This story is about a recruit that tried to escape from Parris Island doing recruit training during the 80s. At the time, he was actually in rehab because he had broken his foot. He had broken his foot doing wind sprints during his first phase of training. When you're injured during boot camp, they put you into a special medical rehab platoon until you have been healed.

He escaped during the night by pretending that he was going outside for fire watch duty. He was fully dressed in his 782 gear. First of all, he headed into the woods that was assigned to third Battalion and during that first evening, he managed to map out in his mind the complete wooded area. He spent the whole next day sleeping underneath the liner to his poncho. The next evening, he was low on water and he had to sneak into the exercise field to fill up his canteen.

That second evening, he tried to make his way to the head gate. If you're not familiar with Parris Island, there is a sort of causeway that leads to the front gate that is lined by a bunch of skinny palm trees. What he did was he actually walked down the middle of the causeway and scurried and hid behind a palm tree when a vehicle was approaching so that the headlights would not pick him up.

Once he made it to the front gate, he had noticed that there was only one guard on duty and the guard wasn't really all that attentive. The guard was watching TV and every 10 minutes or so, he would go out and walk around. He knew that his chances of getting caught at the main gate were high, but he didn't have a choice. That was his only way to escape.

He ended up crawling very low to the ground at the edge of the causeway that lined the swamp. He did manage to sneak past the guard.

Later on he was caught by a police officer in Beauport. The friendly police officer actually bought him breakfast and chatting about how he had managed to escape. When the escapee was returned to the Corps, he was told that he was too valuable and that he wasn't going to be sent home.

He actually did graduate from boot camp at Parris Island and then went on to serve almost a decade in the Marines.