Smoke’em If You Got’em – A Boot Camp Story

The plywood walls of the target shed pressed in around me like a coffin as Staff Sergeant Mayorga’s palm crushed into my gut, pinning me against the rough wood. The taste of Marlboro Red still lingered on my tongue, evidence of a crime I’d committed in plain sight just minutes before.

“You think this is a goddamn resort, Beddoe?” His voice cut through the distant crack of M16s on the firing line. “You think we’re out here at summer camp, puffin’ smokes and fuckin’ off?”

Breathe, I told myself. Just breathe and take it.

But let me back up. Because what happened in that shed wasn’t random fury, it was surgical precision disguised as rage. The kind of calculated mind-fuck that separates Marines from civilians, and I was about to get a master class.

It was July of ’81, Training Week 7 in the middle of Phase 2 and 2039 had made it to the rifle range at Camp Pendleton to qualify with the M16A1. For most of us, this was supposed to be the “good” part of boot camp, out of the barracks, away from the constant scrutiny, a chance to breathe.

That was bullshit, of course.

The rifle range was where the Corps started sorting the hardened from the hopeful. You’d been broken down for seven weeks straight, torn apart, shaved, stripped of every comfort. Now, right when your body was adapting to the suck, the psychological warfare kicked into overdrive. The drill instructors knew exactly when to push, when to back off, and when to squeeze the trigger again.

I was working the butts, the pit behind the firing line where we pulled targets, patched holes, and pushed them back up. Live rounds zipped overhead all day in a strange mix of danger and routine that kept your nerves sharp as razors. The July heat pressed down like a wet blanket, and gunpowder smoke hung in the air like incense.

That’s when Staff Sergeant Frymire appeared.

Frymire wasn’t like the others. Still hard-edged and deadly serious, but there was something steady about him. He played the game, but his eyes held depth, like maybe he remembered what it was like to be human. He was the father figure among wolves.

He looked over at us with that unreadable stare and spoke the words like they were carved in stone: “Smoke ’em if you got ’em.”

Now, smoking was forbidden in boot camp. Locked up, stripped away on day one like everything else that made life bearable. But every so often, in moments like this, a DI would throw a bone to those smart enough to keep a pack hidden deep in their gear.

So, I pulled out my Marlboro Red. Lit up, took a long drag, and for one fleeting second, the world wasn’t fire and orders, it was just smoke, sunlight, and a tiny victory in a place that gave damn few of them.

Frymire moved on. I figured that was that.

I should have known better.

Staff Sergeant Mayorga came around the corner like vengeance itself.

Puerto Rican, tattoos on both forearms that looked like they’d been dipped in stories not meant to be read. He carried himself like a man who’d already been to Hell, took notes, and came back to drag the rest of us down with him.

He saw the cigarette before I could think to hide it.

His eyes went wide, not with surprise, but with the predatory focus of a shark tasting blood in the water. His whole body seemed to coil, and before I could brace myself, he had me slammed against the plywood wall inside the target shed.

“You think this is a goddamn resort, Beddoe?” The words came out like broken glass. “You think we’re out here at summer camp, puffin’ smokes and fuckin’ off?”

My heart hammered against my ribs. The rough wood bit into my back. “Sir, Staff Sergeant Frymire said—”

Shut your fucking mouth! Don’t you dare invoke his name like he’s your guardian angel! You think this is the fucking Air Force? You think you’re at some Navy country club, lightin’ up like this is your backyard barbecue?

He leaned closer. I could smell his breath, see the veins bulging in his neck. This wasn’t just anger, this was theater. Calculated, purposeful, designed to break something inside me.

“You don’t just disrespect me,” his voice dropped to a whisper that somehow cut deeper than the screaming. “You disrespect every Marine who earned this uniform, everyone who died for it. You better start understanding that you’re nothing, less than nothing, until you prove otherwise.”

Stay calm. This is the test. Don’t give him what he wants.

But he was just getting started.

“You know what I see when I look at you, Beddoe?” His eyes burned like coals in the dim shed. “Nothing. Not potential, not a future Marine, just another casualty waiting to happen. That cigarette? It’s not weakness, it’s a countdown timer. Every drag brought you closer to the moment you realize you don’t belong here. Never did.”

He pressed harder against my chest. The plywood creaked behind me.

“I’ve broken better men than you without breaking a sweat. Hell, I’ve broken men who could eat you for breakfast and ask for seconds. The only question is whether you’ll quit today, tomorrow, or if I’ll have to ship you home in pieces so small your mama won’t recognize what’s left.”

Breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. He’s looking for a reaction.

“You think that cigarette meant something? It was just another sign that you’re soft, another reason to grind you down. I’m not here to build you up, I’m here to tear you down so completely that whatever crawls out of here will either be worthy of the title, or nothing at all.”

The distant pop of rifle fire seemed to fade. All I could hear was his voice, all I could feel was the crushing weight of his hand, all I could think was:
Don’t break. Don’t give him the satisfaction.

Then, like some cosmic joke, Staff Sergeant Frymire walked back into the shed.

He stepped inside calmly, his campaign cover casting a perfect shadow across his weathered face, eyes moving between Mayorga and me like he was assessing a tactical situation. The cigarette was long gone, crushed under my boot before Mayorga’s fury hit full blaze, but the smell of smoke still lingered.

Frymire didn’t yell. Didn’t scold. Just spoke in a voice cool and surgical, cutting through the moment like a scalpel: “All I said was ‘smoke ’em if you got ’em.’ Didn’t say to make yourself a target.”

He met my eyes for half a second. No betrayal there, no cold shoulder. Just a message: You own what happens next. Then he walked away.
Mayorga wasn’t finished. For fifteen more minutes, he tore into me. His voice filled the shed like thunder in a coffin. Every insult calculated, every threat designed to find the crack in my armor. But I’d figured out the game by then.

This wasn’t about the cigarette. It was never about the cigarette.

This was about pressure. About finding out who could think clearly when the world was collapsing around them. About discovering who would fold under psychological warfare and who would stand firm when everything inside them screamed to run.

I took it. Every word, every shove, every foul syllable. Because deep down, I understood what they were really teaching us. Not just how to shoot, but how to function when your mind was under assault. How to make decisions when fear was clawing at your throat. How to be reliable when everything else was chaos.

They broke a lot of men at that rifle range. But me? I decided I belonged there more than they wanted me gone.

And that, I realized years later, was exactly the point.

The drill instructors weren’t sadists, they were surgeons. Every mind game, every psychological assault, every moment of arbitrary cruelty was designed to strip away everything that wasn’t essential. They needed to know who would crack under pressure and who would stand firm when the bullets were real, and the stakes were life and death.

That day in the target shed, Mayorga wasn’t trying to destroy me. He was trying to forge me. The difference between the two is everything.