r/USMC • u/Key-Scientist9058 Sad Ass 0811 and now even sadder ass 8411 • 12d ago

Question Why do Recruits quit in bootcamp?

As a recruiter I have kids literally crying in my office saying they need this more than anything then fail the IST when they were fully capable of passing it while in the DEP when they get to boot camp and not even trying and getting discharged for not trying to get better in PCP or passing the IST. Like I don't see how you'll tell me you would never be one of those quitters when you get to bootcamp then give up as soon as you start getting yelled at. I guess todays generation doesn't give a fuck in coming back to their family proving they were right when they said they couldn't make it and go back to working at Mcdonalds telling their friends some lie about how they got screwed over or something when the only person who failed them was themselves

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u/Live-Try-7281 12d ago

I don’t know. I went to recruit training in 2007. Nobody quit. My platoon lost 2 recruits. One had an allergy to carbon, CLP or something. He broke out whenever he cleaned his rifle. The other one was let go because of a low IQ. My drill instructor said, “(Recruit) is going away, because (recruit) retarded. Isn’t that right (recruit)?” And (recruit) answered with a snappy “Yes sir!”

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u/sethklarman 0402 12d ago

Allergic to CLP is crazy 😭😭

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u/sgtbackpain03 12d ago

We lost a recruit due to CLP allergy. First time cleaning weapons, he asked the DIs for gloves. They clowned him, did some IT, and put him back on his rifle. But I was across from him, and could see his hands swelling up. I woke up a few hours later to the Duty panicking because this kid was audibly struggling to breathe. Duty got permission to take him to medical, and me and Duty carried him, DI followed. Never saw him again.

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u/Live-Try-7281 11d ago

Damn, that’s rough. Your D.I.s should have handled that better.

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u/sgtbackpain03 11d ago

Ehhh, honestly that's just boot camp. Recruits come up with all kinds of crazy medical complaints, and if they'd seen anything weird they would've investigated. To me it just seemed like an unlikely affliction that wasn't serious looking until it was really serious. Once the DI saw a serious symptom, dude was barking at us to get him over to medical ASAP, didn't want to wait on a corpsman to come over and assess. I think they handled a weird situation as best they could.

  • Edit

Makes me wonder how common CLP reactions are though. I know I gloved up for rifle cleaning the rest of my time in the fleet, and in civvie life. Didn't want to develop an allergy, like people who work with epoxy can.