A Marine Recruit Escaped From Boot Camp & Made A Mad Dash For The Airport Before Getting Caught

Scott Olson. Getty Images.

A quick setting of the scene before we get to the escapee. 

There are only two boot camp locations for enlisted recruits seeking to earn the Eagle, Globe & Anchor and title of U.S. Marine, and that's Parris Island, SC. and MCRD (Marine Corps Recruit Depot) San Diego, CA. The former is in alligator infested swamps in the middle of nowhere. The latter is sandwiched between Sea World, freeways and a major airport. Take a glance and then pick which base you'd prefer if you were a recruit looking to go AWOL:

Parris Island:

MCRD San Diego:

If you picked MCRD San Diego you chose correctly. Parris Island, you're quite simply fucked. There's only two guarded bridges out, and if the MPs don't get you the sand fleas, disorientation, quicksand swamp mud & gators will. Meanwhile at MCRD - Steal a car & cruise the I-405 to Mexico, slip over to the West Basin Marina and sail away to paradise or be like the recruit below and hop the fence for the next flight outta town. Just don't do this last part where you keep your uniform on and don't have a plane ticket and get caught:

According to Jeff Schogol at Task & Purpose: 

A Marine recruit going through the Corps’ West Coast boot camp was recently caught at the airport after making a dash for freedom, a Marine Corps official confirmed.

The recruit was apprehended on Monday by San Diego Harbor Police at San Diego International Airport, said Steve Posy, a spokesman for Marine Recruit Depot San Diego, California.

“The recruit was returned safely to the MCRD Provost Marshall’s Office,” Posy told Task & Purpose. “We take this matter seriously as the safety and welfare of our recruits and permanent personnel is of the highest priority. No further details will be released at this time.

Whether first or secondhand & regardless of branch, everyone who's served has a story of an almost-troop dipping from boot camp. At Camp Pendleton I was friends with MPs who had to scoop up a recruit who made it all the way to The Waffle Stop. Guy had no real plan. Just wanted the yelling to stop long enough to enjoy a kindly waitress's warm smile & a hot pancake. 

There's several great Reddit threads where Marines share stories of recruits escaping from their platoons, and you'd think these tales would always end with that recruit getting kicked out but, surprisingly, usually not the case. Often times they'd just re-appear in the platoon a week or so later as if nothing happened and graduate with everybody. Why? A lot of these stories are from the height of good ol' GWOT (thee Global War On Terror) and a warm body was still a warm body, even if it tried to escape now & then. 

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In all seriousness, sometimes when recruiting numbers are down, recruiters let people slip through the cracks who are truly not meant for military life. If that's the case here, I hope this fella gets the help he needs & he ends up finding a path in life that's better for him. BUT if he just got a little squirrelly & wanted a pancake or McRib or something, I hope he gets quietly cycled back through - albeit with a few extra glow-belts worn in an X. Maybe he'll even become the platoon honor grad, or perhaps even a Vice President down the line. God speed.