[Polynikes]

As painful and exhausting as that probably was, you're a better man for having gone through it.

And that dude sounds like a good guy.

My first platoon sergeant is the greatest man I've ever known.

I pissed him off one day and he thrashed me so hard that I ended up hypoglycemic and unresponsive for a few minutes.

I remember waking up on the floor at the armory and I had cramps in my intestines. My tongue and neck were both cramping too.

It started that day at about 0800 and lasted until about 1900.

I did calisthenics all day...nonstop...no food...no water...no nothing...

I was doing star jumpers (burpee with a jump at the end) with dive flippers on my hands...And not the SCUBA dive kind, but the Marine Combat Dive kind (ScubaPro size Larges).

I had to clap them above my head at the peak of my jump.

I was doing pushups with feet elevated and sand bags on my back, and he was kicking me in the ribs and shit.

I was doing bodyweight squats and he was shoving me on my ass while I was at the bottom of the squat.

Then, he'd yell at me to get up off my ass.

This was in the heat of Okinawa, Japan too.

He was killing me.

I honestly thought there was a chance that I might die that day.

After a few hours of this, I realized that he was trying to break me.

He was taunting me with IV bags.

He was like, "XXXXXXX, you want this bag of ringer? Here's a bag of liquid heart rate regulation for you. You want it? I'll give it to you if you want it. You'll get to lie there on your ass for a few minutes and get a break if you want it. Come on and let me give it to you. Think of how cold it will be going into that arm of yours that is no doubt pretty damn warm right now."

It became personal to me. I felt like I was truly challenged...physically...for the first time in my life. It wasn't a track meet where I was going for a ribbon or something, it was competition that was much deeper and much more personal. Who cares about taking a ribbon from someone when you can burn a ribbon in the fireplace? This was a battle of my physical being versus another man's mind.

I told him to get the bags the fuck out of my face because I wasn't anywhere near done yet. I told him he couldn't finish me, and that if he was in my shoes he'd have quit a long time ago. I told him that at the end of this if I could still stand I was going to kill him.

The last time he offered me an IV bag, he told me that if I took the bag he'd leave me alone, but if I didn't take it, he was going to thrash me like this every day until we left for our deployment (which was a month or more away).

I told him he better get creative because I was getting bored.

He turned and walked away to put up the bag and I saw him trying to fight off a smile.

I tried so hard to earn his respect...we all did...and I fucking got it.

Finally, we ended up in the armory where everyone else in my platoon was getting out their weapons for some maintence.

(All of this thrashing was taking place in front of my platoon. We had a bunch of errands to run that day, and I was just off to the side thrashing. It was basically a way to show everyone that if you pissed off Gunny D., you were going to pay, and I believe that he kept it going in front of everyone because he wanted them to see what he wanted from his boys, and that was never quitting.)


So, I'm laying on the floor and I can't move my body because everything has cramped so badly that I was immobile. I'd try to stand up, but cramps controlled my legs and my back, so I'd try to lean on something to help me stand, and whatever part of my body touching the wall or whatever would cramp too...and I kept falling down and shit...

He finally leaned over me and goes, "Doc XXXXXXX, get XXXXXXX some grapefruit juice and a candy bar...Everyone turn in your guns."

Everyone else was now getting their stuff together and not paying us any attention and he leans in close to me and goes, "You better drink water tonight because tomorrow is going to be worse than this."

I tried to talk and my tongue was curling up and shit.




Long story short...

The next day I come hobbling into the hooch and he takes me to the side and goes, "You ready to thrash?"

"Yep."

"You're a man XXXXXXX. I don't need anything else from you. Get out there and get to work with your team at the boat locker. Ya'll are packing up some boats today and putting them in storage until the MEU."

"Roger that."

"XXXXXXX."

"Yeah Gunny?"

"Don't ever forget that there's never going to be a reason to quit anything that you've started. There's never going to be a reason for it. No matter what happens, if you've thought something through and it's worth doing, it's worth finishing."


And that entire situation has driven me through my pre-med curriculum, and when I start medical school in 2 months, it will get me through that as well.

He is single-handidly responsible for re-wiring my brain.

