Watching Boots recently brought back memories I had not visited in years. The sounds, routines, and small details of recruit training felt close again: getting on line, counting off through the platoon, hearing “lights, lights, lights,” and waiting for the next command before you had fully processed the last one.
But one memory came back more clearly than the others.
I was days away from the Crucible when my body completely shut down. Doctors later told me that if I had not gone to the hospital that night, kidney failure was a real possibility. For a while, I did not know whether I would return to training or leave Parris Island without earning the title I had worked toward for months.
This is the story of how I almost did not become a Marine, and why the setback ultimately taught me more about perseverance than any perfect fitness score ever could.
The Recruit I Wanted to Be #
I arrived at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island on June 3, 2013. I was 20 years old and assigned to Golf Company, Platoon 2064.
By third phase, I was no longer trying simply to survive each day. I had become a squared-away recruit and was in the best physical condition of my life. I could do 27 pull-ups and 100 crunches. My three-mile time was around 20 minutes. I knew what was expected of me, and I believed I had earned my place beside the recruits around me.
The Combat Fitness Test became the turning point.
In 2013, the CFT included an 880-yard sprint, two minutes of 30-pound ammunition-can lifts, and a timed Maneuver Under Fire course involving crawls, a buddy drag, a fireman’s carry, an ammunition resupply, a simulated grenade throw, push-ups, and a final sprint.
By then, it was August, and Parris Island was deep in the South Carolina summer. The heat and humidity made every sprint, carry, and lift feel heavier.
My senior drill instructor, Sgt. Anderson, knew what I was capable of and pushed me toward the perfect score within reach. Every command carried the same expectation: faster, harder, no excuses.
The CFT was not over until the final ammo-can run during Maneuver Under Fire. My lungs burned, my legs screamed, and every muscle wanted me to stop. But stopping did not feel like an option. Not in Golf Company. Not in Platoon 2064.
When I crossed the finish line, I had done it.
Three hundred. Perfect.
Then my body shut down.
“This Recruit Can’t Move, Sir” #
I collapsed and could not feel my legs. I could not move.
My drill instructor stood over me and ordered me to get up. I wanted to. I really did.
“This recruit can’t move, sir.”
Those were some of the hardest words I had said during recruit training. For what felt like forever, I remained on the ground while the rest of the platoon recovered, formed up, and prepared to step off without me.
Eventually, I forced myself back to the squad bay. The timing could not have been worse. We had spent hours preparing for a commanding general’s inspection. Every rack was right. The deck was spotless. Everyone knew where to stand and what to do.
When we were ordered on line, I threw up directly in the freshly cleaned center highway.
My first thought was not about what had happened to me. It was about the mess I had made after everyone had worked so hard.
“This recruit will clean up his mess, sir.”
Instead, they sent me to the Branch Health Clinic. The corpsmen started IV fluids, kept me there for a while, and eventually returned me to the squad bay. I thought I would recover. I had convinced myself that becoming a Marine meant pushing through pain.
That night, reality caught up with me.
The Knock on the Hatch #
After lights out, the pain began deep in my back near my kidneys. I tried to remain quiet, but every few minutes I could not keep myself from groaning.
The recruit in the rack beside me whispered through the darkness.
“Harrington, are you okay?”
“No.”
I did not want to be the recruit who could not keep going. He continued insisting that something was seriously wrong until I finally climbed out of my rack and knocked on the drill instructor’s hatch.
“This recruit thinks something is wrong, sir.”
Within minutes, Sgt. Hernandez had me in a government vehicle headed to the hospital in Beaufort. Looking back, listening to the recruit beside me and making that knock may have saved my kidneys.
The morphine hit first. One moment I was in agony. The next, the pain was simply gone. The doctors drew blood, then drew more. I remember being told that I had rhabdomyolysis, that my creatinine was dangerously elevated, and that delaying care could have led to kidney failure.
Rhabdomyolysis occurs when damaged muscle tissue breaks down and releases material into the bloodstream that can injure the kidneys. Symptoms can also appear hours or days after the initial injury, which is one reason prompt medical evaluation matters. That general risk is consistent with current guidance from the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The details of this story, including what I felt and what I remember being told, are my personal recollection of the event.
I spent roughly a week in the hospital. I walked laps through the hallway, trying to regain my strength. After months of recruit training, even the ability to push a button and have someone bring me food felt strange.
One day, I received permission to make a phone call. I called my mom first, but she did not answer. Then I called Rachel, my girlfriend at the time and now my wife. Today, we have three amazing children together.
Hearing her voice after weeks of recruit training is something I will never forget. For a few minutes, I was not Recruit Harrington. I was just Devyn.
Packing for Different Destinations #
Back at Parris Island, Platoon 2064 kept training. I did not.
My drill instructors tried to keep me with Golf Company. They wanted me back, and I wanted nothing more than to return. Medical had the final say. I was not healthy enough.
Instead of packing for the Crucible with my platoon, I packed my seabags to leave it.
