American Veteran

EDWARD FIELD: I flew with B-17 bombers.

I was navigator.

I volunteered for missions because I couldn't stop.

It was just too exciting.

C.J.

SCARLET: I took it as a badge of honor that I was going to join the ranks like my father, my brother, and my uncles.

I quickly learned that there is a very stark line between before boot camp and after boot camp, and you are never the same.

We cried, we laughed, we killed.

We did everything together.

And for one another.

MITCHELENE BIGMAN: I have a brother that was also in the service, but he was one of those that wouldn't talk about what he went through.

And he said, you know, "You don't think about it until you get home."

You know, we're professors, we're firemen, we're mayors, we work at Home Depot, we deliver the mail.

I mean, we are your neighbors.

JAKE WOOD: It's important for people to hear these stories, not just to understand why and when and where we send our sons and daughters to go and fight, but also in helping us to come home.

EDIE MEEKS: Being a veteran is like speaking a different language, and when you're around these people who have served, you feel understood.

The more you tell your story, the more you speak about your experiences, it's like a healing process.

And I'm telling you this from veterans that I know across the board.

DUERY FELTON: We are living history.

I am primary source-- I'm telling you my story.

FRANK DEVITA: You know, for 70 years, I never talked about it.

My wife died six years ago.

She never knew what I went through.

It's like a big weight that I've been carrying around.

Now I wanna talk about it.

CAREY: We are America's veterans, and there are 18 million of us alive today.

We follow in the footsteps of men and women who served throughout our history, from the citizen-soldiers of the Revolutionary War, to the men who fought at Gettysburg, to the millions who survived the trenches of World War I.

We have answered the call, in peace and in war, and no matter what our missions were, when it's over, we are all veterans.

And I'm one of them.

My name is Drew Carey.

Yeah, I know what I look like, thanks.

CAREY (voiceover): I've worked as a stand-up comic, had my own TV show, and today, I'm the host of "The Price is Right."

GEORGE GRAY: Drew Carey!

CAREY: Everything I ended up doing, I did better because of my time in the service.

What's up, everybody?

How ya doing?

Welcome to the show!

CAREY (voiceover): But 40 years ago, before I signed up for the Marine Corps, I was just a college dropout who had no idea what I was getting myself into.

REPORTER: This just in, you are looking at the World Trade Center, and we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into one of the towers.

WOOD: I just started my freshman year in college when I watched 9/11 happen.

Here I was, I was going to school, playing football, and that was my identity.

Tonight, the world's attention is absolutely fixed on Iraq.

We only see a slice of the whole battlefield... WOOD: I watched the wars unfold from the comfort of my couch, and felt this guilt for being in college instead of being, you know, in uniform.

So I made the decision then to, to join.

I ended up keeping my commitment to the team and playing my, my last year, but as soon as I graduated, I was in a Marine recruiter's office within a few weeks.

DEVITA: When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, we were at peace-- we weren't bothering anybody.

I wanted to get revenge.

I wanted to get even.

16 of us in my class all enlisted on the same day.

I passed all the tests for the Navy and they said, "We'll call you in six weeks."

I said, "Six weeks, hell, I wanna go in tomorrow!"

So, next door was a Coast Guard recruiting station.

I went in there and I said, "If I enlist, when could you take me?"

They said, "Ten days."

I says, "You got it," and I enlisted in the Coast Guard.

CAREY: I had relatives that served in World War II.

That's my Uncle Leon, right there, showing off his Navy dress blues.

And we all had in us the idea that Americans respond when our nation is threatened.

Way back in 1898, as the Spanish-American War was breaking out, a county clerk from Montana named Will Cave signed up.

He even convinced 50 other guys to join him.

One of them told a reporter, "Everyone knows what the Montana cowpuncher can do in a fight."

It doesn't always take a national emergency to inspire people to answer the call.

I know veterans who've signed up for all sorts of reasons.

PICARD: To boldly go where no one has gone before.

ANNIE KLEIMAN: I actually fell in love with "Star Trek" when I was in elementary school.

I was super-nerdy.

I had a Starfleet uniform.

I really wanted to be a Starship captain.

Engage!

KLEIMAN (laughs): But that obviously was not possible.

So in my head, the closest thing that you could get to Starfleet was the Air Force.

The Air Force was all about technology and cool airplanes, and, yeah, I just fell in love with, with the whole thing.

CAREY: My motivations were pretty ordinary.

I was broke and crashing at my brother's place.

I had no job, no prospects, no place to go, so I figured, "Screw it.

Why not sign up for the military?"

I didn't feel like I was a good match for the Coast Guard, or the Air Force, or the Army, or the Navy, for that matter.

So I joined the Marines.

- Raise your right hand and repeat after me the Oath of Enlistment.

I... (recruits begin oath) GREG COPE WHITE: After our freshman year of college, my best friend, Dale, called me and he said, "This summer, I'm gonna go to Marine boot camp."

