To Hell and Back
Copyright© 2025 by Megumi Kashuahara
Chapter 2: Forged
The bus pulled through the gates of Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island at 0200 hours. Kirstie pressed her face against the window, trying to see through the darkness and Spanish moss that hung from ancient oak trees like warnings. Beside her, a girl who’d introduced herself as Jessica from New Jersey was crying quietly. Across the aisle, two young men who’d been joking and confident during the flight from Des Moines now sat in rigid silence.
The bus stopped.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then the door hissed open, and hell walked aboard.
“GET OFF MY BUS! MOVE MOVE MOVE! YOU HAVE THIRTY SECONDS TO GET YOUR SORRY CIVILIAN ASSES ON THOSE YELLOW FOOTPRINTS OR SO HELP ME GOD—”
Kirstie didn’t remember moving. One second she was in her seat, the next she was stumbling down the bus steps in a crush of bodies, the humid South Carolina air hitting her like a wet blanket. Screaming surrounded her from all sides—Drill Instructors in Smokey Bear hats bellowing instructions that contradicted each other, creating chaos by design.
“YELLOW FOOTPRINTS! FIND THEM! NOW!”
Kirstie’s feet found the painted yellow footprints on the asphalt—size, stance, position all dictated by paint on pavement. She snapped to the position of attention like her father had taught her, heels together, feet at a forty-five-degree angle, arms at her sides. Around her, others scrambled and fumbled, some finding footprints, others still lost.
A Drill Instructor appeared in front of her, his face inches from hers. She could smell coffee and rage.
“What are you looking at, recruit?”
“Nothing, sir!” Kirstie kept her eyes forward.
“NOTHING? You see NOTHING? I’m standing right here and you see NOTHING?”
“This recruit sees nothing, sir!”
“Wrong! I’m not a SIR! I work for a living! You will address me as Drill Instructor! Do you understand?”
“Yes, Drill Instructor!”
He moved on, finding fresh prey. Kirstie kept her eyes forward, her jaw clenched, remembering her father’s words before she’d left: They’re going to break you down to build you back up. It’s theater. Controlled chaos. Don’t take it personally, but take it seriously.
The night blurred into a nightmare of processing. They were herded into a building where civilian clothes were stripped away and sealed in boxes to be shipped home. Kirstie handed over her cell phone—her last connection to her family, to Sam’s encouraging texts, to Ellie’s tearful goodbye messages. She stood in line in her underwear, surrounded by dozens of other young women, all of them looking terrified and exposed.
“Keep your eyes forward, recruit! There’s nothing to see that you don’t have yourself!”
Hair came next. Kirstie watched her shoulder-length blonde hair fall to the floor in chunks, the clippers buzzing against her skull. In the mirror, a stranger stared back—a girl with a severe haircut and hollow eyes, already looking harder than the farm girl who’d left Iowa three weeks ago.
They were issued uniforms—camouflage utility uniforms that smelled like starch and plastic, boots that were stiff and unforgiving, and a series of items whose purposes would be explained later. Everything had to be stenciled with their names. Roberts, K. M. Those three elements—last name, first initial, middle initial—would be her identity for the next thirteen weeks.
By the time they were marched to their squad bay, the sun was rising. Kirstie had been awake for twenty-four hours straight. The Drill Instructors didn’t care.
“You have thirty seconds to get into your racks! MOVE!”
Kirstie found a bunk—top rack, middle of the squad bay—and climbed in fully clothed, not bothering to remove her boots. Around her, sixty other recruits were doing the same. She’d just closed her eyes when—
“REVEILLE REVEILLE REVEILLE! GET UP! YOU HAVE SIXTY SECONDS TO BE ON LINE IN PT GEAR! MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!”
Welcome to boot camp.
Week One: Forming
The first week was designed to break them. Kirstie understood that intellectually, but understanding it didn’t make it easier to endure.
They were taught how to stand (position of attention), how to walk (marching), how to talk (sir/ma’am sandwich: “Sir, yes sir” or “Ma’am, no ma’am”), and how to exist (at the absolute discretion of their Drill Instructors). Every action was prescribed, every moment accounted for. They learned to move as one—a platoon of sixty recruits who would succeed or fail together.
Senior Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Reyes was their god. A compact woman with eyes like flint and a voice that could strip paint, she had fifteen years in the Corps and zero tolerance for weakness. She paced the squad bay like a predator, finding every mistake, every hesitation, every moment of doubt.
