day. It had started in the early morning hours in Boise, Idaho and ended at 2:30 AM in San Diego, California. Little did we know, as we laid our heads down on those strange, “racks”, that our first training day was only an hour and a half away.

I’ll skip the wake-up, the yelling, the confusion, more yelling and the effort to get dressed at 4:00 o’clock in the morning, (covers wrinkled, pulled down over our ears, shirts buttoned sideways), you certainly remember. But I won’t skip our first attempt at military chow? Everything was going fine. Trays in hand, we were at the table and then it began………”Ready…Seat! Get up!, Ready….Seat!. Get up!, Ready Seat!…Eat….Get up, get out, move, move, move!”

We were beginning to bond. I could tell, because every time the D.I. yelled, we all jumped and ran……..not necessarily in the same direction, but we were beginning to move as one large group.

I don’t remember a thing for the next week except seeing the back of someone’s shaved head.

But for the next twelve weeks, I would begin to tuck away many memories, of Platoon 3056. Perhaps you share some of these same memories;

The wash racks, where we cleaned our clothes and applied gallons of starch to 8 ounces of cloth in order to make our covers, hard as concrete.

The rope climb.

The first time we heard, “The smoking lamp is lit, for one cigarette!”

House Mouse.

The time I addressed Sgt. Malone as YOU and he made me drink, “You juice”

Mail call; a twenty-yard sprint,,, for a two paged, perfumed treasure from home.

Or that package of two dozen chocolate chip cookies that my aunt send me, and Sgt

Malone made me eat in ten minutes.

Hand to hand combat training, Pugal sticks

My fight with Tarkalton,….. My fight with Coates.

The range.

And last but not least, after thirteen weeks of training at MCRD, I remember that long, silent march back from the base movie theater in the dark. When eighty, separate cadence steps became one perfectly metered movement and sound. The Bond was complete.

This, is Platoon 3056. And although we all have distinct and individual memories of that time and that place 35 years ago, a long ways from Idaho, …80 young Idahoans became one mind, one body, one heart and one memory…they became…..Platoon 3056,….. forever. We are the last remnants of the “old Corps.”, and a lasting example of personal pride and commitment.

Thank you for your service to our country.

Semper Fi, Marines,….and Welcome Home.