All I heard in that conversation was "summer" and "camp."

And I said, "I'll go with you."

Of course, he laughed and he said, "You can't go.

"You don't know anything about the military.

You've never run a mile-- you're not even fit."

Well, when I sat across from the recruiter, the general questions were super-easy.

Where are you from, date of birth, mother's maiden name.

Are you a homosexual?

I'd never been asked that question by a stranger.

I didn't want to have that conversation.

So I said, "No."

And boom, I was in.

FIELD: My parents were immigrants from Eastern Europe.

They grew up in New York on the Lower East Side, and we only moved out to this little village because they wanted to live in the real America.

Well, this village did not welcome immigrants.

Everybody made me feel like I was a Semitic interloper.

I got beaten up every day going to and from school.

So, as soon as I could, I enlisted.

And I escaped from a world I didn't like into one I did.

KIRSTIE ENNIS: I had two Marine parents.

I just idolized them.

My favorite shirt was, you know, "My Mom's a U.S. Marine," and I did, I wanted to follow in their footsteps.

I mean, I came home from school, you know, every day in fifth grade and watched a Marine Corps boot camp video.

And so, when I signed up, they weren't surprised.

(chanting in Cheyenne) AYON: In Cheyenne culture, it's respected and honored and part of who we are and our makeup to serve.

My father was in the U.S. Navy, he served in the Vietnam era.

One of my uncles served in World War II in the Navy, another one served in the Korean War, another one in Vietnam.

When I was a young boy, I would listen to their stories and just wonder, like, wow, the places they've seen, the things they've done.

They were like superheroes to me.

My senior summer, one of my best friends came over to my mom's house.

We were going to go cruising around town or whatever, and I said, "You know what?"

I said, "I think I'm going to go join the military today."

And he started laughing at me.

He says, "You won't do it."

So I went in there, and I was only 17 at the time.

They, they hooked me.

I was, I was, like, "I'm going in the Navy, this is great," and the rest is history.

ANGELA SALINAS: I really had convinced myself that people like me don't go to college.

People like me work in fast food places, clean people's houses, you know, that kind of thing.

So one day, I'm mailing this letter at the post office, and out comes this tall, very, um, very sharp, very impressive Marine recruiter, who basically looks at me and says, "Why aren't you in the United States Marine Corps?"

Well, I met him on the 30th of April, and by the seventh of May, I was a new recruit at Parris Island.

I was really, really proud.

You know, I was joining an organization that went back to 1775, and all the traditions, all the lore, all those would be mine if I could earn that title of Marine.

(birds chirping) CHRIS WEIR: My younger brother David and I, we were constantly out playing war in the wooded area behind our house.

He was the military guy, I mean, even from the youngest of ages.

I remember him in the backyard forming out battles, you know, that he had learned about, and, and he always had those little green army men or G.I.

Joe men or whatever they were.

And, you know, we'd go out and play and it's, like, after 20 minutes, like... (murmuring): "We're done, let's play something else."

He's, like, "No, no, no, no, I'm gonna stay."

David enlisted in the Army after high school and deployed to Iraq.

One day, his unit was going on a mission and he phoned home right before he went out.

We were talking about how, when he got back, how he and I were going to get into real estate and we were gonna start buying houses and all this kind of stuff.

A few hours after that, I was driving somewhere and my father called me and told me, um... Told me that David had died.

It was just so surreal.

I just, I-- disbelief.

The day of the funeral, everyone in the community was lining the streets.

All of the stores in the area sold out of American flags.

Just so much patriotism, so much appreciation for what he did.

You know, when I think about that day, and seeing how so many people, um, didn't even know him, didn't even know my brother, didn't know us, you know?

And that was my kid brother.

I guess that was the catalyst for me.

Being so proud of him, it's, like, "Okay, now it's, now it's my turn.

I've, I've got to go do this now."

CAREY: When I was a kid, there was this TV movie called "Tribes."

That was my image of boot camp: everything, from the bus ride onto the base, to the in-your-face drill instructor, to the yellow footprints.

- Out of that bus, out, out!

Get out of that bus right now!

Get your feet on these yellow footprints, now!

Move it!

CAREY: When I first arrived at boot camp in San Diego, the movie didn't feel that far off.

We were all just being processed like cattle.

It's totally disorienting.

(people yelling in background) DRILL INSTRUCTOR: Drugs will not be tolerated.

Do you understand me?

RECRUITS: Yes, sir!

DRILL INSTRUCTOR: You will do exactly what you are told to do when you are told to do it, without question.

Do we understand?

RECRUITS: Yes, sir!

CAREY: By the time you get to this part, you're kind of in a daze-- and then comes the haircut.

(razors buzzing) Every male recruit has sat for it since World War I.

A short buzz was supposed to make gas masks fit better.

