You only went to two places for Marine boot camp. One was in California and the other was in South Carolina . All recruits east of the Mississippi went to "PI."
I was a 17-year-old smart a-- who thought he knew everything. I'll show them, I said! Boy, was I wrong! There was physical training that I thought would never end, teaching sessions, rifle drill, marching and running. We ran everywhere. There wasn't much "funny" going on. They (the DIs) were getting us ready for a place called Vietnam. I'd never heard of it and thought of it like embassy duty in Japan or some other foreign place.
Anyway, we had a West Virginia kid in our platoon named William Hill. He was lanky, maybe 6'1, and skinny, could run like a deer but not march in step, could shoot the eyes out of a squirrel at 100 yards. You know the type. Once a week we would get mail call and the DI would call your name out. So he called out William Hill. Hill he would shout, then Hill-Billy. Well that did it - from then on he was Hillbilly, not William Hill. Pretty soon when the DI called on Hill for something he would report and say "Sir, Pvt. HillyBilly reporting as ordered, sir!" The rest of us would crack up over this; the DI would scream at us to shut up but we'd still be grinning as we did bends and thrusts as punishment. One of the little joys of boot camp!

Christian Roberts
Horace Orr Post 29
Marietta, Ga.