[King Kabuki]

Nice, I look at my trainer in the same way. He's not the first genuine hardass I've ever met, that'd have to be my Corpsman Grandfather with the bullet crater in his leg, first male relative to literally put a boot between my ass cheeks. I often refer to him because he first taught me both to throw punches, and wrestle, but he was Irish, a drunk, and racist in that old school way. So I'd hear "A'right boi firs yah get 'im in the Injun grip, then yah ride 'im like a Chinaman!"

But my trainer Mike, he's Jamaican and just the other day he told me a bit about myself. He said I'm the kind of guy who you have to go through Hell to earn his loyalty, but once you have it you can't get rid of it. He also said he knows that in our sessions I get very frustrated, with myself and sometimes with him. I told him I like how he pushes me because things get done. He said "Ah know you be gettin' upset an' shit, and I dun give a fuck. Ah poosh you 'cause ah know you can do what ahm axin'." Probably one of the most definitive characteristics about him is when he puts us on the focus mitts. He has a habit of ignoring the bell to end the round. He wants you to hit the wall, to swing until you can't swing anymore. He wants to see if you can go to that other place, when you go from man to machine.

Want an idea how intense he was in his Prime? Here he is with what's called one of the greatest left-hook knockouts in Boxing History. But check out the staredown before the fight begins (his footage starts at about the 1:08 mark after this goof stops talking about how great he is):

YouTube - BoxingInfo Greatest Left Hook KO

That's the guy I get tortured by on a routine basis.

Mr. Mike McCallum.

[mschatz]

Tough to talk much shit to somebody who's had it MUCH harder than you. I had severely sprained my ankle playing basketball back in high school, and was limping along like a gimp. I went to a friends house of mine, whose Dad had fought as a sniper in one of the bosian/serbian wars. He asked me why I was limping, and I rolled up my pant leg to further illustrate how damaged I was.

He said, "wow, that looks pretty bad. Let me show you mine."

He rolled up his pant leg to show a softball sized crater from ankle to calf where he had been hit by mortar. As you can imagine, I stopped bitching right quick.

[Polynikes]

You train with Mike McCallum?

LOL

That guy was an animal.

[NinjaKilla187]

Originally Posted by Polynikes

As painful and exhausting as that probably was, you're a better man for having gone through it.

"Yeah Gunny?"

"Don't ever forget that there's never going to be a reason to quit anything that you've started. There's never going to be a reason for it. No matter what happens, if you've thought something through and it's worth doing, it's worth finishing."


And that entire situation has driven me through my pre-med curriculum, and when I start medical school in 2 months, it will get me through that as well.

He is single-handidly responsible for re-wiring my brain.

I've gotten to where I don't even tell these kinds of stories to civilians. They either don't get it or they think you are just talking shit. The world is full of genuinely tough guys who think that two-a-days back in HS football was some seriously hardcore shit and that going to cardio kickboxing twice a week makes them a badass.

And many of them think that the kind of training you describe is just pointless hazing and harrasment. They have never known men who would rather force march 25 miles on a broken foot with 100 pounds of shit on their back than fall out and ride in a truck that is just feet away from them the whole time.

[King Kabuki]

You train with Mike McCallum?

LOL

That guy was an animal.

I do, and he'd be delighted to know he's remembered.

There is a dude in our Gym who is the resident shit-talker. Mike doesn't care for him much. Once he had the radio up so loud no one could think. So Mike went an asked him to turn it down and the dude popped an attitude. He said to Mike "man you betta watch that shit, I know you was a Fighta but I'm street."

Mike said:

"STREET!?!? Muddafucka whatchoo tink I fall out da fuckin' sky an' win da mufuckin' Championship!?! Tink I come from a fuckin' Palace ah some shit?"

The dude quickly shut the radio off.

[IronMaidenfan#1]

I've skimmed past this thread so many times and not looked in it. lol, that article was the shit and very true.

[ThePitBull32]

That's my alma mater..We had a great gym, but a lot of tools filled it up. Mostly pre-spring break to pump the gunz. Once I even got yelled at by the personal trainers for deadlifting...they didn't want me to drop heavy weight on the ground, so I had to put towels on the ground!

[vince89]

*throws dirt on this thread*

[JinKazama]

awesome thread