It also discouraged lice.

I always knew it was gonna get cut off, so I kind of cut it to where I thought it was gonna be okay.

I didn't know they were gonna take all of it off.

That hurt-- I think that hurt.

Like, that cut deep.

They said the same thing about Samson, too.

"It's just hair," and they cut that off and he lost all his powers.

- (bellows): Respond!

Say something!

It's basic training.

Life sucks, generally speaking, across the board.

DRILL INSTRUCTOR: Are you looking at me?

(recruits responding, instructor yelling) I laid in my bunk and I thought, "What in the world am I doing?"

(chanting and yelling) It was...

I mean, of course, it was...

It's different from Mama's house, that's for sure.

(yelling): What are you waiting for?

CAREY: I never forgot my recruiter's advice: "In boot camp, you want to be outstanding or anonymous.

"If you allow yourself to stand out, "you better excel.

Otherwise, you are in for a lot of pain."

DRILL INSTRUCTOR: Whose shoes are these?

Who lost their shoes already?

CAREY: And there is no way your drill instructor is going to miss a damn thing.

DRILL INSTRUCTOR: That's fine-- we'll figure out whose they are.

IRVING: I was always under a microscope.

Everything was managed, every piece of your time, when you slept, when you ate-- even how your bed was supposed to be made.

Make sure all four corners are at a 45-degree angle.

RECRUITS: Yes, sir!

IRVING: As strict as my dad was, you really can't prepare for what a drill sergeant, you know, is capable of doing.

(indistinct shouting) AYON: My father told me, "You may end up cleaning "a toilet with your toothbrush, but you clean that toilet the best that you can."

He said, "Because there's always somebody watching you."

You know, you're suddenly living with 65 other women.

There's no privacy.

You know, we're in these old barracks with these racks, you know, these, these bunk beds.

And then you'd go into these restrooms and you can just imagine, terms like "me" or "I" are suddenly eradicated from your vocabulary.

We were just all in shock.

You are now airmen.

Is that understood?

RECRUITS: Yes, sir!

- Your first name is Airman, my first name is Sir and nothing else but Sir.

Is that understood?

RECRUITS: Yes, sir!

JEFF MELLINGER: Initially, you're, you're surviving.

There's no learning to be soldiers the first week or two.

It's learning how to avoid the, the eye of the drill instructor, how to stay out of their way, how not to draw any attention to yourself, and, and it's pretty much mission: impossible.

DRILL INSTRUCTOR: Get out of the rack!

Get out of the rack!

(bugle playing "Reveille") When I tell you to get out of the rack, you get out of the rack!

DRILL INSTRUCTOR: Why are we not done yet?

Why?

Hurry it up!

WHITE: At the beginning, the drill instructors punished all of us for every misstep that any of us made.

You better wake up and you better start thinking.

WHITE: They informed us that we are the shabbiest, slimiest group of civilians he has ever met.

"There is not a snowball's chance in hell "that any one of you swinging (bleep) is gonna walk out of here a U.S.

Marine."

Higher!

Higher!

ANURADHA BHAGWATI: I was, like, "What am I doing here?"

Like, you know, they're telling us to do things.

I'm, like, "Why?

Why... "Why are you telling us to, you know, strip and get dressed 20 times in two minutes?"

Like, it all seemed sort of asinine and, and bizarre to me.

I mean, just like shoveling food into your mouth like you're a goose.

You're just not supposed to think.

You act on orders, without hesitation.

Otherwise, you won't make it-- you won't survive.

(whistle blows) (indistinct shouting) The physical is what gets you first.

You don't expect that amount of physical pain.

When the instructor's, like, you know, "Do sit-ups until I'm tired," and he just stands there, you can do sit-ups for hours and hours and hours.

And then after that, you do a 12-mile ruck march with almost 100 pounds on your back.

MAN: Let's go!

IRVING: I didn't like basic training, but you can't talk back to a drill instructor, so I kind of just had to suck it up and, and keep driving forward.

DRILL INSTRUCTOR: You heard me, recruit!

Get over here!

WHITE: One of my drill instructors was the scary mean one.

When he first saw me, he flew into my face and screamed at the top of his lungs, close to my head, "I don't like the color of your eyes.

"Change them!

Change them!

Change them!"

At this point, I'm 18 years old, and being gay in the military is flat-out illegal.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell is not in play yet.

It is illegal.

I wanted to fly under the radar, but I was going through each day thinking for sure this is the day that I was going to be found out and kicked out.

(people talking in background) WHITE: But one day, I was on the rope.

It's a 30-foot rope climb and it's really difficult.

I'm probably ten feet from the top, and I was just struggling and struggling and struggling.

And this drill instructor, he climbed the ropes, one in each hand.

And he comes up the rope, shimmying up the ropes, just using his arms, and he hops up next to me.

