GRAPE KOOL-AID GRAVY
This is one of the many stories from my recently completed autobiography titled "Private Funny Man". I went to Parris Island in the summer of 1962 and ended up in PLT 366. This story is about my first meal after they picked us up at the Reception Barracks.
The book covers my time in the Marines (including Vietnam), and later 24 1/2 years in the US Army Reserves (Grenada, Panama, Desert Storm, Honduras, Egypt, Haiti and Bosnia).
After getting our hair cut, uniforms and 782 gear we were chased outside to get in a formation and marched off into the nearly 100 degree heat.
The not-so-in-step formation came to a stop in front of a building, and we lined up all our new gear in a semblance of a straight line. Then the DI began yelling for us to get into another line at the door.
We had arrived at the mess hall and were to have our first real Parris Island Marine Corps Meal.
As we went through the door, we had to bunch up “a** hole to belly button,” or as close as possible. As soon as the guy in front of you moved, you had to move also.
We got a large metal tray that had divided sections for different types of food to go in, then had to face the serving line with the tray pressed up against our chest and start side stepping down the line.
Once we got to the first server, we would hold out our tray and he would slap whatever he was serving into one of the separated compartments. It didn’t matter if they were serving something you liked or hated, it got slapped onto your tray.
Of course, at the same time this was going on, the DI's were yelling and shoving us along.
Once you had your tray filled, we had to grab some silverware and then speed walk to the long metal tables pointed out by one of the DI's. We were told to SIT! EAT! DON’T SPEAK!
The guy who sat down directly across from me was a little overweight, and I later learned was from upstate New York. He looked like he was about to have a heat stroke. His face was beet red and sweat was pouring down his face.
Instead of eating, he spied the large jug of grape Kool-Aid that was sitting in the middle of the table. He grabbed a white coffee cup that we used to drink from and filled it to the top. He then chugged it to the bottom, refilled, and chugged again, and then again, and then one more time.
All of a sudden, he got this strange look on his face and threw up grape colored puke into his tray full of food.
Now everyone around him was trying to not also puke.
Out of the blue, Cpl. Goins is there with a very large spoon and cracks the kid on the top of his head. He hands the kid the spoon and tells him to EAT IT! The kid asked if he could get another tray—not a good start for him.
“HELL NO! JUST PRETEND IT IS GRAPE KOOL-AID GRAVY!” So the poor guy starts trying to eat and the rest of us try not to throw up and quickly ate. It seemed like just a few seconds had passed when the DI's started yelling for us to get up and get outside and into formation.
We jumped up and went through the line going by the garbage cans so we could scrape our trays and then put the silverware in separate trays, paper into a separate garbage can, and the tray on a large counter.
Then we flew out the door to stand by our sea bags and other gear. Thus ended one of my first ‘boot camp’, and probably worst, meals in the Marine Corps.
