AT THE QUARANTINE STATION
At first, the new arrival is sent to the Quarantine Station
and provided with a bed, bedding, pajamas and towel. He has
nothing to do for the first few days except to eat, sleep and
answer innumerable calls at the demand of the examining
surgeon. It should be understood that Marine Corps recruits
are not given their final examination nor acceptance for
service until they reach the training station. This has
proved to be the better plan, as it gives the surgeon and
officer in charge an opportunity to look most thoroughly
into the physical, mental and moral fitness of the men,
and eliminate undesirables before they begin training.
The Recruiters' Bulletin, Oct. 1917.
AT THE QUARANTINE STATION: A TYPICAL STINT
On landing late in the day, the recruits are marched to the
Receiving Barracks for a wash & hot supper, issued white
"pajamas", towel, soap, sheets & blanket. They are assigned
bunks in barracks & sent to bed. The next morning they are
awakened by Reveille & marched to the mess for breakfast,
after which they return to "police" their barracks. At 10 am.,
they listen to an inspirational talk by one Sergeant (by War's
end, Major) Edwin Denby, previously a Gunner's Mate on the
USS Yosemite and a US Congressman (see S&SC, Issue 1, p 7),
after which they are turned over to the Corpsmen to be numbered
(literally, in iodine, chest & back), examined, recorded,
classified and card-indexed. Once the applicants have passed
this examination, they are sworn in, vaccinated, marched
to the Quartermaster's storehouse & issued a complement of
clothing & equipment. They are formed into companies of 66
men & turned over to their Sergeant, at which point the fun
begins. Ushering applicants through quarantine during the
summer of 1917 was not always the orderly process described
here, nor was the order of events always the same. The flood
of enlistees after war was declared taxed the meager facilities
of the camp to the limit, with the result that there were frequent
shortages & constant bottlenecks of new men awaiting examination.
Gus Gulberg, arriving in late May, was three days getting through,
while Al Appenheimer, arriving July 1st, was stalled for five. Levi
Hemrick, who arrived in June, reported that, due to equipment
shortages, he was forced to wear civilian clothes for the first
few days and his street shoes for many days more, so that his feet were
soon badly blistered.
References:
~~ "Parris Island in the War", from a speech delivered
April 11, 1919, by Maj. W.R. Coyle, Member of Congress,
published in the Marine Corps Gazette, December 1925.
~~ J.E. Rendinell, One Man's War: the Diary of a Leatherneck.
~~ Levi Hemrick, Once a Marine, 1967.
~~ Gus Gulberg, A War
Diary, 1927.
SHOCKED, DEEPLY SHOCKED
No more had Levi Hemrick bunked down with some forty or fifty of his
fellow recruits in an enormous tent in the Quarantine Station than they
received a rude interuption. An "old timer Marine", his blouse-sleeve
"completely covered with hache marks", staggered in, evidently well-soused,
waving "the longest-barrelled whopping big pistol" Hemrick had ever seen,
and pointing it recklessly at one wide-eyed recruit after another. He lurched
to a table, crashed onto a chair and, banging the pistol-butt on the tabletop,
launched into a long-winded harangue on the glorious history of the Corps,
liberally spiced with accounts of his own heroic exploits. Levi couldn't
decide whether the Old-timer was acting with rehearsed deliberation or
was as far gone as he appeared to be. Either way, the Sergeant kept them
riveted through the entire display until abruptly he stopped, stood, and
pitched headlong out of the tent and into the night. The recruits, stone-silent,
bewildered and appalled, could not bring themselves to look at one another.
As for Levi, expecting perhaps some irreproachable "poster Marine" with
impeccable self-possession, he recorded only that the Old-timer's performance
left him shocked, deeply shocked.
Reference: Levi Hemrick, Once a Marine
KITTENS IN THE PRUNE BARREL
On his first morning in the mess-hall, Al Appenheimer was delighted
to spot a fellow recruit he had first seen at the train station in Chicago,
a young man clearly born and bred amid wealth and high station, being sent
off with a great show of sorrow and tears by his mother and sister, but
now crammed ignominiously in the midst of his rough-hewn lessers and facing
his first camp breakfast of oatmeal, coffee and stewed prunes. On impulse,
Al sang out to the mess sergeant on the other side of the hall: "Hey Cookie,
how's your old cat?"
~~ The sergeant, caught off-guard, shouted back, "What?"
~~ "I said, How's your old cat?"
~~ "What cat?"
~~ "You know," boomed Al, "the one that just had her kittens in the prune
barrel!"
The uptown boy, stricken and pale, shoved his breakfast away as the
hall around him exploded with laughter. Even the sergeant was grinning.
Al said later, recounting the story, that, had it not been the first
morning and the sergeant caught off-guard, he would never have gotten away
with such a crack, but as it happened, everyone thought it a great joke.
As for the fastidious young man, Al said that, before their training had
ended, he had became the biggest chowhound in the company.
ONE WHO REFUSED THE OATH
For three days we loafed around the quarantine camp, and had our final
examination and then moved along to the detention camp. Here we were sworn
into the service and received a part of our uniform. One fellow refused
to take the oath, on the grounds that he was pretty intoxicated when he
enlisted, which was a pretty lame excuse in war time. I wouldn't go through
what he went through for anything. They dragged him all over the place;
hospital men painted him in iodine from head to foot; wrapped his feet
in blankets; then they made him carry a white flag through the camp with
a howling mob at his heels kicking and jabbing at him. They tore his clothes
to shreds. Then they brought him down to the pier where the water was filthy
and ducked him for fully fifteen minutes. Finally they took him aboard
a navy cutter and stranded him on one of the islands. I never heard how
he made out ~his only chance was to swim to the mainland.
Gus Gulberg, A War Diary
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