He swings over, grabs my rope, screams in my face, "Stop thinking of yourself as average."

And that motivated me.

He became a father figure that I'd never had in my life.

He still terrified me, but he motivated me.

(people talking in background) CAREY: The training I went through was tough, but it gave me confidence that I'd be ready for anything, even a war zone.

In previous generations, not all servicemen got to have that kind of preparation.

As hard as it is to believe, during the Civil War, many soldiers weren't even taught how to fire their rifles.

That's how Major Sumner Carruth remembers it.

He wrote that "target practice was never encouraged.

Men learned to use their weapons in battle."

J. ROSS DANCY: Boot camp really emerges with the First World War.

It's looking back at the experiences of the Civil War and understanding that there needs to be a more standardized form of military training.

DRILL INSTRUCTOR: Right shoulders, arms!

DANCY: So in the 19-teens, the idea of having basic training camps came about.

The problem is, is, in 1914, there's only about 165,000 men and women in the armed services in the U.S., and by 1918, that's ballooned to something close to four million.

And there was a limited amount of time to learn how to train men and to learn what their limits are.

CAREY: One of the points of military training is to push you beyond your limits.

But sometimes, things have gone too far.

One night in 1956, a Marine drill instructor, frustrated with his recruits, marched 75 of them into a tidal swamp called Ribbon Creek, on the western edge of Parris Island.

And six of them never made it back.

RECRUIT: The current started getting a little strong.

And I was about near the end, and a lot of guys are, little guys were holding on to me.

And...

I tried to help them as much as I could.

And I told them to hold hands so that they wouldn't lose anybody.

Then I heard the yelling and screaming.

The ones that could swim real good went out after them.

And then we didn't hear no more voices, so we all went back on shore.

CAREY: After Ribbon Creek, the Marine Corps made reforms, and drill instructors were no longer given free rein.

When I joined, one of the questions I asked the recruiter was, "Can they hit you?"

And he said, "Not anymore."

It was still no cakewalk.

WHITE: It is dangerous.

I can't believe the things that we did, the things that we were commanded to do.

The times that we marched around in the rain and the mud and heavy equipment.

Firing live rounds.

I mean, they push you to the edge.

(automatic weapons firing) TOM BEAUDRY: Growing up, my swimming abilities were not very strong.

But in the Coast Guard, during boot camp and then Rescue Swimmer School, you're constantly in the water doing things you're not used to doing.

Like treading water with a brick over your head or controlling your breathing, or learning how to stay calm when people are freaking out and pulling you underwater.

Yeah, there were moments I decided I...

This maybe not be for me.

We did something called the D5 dunker.

If your aircraft should happen to hit the water, and you're strapped in, you've got to be able to get out.

My first time, I was blindfolded, strapped in to the farthest end of it.

I was really nervous, but I sat there for a second, pictured where I was.

I was able to egress out.

I was underwater for about two minutes.

I popped to the surface, and everybody's already out of the pool.

And the instructor was yelling at me, what was I doing?

I said, "I got lost," so I started over again.

I didn't have any fear of the water at that point in time, anymore.

(people shouting and cheering) SALAPEK: During training, you're rucking, you're doing push-ups, you're going through obstacle courses, all different kinds of stuff.

And then, one day, we had to air assault down this big huge tower.

Before basic training, I had a fear of heights.

Well, you had to get over that, so there was no going back.

I mean, they're telling you, "Go, get over that thing," so everybody else is doing it and they didn't die, so I guess you just go.

(people talking in background) SALAPEK: That is definitely empowering, just to feel that you can conquer those fears.

And if you can do that, you can keep on going.

MICHAEL JACKSON: I wasn't as physically strong as the others.

We would do a run, and they'd never tell you how long the run is, and I would never make the end of the run.

I would stop, thinking I was gonna die, I couldn't take another step, and then the platoon would halt maybe 50 yards after that.

So I was close, but I never made it.

I knew I was failing out.

And about halfway through, I decided that I needed to make a stronger commitment.

Those around me were getting notes under their pillows, "Haven't you quit yet?

"Don't you know that you don't have "the makings of being an officer?

Why are you still here?"

And then people would just be gone.

So I decided that on the next run, I am gonna run until I die.

(all chanting) JACKSON: And when I finished that run, I knew it wasn't the physical part.

It was the mental toughness.

(all chanting) CAREY: The training we went through made us realize that anything you do has an impact on the group.

Somehow, there were still guys that simply refused to be part of the team.

WHITE: Occasionally, a weak link joins the chain.

We had one private who consistently worked against our daily missions.

He was the one not tucking in his rack, he was the one that was purposely stepping out of line.

And he just consistently disobeyed orders, he was constantly getting thrown to the back of the line, singled out, picked at, and we were sick of it and we took care of it.

A few guys put bars of soap in their socks and they went to his rack, they pinned him down, and whale-- I actually didn't participate in the whaling part, but I was just as complicit, because I knew it was going on.