I had watched recruits dump their gear earlier in the cycle. Some had failed required events. Some could not adapt. In my mind, that was not my story. I had not quit. I had excelled physically right up until the moment my body failed me.
Watching Platoon 2064 prepare for the Crucible while I emptied my foot locker remains one of the hardest memories I have from Parris Island. They were no longer simply other recruits. They were my brothers, and I was watching them continue without me.
Life in Evaluation Holding Platoon #
EHP stood for Evaluation Holding Platoon. Moving there felt like entering a different world.
I went from a highly disciplined third-phase platoon to an environment shaped by uncertainty and low morale. Recruits turned in belts, razors, and anything that could be used for self-harm. Some were dealing with pneumonia or other medical conditions. Others no longer wanted to become Marines. Recruit Separation Platoon, and the possibility of going home, felt uncomfortably close.
My path forward depended on medical clearance. Blood was drawn repeatedly while I waited for the numbers to fall. Each result above the required threshold meant another day without knowing when, or whether, I would return to training. My arms became so bruised from the needles that I joked about how terrible they looked. Humor helped me keep the frustration from taking over.
Medical staff told me not to exercise because doing so could interfere with my recovery. Mentally, that was difficult. I had spent months building myself into the strongest recruit I could be, and now progress required me to stop pushing.
That contradiction became the real test.
Finding a Reason to Keep Fighting #
My situation was not combat, and I never confused the two. The lesson I carried from the book was simpler and personal: do not quit on the objective.
My fight looked like a hospital bracelet, medical appointments, daily blood draws, and waiting for someone to tell me I was healthy enough to try again.
Instead of sitting around feeling sorry for myself, I began leading cleaning details, keeping people occupied, and trying to preserve whatever morale I could. If I was going to remain in EHP, I was not going to waste the time.
Humor helped. Leadership helped more.
Then something happened that I still carry with me.
The Eagle, Globe, and Anchor in My Foot Locker #
Golf Company had just completed the Crucible while I was still waiting in EHP. While I was at chow, Sgt. Korhonen came by our squad bay and placed a black Eagle, Globe, and Anchor in my foot locker. I found it when I returned.
Sgt. Korhonen had been one of my drill instructors in Golf Company, Platoon 2064, and what recruits called my “kill hat,” or J-hat. He was the drill instructor whose job was to apply pressure, enforce the standard, and teach us drill. In the language of recruit training, he helped break us down and build us back up with discipline.
I respected him deeply and valued what he had instilled in me, which made his next words carry even more weight. He told me that I did not belong in EHP, that I had earned the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor just as much as anyone else, and that I needed to keep fighting.
It was not an official ceremony. It was not graduation, and I was not yet a Marine. But hearing those words from a Marine I respected meant more than I could explain.
The gesture reminded me that the setback did not define me. I still belonged. I simply was not there yet.
Watching Golf Company Graduate #
Eventually, I watched Golf Company graduate.
I should have been standing on that parade deck with Platoon 2064. Instead, I watched from the sidelines while the Marines I had trained beside crossed without me.
It hurt, but it also gave me clarity. I was not going home. I was not going to Recruit Separation Platoon. I was going to earn the title, even if it was not with the platoon I had started with.
Medical eventually cleared me, and I picked up with Mike Company, Platoon 3074. One of my new drill instructors recognized me from a Delayed Entry Program function near Charlotte months before boot camp. That small connection made the transition feel less like starting over and more like finishing by a different route.
After completing the Crucible with Mike Company, I received my Eagle, Globe, and Anchor and earned the title United States Marine. On October 4, 2013, I stood on the parade deck and graduated.
Counting both the day I arrived and the day I graduated, I spent 124 calendar days at Parris Island. The route was not the one I had imagined, but the destination was exactly the same.
The Route Changed, but the Destination Did Not #
Looking back, I do not remember earning a perfect 300 on the Combat Fitness Test nearly as much as I remember what came afterward.
At 20, I thought perseverance meant pushing harder than everyone else and refusing to stop. Parris Island taught me a more complicated lesson. Sometimes staying in the fight means recognizing that something is wrong. Sometimes it means accepting help, allowing your body to heal, and waiting while everyone around you appears to move ahead.
Most of all, perseverance can mean having the courage to begin again when the path you planned is no longer available.
After boot camp came Marine Combat Training at Camp Geiger, communications school at Twentynine Palms, and an assignment as a data network specialist with 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines at Camp Lejeune.
Years later, recruiting duty gave me the opportunity to help young people from the Albany area begin their own journeys toward service. None of it would have happened if I had mistaken recovery for weakness or allowed a delayed graduation to feel like defeat.
Seven years after Parris Island, another milestone showed just how far that changed route had carried me.
This story is for anyone whose original plan has fallen apart, who feels as though everyone else is moving ahead, or who is wondering whether a setback has taken the goal away. The path may change, but the destination does not have to.
My body quitting was not the end of the story. It was the moment I learned that strength is not always measured by how long you can keep pushing.
Sometimes it is measured by whether you are willing to heal, wait, and find another way forward.