Parris Island - 6 April 2002

Some of what your about to view will be familiar. Much of it will not be, for so much has changed on Parris Island since your probable last visit. Such would assuredly be true of anyone a member of "G" Company, 2nd Battalion, 6th Marines during the early 1960's.
None the less: U.S. Marine Corps Recruit Training Center, Parris Island, South Carolina was where our life as Marines began. It remains, along with the Corp's RTC in San Diego, California and Quantico, Virginia, one of the three "wombs" from whence all Marines are first nurtured and cast into the world.
The pictures you see below were taken on 6 April 2002, one day shy of my first arrival there back in 1959.

Just mouse click on any of the following photos to see full sized versions!!!!!!

Map of Hell		Isthmus Access to PI
	*Main Street*
Barracks for the 2nd Battalion or college dorms?	The Long Green Line	Still Use Hand Washracks
	*Elliot's Beach -* *Rifle Range*
Buffardi's Pistol Range	Safety Rules	Newer Classrooms
"All ready....	...on the firing line...	...FIRE!!!!"

	Remember that week in the butts. Being directed to lower 'em, find the hole, send 'em back up and mark 'em for the shooter with the pole and disk. If they'd missed, you gave the shooter a red flag waving "maggie's drawers". Then, you would again lower them, patch 'em with the appropriate black or white patch and send 'em back up for the next shot.

Area Set Aside?	For Whom???	Oh, ...the failures.

	I was taking a picture of the tree, with Spanish moss, when I saw the distortion in a shadow made by the chin up bars to my left. It seems like there's still a need for the "Fat Man's" Platoon

Back to Mainland	Nothing could have prepared me for the reaction I had as I stood on the Parade Field I'd marched on forty years before . I stood watching and listening for some fifty minutes, reliving my own experience...and yours. The uniforms were a bit different; but the facial expressions, the endless cacophonous rantings of "yes, "no" and "aye, aye" sirs remained the same. The men I watched that afternoon were becoming Marines, as assuredly as the tens of thousands that have preceded them. Oooorah!!!

If anyone has photos of life and the environs of Parris Island from the days of yore or some of more recent fare, just contact the editor at Site Webmaster and we'll be sure to include them in the above array or as an addendum, with credit for same being given to you. Semper Fi.