We all agreed that we had to adjust his attitude.

SCARLET: In my platoon, there were a few women who had a lot of difficulty with the program.

They just could not adapt.

There was a woman who tried to jump out a window.

We all ran toward her, and some-- I was not the one that grabbed her and pulled her back in, but somebody got her back in.

She was gone very quickly after that.

DRILL INSTRUCTOR: You're here to get better, not to stay freaking lazy!

You understand?

IRVING: There are a lot of stories of guys attempting to get out.

You know, fake injuries or jumping off a top bunk to try to break a, a leg or fracture a bone, or something like that.

We had a guy who had slit both of his wrists.

I had never, ever seen blood to that extent, or why somebody would want to do that.

You see a lot of crazy things in basic training.

BHAGWATI: The folks who, who got booted out or ended up leaving, many of them just culturally did not fit.

One woman refused to eat the food at the chow hall because she insisted on being vegetarian.

That's a hard thing to do in the Marines, but that, that's where she was, and the drill instructors were just hurling insults at her, like hippie, Communist, this, that, and the other, and how she doesn't fit in.

You know, I mean they're trying to see if she can take it.

CAREY: When I was in boot camp, one of the jokes was that the letters USMC didn't stand for United States Marine Corps, but instead for "You Signed the Mothereffing Contract."

You could be crawling through the mud or in the middle of an insane march or something, and they'd go, "Hey, you signed the mothereffing contract."

They'd just remind you that you volunteered for this, and your eyes were pretty wide open when you joined.

Many Americans have faced the ordeals of training with no choice in the matter.

Over the years, the draft brought tens of millions of men into uniform.

As one World War I draftee from Norfolk, Virginia, complained, "What can't be cured must be endured."

Vietnam was the last war to see men called up.

Your fate depended on your draft number.

5005.

FELTON: I came home, everyone was quiet.

And they said that there's an envelope on the, uh, table, dresser, whatever it was, and I went over and I opened it and everyone was watching me.

I guess they were trying to judge my reaction.

And I told them, "It looks as though I've been drafted."

I didn't want to be drafted, but you have to understand, my parents' generation had fought in World War II.

So I was in a different mindset.

Feeling that... You owe an obligation to your country.

It was just a different time frame.

DAVID ROTHENBERG: When I got out of college, I came to New York and got a job, and realized that the draft was inevitable.

I wasn't thrilled about giving up the two years, and I wasn't thrilled about being in the military, but it's what you did.

(man calling orders) ROTHENBERG: It was the '50s.

You were drafted, you did your two years, and then you went on with your life, hoping that there would be no war while you were in.

MAN: Six to the front, three to the rear!

MELLINGER: I got home from work one day, and my wife told me, "You've got a letter from the president."

And I thought, "Well, what president?

To the electric company?"

I mean, I couldn't, I didn't understand what president could possibly be writing me a letter.

Uh, so I, I looked at it, and the return address was the White House, Washington, D.C.

The letter, the best I can remember, said, "Greetings from the President of the United States.

You're hereby ordered to report for induction."

So I went down to the local draft board to say, "Hey, guys, I don't need to be in the Army.

I've got a job, I've got a family."

And they just kind of looked at me and said, you know, "We'll see you in a couple of weeks."

CAREY: By the time I was considering the military, it was an all-volunteer force.

And in post-Vietnam America, in order to make their quotas, every branch really had to sell themselves.

ANNOUNCER: We do more before 9:00 a.m. than most people do all day.

Be all that you can be BHAGWATI: I remember the slogan, "Be All That You Can Be," and that's the kind of person I wanted to be.

But as a kid, I was, like, fighting against the expectations that were placed on me.

I loved physicality, I loved team sports, but they were not on the list of approved activities by my parents.

Like, you're just not supposed to be interested in that stuff.

My parents were very conservative and very traditional.

They came from India to the U.S. about 60 years ago.

And growing up in my family, in my culture, I was not encouraged to have my own voice.

My family was controlling me since the time I was an infant.

That rage, it had bottled up for at least a couple of decades.

Lieutenant O'Neil reporting for training, sir.

BHAGWATI: It wasn't until I was in college and I saw "G.I.

Jane" that things started to click and it got real personal.

(laughs) Demi Moore created this iconic character, and that scene where she's buzzing her head and she's got that fire in her eyes, she is ready to overcome anything.

She channeled my rage, and I'm pretty sure the rage of many other women and girls in that moment.

They're dead!

Get them out of here, let's go!

CAREY: Women were part of the military when I was in boot camp, but we didn't train together.

In fact, they've been fighting for equal treatment for years.

Back in World War I, one of the first female Marines, Martha Wilchinski, wrote to her boyfriend that, "I hear some people are calling us Marinette "or skirt Marine.

