“Good evening ladies, good evening gentlemen! LCpl McMickinson reports Building 555 Squad Bay A2 all secure at this time. The count on deck is one (1) USCM Marine and zero (0) USCM footlockers all properly secured! There is nothing new or unusual to report at this time!”
“Carry on!”
“Carry on, aye-aye sir! Good evening ladies, good evening gentlemen!”
*cuts salute
The title is sadly true. I was unable to finish my training in boot camp due to a medical condition discovered about halfway into the training schedule, and thus I will unfortunately not earn the title of Marine. Foot conditions tend to be a very quick way to get ELS’d (Entry Level Separated–the recruit version of a discharge).
During my time recovering in the Medical Recovery Platoon I decided it would be fun to write my post as a letter to the CM playerbase explaining my situation, including a handy diagram to give an idea of what was wrong with me.
I will be returning to play my beloved CM once more. I heard Charlie is endangered and I am here to save it from extinction!
Feel free to ask questions in this thread. If anyone asks me about it in-game I will most likely point them here because it sucked having to re-explain it to every person I met for the month or so that I spent on depot after transferring out of my Training Company.
how did you come to obtain this condition? its supposed to be treatable according to what i’ve seen…. do you still get discharged even if it can be reversed?
Welcome back, Charlie Squad felt a bit empty without you. Came back from my own mini-haitus and was wondering why the purple hat south of the hanger wasn’t picked up.
The condition is due to the way the bones in my big toe on my right foot grew throughout my life. On my foot Xray you can see bone spurs on the sides of the connection between the “knuckle” of the big toe bones that apparently cause the limited range of motion. I’ve always had it as far back as I know, but I just didn’t know it was a “condition” and figured it was normal. I didn’t even go to medical originally for the foot–I went to get a lung Xray for pneumonia after Swim Week and decided to kill two birds with one stone since the foot pain hadn’t gone away after a few days like it normally had earlier in training.
As for treatment, the stress on the metatarsal didn’t get bad enough to turn into a fracture so I was able to rest it back into good health. The halux limitus, according to the doctor, was only treatable with invasive surgery that would have had a tremendous recovery time, so I would have been dropped from my company into MRP (Medical Recovery Platoon) for several months only to resume my training at a similar position in the cycle to where I left it. Unfortunately, in MRP you don’t get much if any exercise so people recovering there tend to waste away. When you recover enough in MRP you get phased up to PCP (Physical Conditioning Platoon, I think it stands for) where you get light exercise to prepare yourself to go back into training companies. To leave PCP you have to pass an ISA (Initial Strength Assessment–pull-ups, plank, 1.5 mile run) before they will put you in whichever company is nearest the T-day you were dropped. I was not willing to extend my time there to that degree. Parts of boot camp were fun, but not that fun. Most of the guys I met from MRP or PCP that stayed longer than a month or so ended up being sent home. I think the recovery process they provide on the depot is much more effective for short-term recovery.
The foot is doing just fine. I had time to properly recover. I can exercise with it fine since I don’t replicate the pace and volume of marching and running while at home compared to boot camp. I went on a run this morning with no issues.
All in all I’m glad to be back. There is disappointment, sure, but I got a lot of good out of the whole experience so I am sticking to the bright side of it and moving forward with confidence.
No. I shot my bolt and missed my target for the Marine Corps. The max age of enlistment here without a waiver is 28, and I turned 29 in boot camp in early September. I would also run into the same issues as I faced with the foot because of the amount of running and marching you do in Marine boot camp. If I decide to go military in the future my best bet would be Navy since I got a fantastic score on the ASVAB (96/100) and I can pursue the same MOS I would have done in the Marines but for the Navy instead if I choose that route. For now my plan is to stick to my civilian job I was doing before boot camp: bookkeeping. It pays very well, especially compared to the military where your pay is based on your rank and not your billet, but I left bookkeeping because I wanted to work with my hands and also because it’s so very boring. I actually got a new client lined up last week while still at MCRD San Diego so I am in a solid position for work when I get back to it later on this week. I just gotta take a little time for a day or two to recover and rehabilitate myself from recruit habits that they instill in you during training. There are few things better than getting back from boot camp and taking that first hot shower where you aren’t being rushed by 103 other naked dudes as the drill instructor rapidly counts down from 400 until you all have to be in dressed and on line by your rack.
I was injured during bootcamp and had to thug it out for a few months, so I can understand where you are coming from to some extent about your situation.
I see that you are considering the Navy as an alternative. With that in mind, I have to ask if you have taken a look at the Coast Guard. Despite the memes and all the criticism we get, the Coast Guard sees a lot of operational work and has a pretty high quality of life compared to the other branches, rivaled only by the air force.
Damn fine score. I am sorry you were discharged. I always though bone spurs were a myth people used to get out of service. Mind you this was stories from Vietnam. You returned when Charlie needed you most.
I hadn’t considered it since I didn’t think I would be interested in any of the usual jobs the Coast Guard offers, but I will look into it when I look into the Navy later on. I was mostly thinking the Navy because the physical requirements are far less demanding than the other branches minus the Air Force, but with Air Force I would end up sitting in a chair stationed at some base in the continental US, which is not what I want. I wanted to join the Marines to get off my ass and work with my hands while learning new skills, not continue to sit on my ass in front of a computer screen but while being paid less and working longer hours.
