OK. So you read the title… And I bet you were thinking that you were going to read something witty and/or sexual… well you are wrong. Not tonight… I’m not going to be talking about 69’s or my amazing abilities between the sheets. Maybe some other time (Ok I guess that was kind of witty).

That’s not humping… It has many names but humping isn’t one of them. Humping is something Marines do (ok stop and laugh now… get it out of your system before you read any further). Humping… is force marching… usually in full combat gear…

You are first introduced to humping in the second phase of boot camp. You hump everywhere… to the ranges mostly… Then later on you do a long (12 miles?) hump when you go to the field to stay in the field, and then again back out…

But I am going to talk about a specific hump… It was at the end of SOI (School Of Infantry). And it is 25 miles… You do this hump in less than 8 hours. It is a requirement to get through SOI. It is one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. Now… it’s not the only 25 mile hump I did, but it was the first one.  Everyone knows that firsts are special, and you never forget them.

So you get up in what is basically the middle of the night (so that the sun is not beating on you the whole time).  You put on your camies, dress socks underneath boot socks (helps to keep the blisters at bay a bit longer), lace up your combat boots, strap on your H harness which holds your canteens, magazines for your m16, and a first aid kit.  Next you throw on your Alice pack which weighs somewhere between 35-45 pounds full of gear.  Then you put on your brain bucket (That is the 3 pound Kevlar Helmet and yeah 3 pounds doesn’t sound like much, till you put it on your head for 8 hours and feel it literally rubbing the skin off your head, which is a combination of massive itching and pain)..  But of course you aren’t done at that point, because you still need to sling your 8 pound m16 over your shoulder.

One thing you learn quick in the Marine Corps is that it is always ’Hurry Up and Wait’.  So you get your gear all on with a quickness and go out into formation, but then you stand there and wait what seems like forever for the ’higher ups’ to get all the last minute details sorted out and be ready to go.  At some point you finally take off.  The whole ordeal is a mental struggle, and you have to be tough and have some serious tenacity to make it through it.

So you first start out and your legs start building up lactic acid shortly in.  They start burning from holding all this weight and walking in long strides.  But you are barely into the beginning of the hump at this point, so you start thinking ’how the heck am I going to last 25 miles when my legs are already screaming at me to stop?’  But you continue on step after step, right behind the Marine in front of you, as close as you can get.

Soon you figure out that you are very unlucky to be at the back of the column behind hundreds of other Marines.  Because what starts happening is some weak bastard starts falling back, this creates a gap in the line.  Then he will sort of try to run (It’s hard to run with all that gear on) to catch back up to the Marine in front of him.  Be really unlucky like me and you get this fool right in front of you.  Which means when he runs to catch back up, now you have a gap in front of you!  And then of course the instructors don’t catch him… Nope they see the gap with you behind it.  And they assume you caused the gap.  So you have them harping on you to catch back up… but of course they also say ’don’t run’.  And you are thinking, ’No shit huh… I am trying to catch back up without running’.  Because you know that if you run like the moron in front of you, you will not only be tired, but also out of breath, and there is no way you make it 25 miles doing that the whole time.  It’s much easier to keep a steady pace and keep moving forward.

A bit longer and your shoulders start to ache.  All the weight pulling on them takes its toll and your ’traps’ start to cramp up, but there is nothing you can do about that because you have to keep going and you know that adjusting your gear now is only going to make you adjust your gear constantly over the next 22 miles.  And you don’t want that, so you ignore it and keep on.

Now at this point you feel no thirst but you notice that everything on you is soaking wet with your sweat.  And that means you need to drink, so you reach for a canteen to take a few sips, but it throws off your steps more than you would think to accomplish un-strapping a canteen taking off the lid and tipping your head for a few sips.  When you get that first sip though, you get a sudden urge to just drink the whole canteen.  But you know better, you know you don’t want to deal with stomach cramps on top of everything else so you take a few sips and seal the canteen back up and snap it back in.

You now realize that the burning has come back in your legs because you have altered the hypnotic trance they were in when you made adjustments to take a drink.  So you decide to push through that, but of course you just came to the bottom of a huge friggen hill.  ’Don’t look up’ you think to yourself and you plant your eyes at the ground behind the Marine in front of you and start the climb.  And if you thought your legs were burning before, you have a whole new attitude on what pain is now.