"Well, anybody that calls me anything but Marine is going to hear from me."

("The U.S. Air Force" playing) By World War II, there were women attached to every branch.

FILM NARRATOR: This is Texas, cradle of our Army's Air Force, and out of those buses are stepping girls-- girls who give a new angle to an Air Force story.

They're WASPs, Women's Air Force Service Pilots.

NELL BRIGHT: I'd been flying for two years then, and already had my private pilot license.

But I'd never flown military airplanes before, so it was something very new.

Our mission was to fly here in the United States so that the men could go to combat.

We had to learn it all from the ground up.

It was a tough program.

There was lots of physical training, too, so we were in pretty good shape.

We were an all-women air base.

We lived in barracks and went by military rules and marched everywhere that we went.

(dog barking) For a while, the guys would start having quote-unquote "emergency landings."

Well, they put a stop to that.

Out of the 1,800 accepted, there were 1,074 of us that graduated and got our wings.

We were not being feminists or anything else, but looking back, of course, we paved the way.

FILM NARRATOR: Makeup can do a wonderful job if it is used intelligently.

SALINAS: When I was going through training, the Marine Corps had a contract with Maybelline, and Maybelline would come and give us makeup classes.

FILM NARRATOR: The important job that makeup can do is emphasize a woman's strong points and at the same time, play down her weak ones.

SALINAS: We had classes on, like, how to get in and out of a car, and how do you carry yourself in a social environment.

- Hey, girls, wouldn't you like to come and meet the new Sergeant Major?

Looking back, it probably looks as an opportunity for, you know, like, wow, how could you do that to a woman?

But back then, it was really welcomed.

It was an opportunity because it was a profession.

Even if we weren't allowed in combat.

By law, the women in America's armed forces are barred from combat, but in a recent poll conducted by NBC News and "The Wall Street Journal," a majority of Americans, men and women, said that they think that women should be given a combat role.

(yelling) SCARLET: I was in the first platoon of women that had any combat training.

DRILL INSTRUCTOR: Throw grenade.

SCARLET: We were the first platoon of women that went on the rifle range, and that was a blast.

I loved doing that, and I was an expert marksman, so that, that made it even more fun.

Growing up, I was a tomboy.

I wanted to do everything my brother did, because that's what got my dad's attention.

But I felt like I was always trying to prove to my brother and my dad that I could do those things, that I could be just as good as they were, which is one of the reasons why I joined the Marine Corps.

For the first time in my life, I felt like I had the opportunity to show what I was made of.

The sky was the limit.

As much as I could excel, I was allowed to excel.

MELLINGER: In 1976, the Army sent me a letter, not the president, saying you're gonna come be a drill sergeant.

So not only did I not want to be a drill sergeant, but they give me 64 women.

I thought my career was ended.

ALL: Sir, yes, sir!

So now I'm at Fort Gordon, Georgia, training female soldiers.

M-16 training for women in those days involved two women and one rifle.

I said, "That's ridiculous.

"So you want women to be soldiers, huh?

"How about everybody gets their own rifle?

Because if you can't disassemble it, you can't be a soldier."

Nobody wanted to do the hard, right thing, and that is train the women to come up to the, to the Army standard.

They wanted to slow everybody else down because that was easier.

RECRUITS: Eight!

Nine!

Ten!

BHAGWATI: When I was going through it, you were not required or even encouraged to do pull-ups.

So those of us who wanted to do them were almost breaking regulations.

But I was, like, "No, we gotta do this."

Not all of my fellow female candidates were athletic, but there were a handful.

And we definitely pushed one another along.

We were just going to do what the guys were doing, and that was that.

HARTMAN: I don't want no teenage queen RECRUITS: I don't want no teenage queen HARTMAN: I just want my M-14 RECRUITS: I just want my M-14 CAREY: One of the things Hollywood can never seem to get enough of is a Jody call.

You know, like those scenes in "Full Metal Jacket."

RECRUITS: Box me up and ship me home CAREY: These songs first got popular back in World War II.

LEADER: While I'm drilling in the WACS RECRUITS: While I'm drilling in the WACS LEADER: My sister's riding in a Cadillac RECRUITS: My sister's riding in a Cadillac CAREY: Jody was this imaginary shirker who stole your girl while you were away.

So you'd chant, "Gonna get a three-day pass just to kick old Jody's ass."

Over time, all marching songs became known as Jodies.

LEADER: I'm a steamroller, baby RECRUITS: I'm a steamroller, baby - Just a-rollin' down the line RECRUITS: Just a-rollin' down the line MELLINGER: A lot of the cadences, truth be known, came from popular songs.

RECRUITS: Just a-rollin' down the line Bo Diddley, Bo Diddley, where you been?

Down in Columbus drinkin' gin.

That kind of refers to, you know, the old Airborne cadence.