“Roberts! You think those boots are shined? My grandmother could see better than that and she’s been dead ten years! Do it again!”
“Yes, ma’am!”
Kirstie learned to shine boots until she could see her reflection, learned to fold skivvies into perfect six-inch squares, learned to make her rack so tight a quarter would bounce on it. She learned that everything was a test—how you stood at attention during uniform inspection, how quickly you responded to a command, whether you helped your fellow recruit when they struggled or looked away.
The physical training was brutal. They ran everywhere—to chow, to classes, to the head (never call it a bathroom). They did pull-ups until their arms screamed, crunches until their abs burned, push-ups until they collapsed. The humidity made everything worse, turning their uniforms into sodden rags, making every breath feel like drowning.
Kirstie discovered she was strong—stronger than many of the other recruits. Farm work had built muscle and endurance that city girls didn’t have. But there were always recruits stronger, always someone faster, always another standard to meet.
“Roberts! You think you’re hot shit because you can do fifteen pull-ups? Jones over there just did twenty! You will do twenty-one or you will hang there until you die! MOVE!”
So she did twenty-one. And then twenty-two, because doing exactly what was asked was never enough.
Jessica from New Jersey washed out in week one, sobbing as she was escorted off the depot. Three others went with her—medical drops, mental health concerns, or simply the realization that they’d made a terrible mistake. Kirstie watched them go and felt only relief that she wasn’t among them.
I will not quit, she told herself every night as she collapsed into her rack. I will not fail. I will become a Marine.
Week Three: The Crucible Begins
By week three, the initial shock had worn off, replaced by a grinding determination. The platoon was beginning to function as a unit. They marched in step, responded to commands with precision, and had learned the strange truth that the Marine Corps was simultaneously the most rigid and the most efficient organization they’d ever encountered.
Kirstie had found her place in the social hierarchy. Not a leader—those spots went to the recruits who naturally commanded attention—but solid. Dependable. The kind of Marine you wanted in your firete because she wouldn’t quit and wouldn’t let you quit either.
She’d made one friend: Recruit Martinez from Texas, a wiry girl with a dark sense of humor who could run forever and shot expert on the rifle range. They’d bonded during a particularly brutal PT session when they’d been the last two still doing burpees after everyone else had collapsed.
“Roberts, you’re either stupid or stubborn,” Martinez had gasped.
“Both,” Kirstie had replied, and kept going.
The rifle range was where Kirstie excelled. Her father had taught her to shoot as a girl—deer hunting in Iowa, target practice with Sam, the weight and responsibility of a firearm impressed upon her from a young age. The M16A4 service rifle felt natural in her hands, the fundamentals coming back easily.
“Roberts! Stop making love to that rifle and SHOOT!”
She qualified expert, hitting forty out of forty targets at distances from two hundred to five hundred yards. Staff Sergeant Reyes actually smiled—briefly, like the sun breaking through storm clouds—and Kirstie felt a surge of pride that carried her through the next week of misery.
But boot camp wasn’t just about physical skills. They studied Marine Corps history, learned about battles from Belleau Wood to Fallujah, memorized the names of Medal of Honor recipients. They learned first aid, land navigation, chemical warfare defense. They learned that being a Marine was about more than shooting straight—it was about being part of a warrior tradition stretching back 248 years.
One night, during a rare moment of quiet in the squad bay, Martinez asked the question they’d all been avoiding.
“You think they’ll send us to Afghanistan?”
The squad bay went silent. Every recruit knew the reality: they were joining during wartime. Some of them—maybe all of them—would deploy to a combat zone. Some might not come home.
“Yeah,” Kirstie said quietly. “I think they will.”
“You scared?”
Kirstie thought about it. “Yes. But I’m more scared of wasting this chance. Of getting this far and not following through.”
“Hoorah to that,” someone said from across the squad bay, and others murmured agreement.
Staff Sergeant Reyes appeared in the hatchway like a ghost. “Lights out was five minutes ago. You recruits got something you need to discuss with me?”
“No, ma’am!” they chorused.
“Outstanding. Because if I hear one more word, you’ll all be doing burpees until sunrise. Sleep now. Tomorrow you run the confidence course, and I guarantee at least three of you will fall off the rope obstacle and land on your stupid faces. I’m betting on you, Roberts. Don’t disappoint me.”
“This recruit will not fall, ma’am.”
“We’ll see.”
Kirstie didn’t fall. None of them did. They were learning.
Week Seven: The Gas Chamber
The gas chamber was every recruit’s nightmare, and it lived up to the hype.
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