I was the second youngest SR in Lima Company 139 back in 1992. Coast Guard basic training was on Cape May, New Jersey and i think it still is. Talking about a shock to the system. I was yelled at constantly and i had my shit together. Our company commander was SS Marzloff, who was the toughest commander at that time.
He is the gentleman in the dress blues.
He ended up retiring as a Master Chief and then became a special agent in charge of Coast Guard Investigative Service Central Region, headquartered in Cleveland.
Now, this man liked me because i could do the pushups of four men and i was highly motivated in general. On one occasion, we had company fitness competition, and we competed against all other companies from week 1 to week 8. I can remember what he told me right before my 2 minutes of pushups started, "SR Breshears, if you do less than 200, you are going away"! Going away meant going back to a lower week. Every week we lost and gained new recruits, because some were going away or we were getting others who were sent away. We had recruits in our company that had been there for over 3 months.
You can imagine me, the third shortest guy in the two sister companies, weighing less than 125 pounds going against all the average height or above average height recruits. They all knew they were toast. One recruit was stronger than me by one pushup and he was ex army special forces. This guy could do several superman pushups.
Actually he beat me for the fitness award at graduation by 1 point and i think 180 graduated from the two sister companies.
I can remember the memories of my company commander calling me to help beat other companies. Beat meant pushups, mountain climbers, leg lefts and few very exhausting exercises, but it was a good time for me. I can remeber the hall facing Marzloff's office crammed with recruits beaing beat.
CC Marzloff's favorite words were, "get down, pushups forever, begin"!