GROUP: Bo Diddley, Bo Diddley, where you been MAN: Down in Columbus a-drinkin' gin WHITE: There are some sad Jodies, you know, about choosing the wrong girl and having to pay for that.

There are tales of bravado, you know: I want to be a recon ranger Live a life of sex and danger (men chanting) It's just chanting.

LEADER: Up in the morning with the rising sun WHITE: It's a way to pass the time.

It's a way to keep us entertained.

And it's also a way to unify us.

ALL: Looking good!

LEADER: Sounding good!

ALL: Sounding good!

LEADER: Sounding good!

CAREY: When I was in the Marines, they really hammered home one idea: nobody's Black or white here.

There's no brown, there's no yellow.

Everybody's green.

Back in Teddy Roosevelt's day, military service was seen as a way to help bind the nation together.

He argued that "the tent, where soldiers all sleep "side by side, will rank among the great agents of democratization."

In the chaos of boot camp, though, it can take some time for that kind of thinking to really sink in.

AYON: We're all in this stressful environment.

It's like taking a jar full of ants and just shaking it up.

I don't know if you've ever done that as a kid, but they go crazy on each other.

I mean, we were all out of our element.

We were hand-washing our clothes, one guy's in a bad mood, he starts slinging things at other people, and that other person happened to be me, and I wasn't having it.

So we get into a fistfight.

That time, everybody jumps in, we're all pulling each other apart.

But we still had clothes to wash, you know?

Fistfighting wasn't going to get the clothes washed, right?

Those moments are what brought us together.

Now is that moment where you realize that it's not so much about you, it's about the team.

Get up here, move, move, move!

All right, now you're gonna put four figure eights... BRANDON ANDERSON: I hated it, but the thing about boot camp was, we all hated it-- no one likes boot camp.

And, and that was somewhat comforting.

In each other, we found a sense of community.

WOMAN: Way to go!

ENNIS: That's 13 weeks of hell.

You have to grow together, and I also think that's the point of boot camp.

You know, they wanna break you down so that you have to rely on one another to be successful.

- Three, two, one.

MELLINGER: There's always going to be somebody to fall out.

They doubt themselves, they doubt their own ability.

But when you can push, drag, cajole, and encourage somebody to stay in who previously hasn't, that's a big deal for the group.

(shouting and cheering) CAREY: For all the pain that drill instructors put you through, they know what they're doing.

In a life-or-death situation, they realize how important it is for you to follow orders, to work as a team, and they're also training you to do something else that's a vital part of war.

SWEAT: Our job was to kill, and it takes a young mind to not analyze that and realize that, no, all your life, you were taught not to kill.

ROTHENBERG: You're given a bayonet and you're being told how to stab somebody to death.

You suddenly think, "This isn't what my life "was supposed to be like.

I don't wanna stab anybody to death."

(whistle blowing, all grunting) BHAGWATI: Part of the indoctrination is you are always screaming something in unison.

ALL: Marine Corps!

It's very guttural and emotional, and it starts, it starts, like, reframing the way you think and feel.

RECRUITS: Hoo-rah, Marine Corps (clap rhythmically): Kill!

- Kill them louder RECRUITS: Kill them louder Aye, aye, sir Hoo-rah, Marine Corps (clap): Kill!

BHAGWATI: So dozens of times, we would yell at the top of our lungs, in unison, "Kill!"

- (clap): Kill!

And so that word alone, you know, starts reframing the way you think about life and death.

And, you know, they're sort of, like, erasing all doubt, all hesitation.

It felt like our sole purpose was to kill.

ANDERSON: I had never held a gun before in my life and it was new to me.

You know, I was 18 years old with a weapon in my hand.

You had to become a marksman.

Like, you had to be a good shooter.

And having a weapon, when you're with a group of people who you've been trained to be there for, you see it as a necessity.

(guns firing) (applause and cheering) CAREY: At the end of Marine Corps boot camp, you have to face one final challenge before you're done.

It's a brutal field exercise that lasts 54 hours.

For a really good reason, it's called the Crucible.

And if you survive it, you feel pretty good about yourself.

Every branch has something similar.

PACANOWSKI: Towards the end of basic, we were running, and I fell behind because I was having trouble breathing.

I went to sick hall, which is not encouraged.

You know, everyone makes fun of you when you go to sick hall.

And the doctor told me that I had bronchitis.

So I went to my drill sergeant and I was, like, "I have bronchitis, I don't know what you want me to do."

And he's, like, "Well, if you don't go on "the last training exercise, for a week "in the field, you don't graduate and you have to start all over again."

And I was, like, "Well, I'm not doing that."

So I made it through the week in Missouri, in the heat and the humidity and the, and the rain, and we had one last road march to do, and it was 15 miles.

I was one of the last two people to finish the road march, and then I passed out.

And they're just, like, "Hmm, you're, you're one of those.

You'll do anything."

And that's the kind of soldiers they want, you know.