At some point you start thinking ’We have to be near the top by now’ and you of course decide to look up and see how close you are.  But you are not even half way yet.  That is a crushing blow to your mental toughness.  It’s time to dig deep suck it up, grunt through the pain and not friggen look up AGAIN!

Just when you think you cannot take the burning pain in your legs any longer from climbing this hill you get a sudden relief as the incline starts to change.  You were smart enough to not look up again so you didn’t even know you were approaching the top of the hill.  It is the relief of pain in your legs that gives it away and you then look up.  Yep.. at the top!  That is a great feeling, because you have just made your first hill, but then you remember that you have to do this at least 15-20 more times.  There are a lot of hills to climb.

If you are like me, you find out rather quickly that going back down the hill is more damaging than going up it.  While it did burn your muscles to go up the hill, going down it starts causing pain in your knees and ankles from the impact each step, and this isn’t a good pain.  This is not burning muscles, will go away in a few days pain, it is pain that will stick with you for the rest of your life.  At 17 years old you are already ruining your knees.  You start thinking about how many times you have to do this.  You start asking yourself if it is worth it.  But you know it is, completing this obstacle is going to make you a better person in life.

At some point the huge column of Marines stops for a break.  You are about 10 miles into the hump.  It has been a few hours.  Your feet are hurting.  You now have to make a decision on whether or not to drop your pack.  You know that doing so will give you some relief but then when you put it back on it will be that much worse.  But you decide you need a break and you drop your pack and take a seat.  You pull out a fresh pair of socks and take off your boots and your first pair of sweat soaked socks.  You take out some foot powder and dump it on your feet.  You see (and feel) a few large red spots on your feet which you know will turn into blisters.  There is no getting around that.  You put on your new socks and the dryness of them feels good.  But then you put your boots back on and that doesn’t feel so good.

You get your pack back on with the help of another Marine, and then help him put his pack on.  You take a few sips of water now thinking you won’t have to do it while you are walking (but you will anyway).  And soon the column starts moving again.

By now you get the idea.  Every mile it gets worse.  Humps suck.  The 25 mile hump REALLY sucks.  There are a lot of times during the hump when the thought may cross your mind of dropping out.  You see other Marines dropping out and getting picked up by the Humvees.  But you know that dropping out means you are a failure.  You will have to do this again anyway if you drop out, and you have already made it this far so why start over again?

The smart Marine digs deep, sucks it up and completes the hump.  The feeling of satisfaction you get when you complete the hump is amazing.  The disappointment and regret of dropping out is disgusting.

What was the point to this story?  Well as always it is about life.  Life is like a series of Humps.  Some are longer and harder than others.  But many of them it is much smarter to stick with and make it through and to not DROP OUT.  Dropping out means you have to start over.  They aren’t going to let you back in to complete the hump you have dropped out of.  You have to start over again and possibly with a new unit.  That means you have to get to know all the new Marines you will be going on the next hump with.  All the time invested with the old Marines is wasted.

You might find out that the new Marines aren’t as good as the old ones.  You might find yourself regretting that you left your old unit all because you couldn’t stick it out with them.  You GAVE UP.  You might find out that your new unit is not as good as the old one.  And wishing you could be with your old unit again.  But once you gave up on them they won’t want you back.  And worst of all, you will find out that once you give up once it makes it easier for you to give up again.  It makes it HARDER to stick with it next time.

You find out that giving up is worse than sticking with it, you find out that no matter how hard something is, when you complete it, it was worth the effort it took to get through it.

Take what you want from this.  Some Marines might read this and their reaction will be ’what a wimp, that guy was no Marine, suck it up, stop complaining.’ That would have been my reaction to reading something like this 12 years ago.  That’s ok MOST Marines are stupid, I could give a shit what they think.  Been there DONE THAT.

Some people will read this and get nothing out of it at all.  That’s fine, I guess you just wasted your time reading something worthless.

Someone (or maybe a few people) will read this and get something out of it.  And that is why I write.  For those few people who my writing effects.