CAREY: After all the pain and suffering you've been through, it's still hard to believe how completely you've been transformed.

I went in at this low point in my life, and by the end of boot camp, I felt like a super badass.

Between anonymous and outstanding, I felt like I was outstanding.

WOOD: From the moment you step on those yellow footprints on that first night, you're never once called a Marine.

You're just a recruit.

And then finally in this, you know, in this ceremony in the last week, this drill instructor who has haunted your nightmares looks you in the eye, shakes your hand, and hands you that Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, and calls you a Marine for the first time.

It's-- it's powerful.

You're forever in the club at that point.

DEVITA: I was only 18 years old.

I weighed 125 pounds.

It gave me a little strength when I put that uniform on.

Yeah, made me a little courageous.

JAMES MCEACHIN: All of a sudden, you were somebody in a world that tries to force you into being a nobody.

It was that smell of olive drab, that thick wool that, it was just great.

You felt kind of invincible.

You wanted to just kick your heels up and say, "I'm a soldier, I made it."

SALINAS: The day after I graduated, I went home.

I'm just looking like an A-sharp Marine, and I knock on the door and my mom answers the door, and, you know, I'm just beaming.

I just, I couldn't be not, I could not be more proud.

And she looks at me, and she goes... (inhales deeply): "Ay, mi hijita, we already bought Girl Scout cookies."

And so she didn't even recognize me.

I had transformed so much.

WHITE: Every day of my military service was illegal.

Yet that stability that they offered and that structure of those insane days were blessings to me.

The Greg that enlisted was skinny and weak and scared and afraid and had no confidence, and no direction, and kind of no hope.

I didn't know where my life was going.

The Greg that walked out, I was like a prince-- I had a title.

And I... Was still skinny and still, you know, looked basically the same except for the shaved head and the uniform, but everything was inside.

I may not have looked like the Marine that's on the recruitment posters, but I damn sure felt like one.

WEIR: At the end of basic training, they take us into the middle of this field, and for the first time, told us how proud they were.

That was a very, very emotional ceremony for me.

I, I guess I just thought, "Wow, David did this, too.

"I'm like him, I'm not in training anymore, I...

This is real."

And I was now en route to what I had set out to do, which was finish what my brother had started.

My confidence shot through the roof.

I was just, I loved myself like a teenage boy.

You know... (kisses) You know, one of those.

(laughs) I thought I was the bomb.

I was the honor graduate of my platoon, and that meant so much to me, because my father had been in the Honor Squad when he was in boot camp.

When the general came and stood before me, and I could see my father sitting in the stands, watching this happen, and knowing that he was so proud of me, knowing how he felt about me at that moment, and seeing myself in his eyes reflected back to me meant everything in the world.

CAREY: We weren't at war when I was in the reserves, and I was never sent overseas, but to this day, I am still amazed at the way boot camp changed me.

I felt reborn, renewed, and that no one could ever take this away from me.

And I even kept the damn haircut.

No matter where you're heading or what you'll be doing, training isn't the end of our story.

It's only the beginning.

DEVITA: My mom was very happy when I went into the Coast Guard, because she thought I was gonna patrol the beach on Coney Island.

(laughs) Six weeks later, I was on my way overseas.

ENNIS: I was elated.

It was almost like we couldn't speed up the process of getting to Afghanistan enough.

I really wanted to put these skills that I had been working on to use under pressure.

I just wanted to get there.

- Have a safe trip, Godspeed.

KLEIMAN: The day that we left to go to Afghanistan, we all piled into vans.

You know, my husband was there to see me off, and there were other women who were deploying with me.

And it was this sort of reverse scene where a van full of women were driving away, and the men, you know, were at the curb in front of the hotel, like, waving at us.

I remember those of us in the van kind of looked at each other and said, "Okay, well, that was weird."

And talking to my husband afterwards, he said he and, you know, the other guys looked at each other and went, like, "This feels backwards."

JACKSON: When I finished the training, I felt I was prepared as I was ever going to be.

When we landed in Vietnam, they let us off the plane, and I see two people that were familiar to me from officer training.

They were going home.

So I walk up to them, they're passing me, and I just had to ask, "What's it like?"

So one lieutenant looks at the other lieutenant, and the other one turns to me and says, "Cannon fodder," and walks on.

And I thought, "What have I gotten myself into?"

AYON: I was a first lieutenant.

I remember being with, with all the family members kissing their loved ones, hugging their kids, their friends.

And I remember taking that to heart and thinking, "Wow, if, if there's a dumb decision that I make "or a foolish decision that I make, one of these boys isn't coming home."

And this was a moment where I was, like, "This, this is real."

I didn't wanna hurt anybody, you know?

I wanted to do the right thing.

ANNOUNCER: For more about "American Veteran," pbs.org/americanveteran.

"American Veteran" is available on Amazon Prime Video.