MCRD/ERR PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. -- All teachers have hopes that their students will accomplish something great and Marine Corps drill instructors are no different. They take a young man or woman and mold them into a Marine. However, that does not guarantee that the student will like his teacher, but it does guarantee that he will most likely never forget the time spent under his tutelage.
After 40 years out of recruit training, Charles Michael Hubka, a former Marine, made it a special point to contact his senior drill instructor - a man whom he could never forget.
Earlier this year, after making contact, the two took a trip to Parris Island.
While in basic training, Hubka heard a piece of information about his drill instructor that he kept in his memory through the years.
"Coming back from Elliot's Beach somebody asked [our senior drill instructor] where he was from and he said Johnson City, Tennessee," said Hubka, a Vietnam veteran. "I remembered that and my wife looked him up on the Internet."
Hubka felt the experiences with his drill instructor were in his thoughts a little more often lately, and it just so happened that it was around his 40th anniversary of graduating boot camp.
"I didn't realize that it was when I was looking him up," he said.
Hubka's senior drill instructor was Earl Lawing, a retired gunnery sergeant who trained more than 1,700 recruits aboard the Depot from 1962 - 66.
"He is the third one, and the first one in a long time," said Lawing, referring to the contact made by his former recruit. "Only two others [have made contact] and one was 20 years ago."
Of course Lawing could not remember Hubka as one of his recruits. Over time, the images of all of the recruits that he had trained became an amalgamated memory.
That is why Hubka brought his yearbook and showed him the pictures, said Lawing.
"I have talked with a couple, but it was a miracle that he got a hold of me," said Lawing, who has remained a Beaufort resident since 1962. "I thought it was just lucky ... it just surprised me."
Charles Taliano, Parris Island Historical and Museum Society Gift Shop manager, is also a former drill instructor aboard Parris Island and tries to attend both the San Diego and Parris Island drill instructor reunions every year.
"I had talked with several of the guys who were drill instructors," he said.
He asked if they have had contact with former recruits and if so how many. Some of them have had little or no contact, while some of them have had half a dozen or more, he said.
"I have had at least ten in the last five years, but I was on the poster, 'we don't promise you a rose garden,' and I assume that has something to do with it," said Taliano.
There is a bond that develops between recruits and their drill instructor, he said.
"You can ask any Marine, who was your drill instructor, and almost without fail, no matter if they graduated five, 15 or 50 years ago, they will know who their drill instructor was," said Taliano. "It is just something that develops because of the close association that you have for that period of time in [recruit training]."
Staff Sgt. Clinton Ticer, an active drill instructor with Platoon 3072, India Company, 3rd RTBn., mentioned that he was looking forward to seeing some of his former recruits when he gets back into the fleet. He related it to the fact that his sister is a teacher and that was one of the things that she loved about teaching. She loved shaping the minds of her students and then seeing how they turned out.
"Lawing taught me a lot of things in [recruit training] that served me well in the last 40 years," said Hubka. "As I went through life and raised two children, I would say and do things, and it came back to me that I got them from my drill instructors. You just don't appreciate what they have done for you until later on in life."
Hubka places a very high value on the moment when he met his senior drill instructor in basic training. So much so, that it has continually reverberated in his life.
"It was a life altering experience going through Parris Island," said Hubka.
Since his name appears on a drill instructors' Web site, Taliano receives e-mails monthly from people wanting to get in contact with their drill instructors.
"People contact me and say, I went through Parris Island, do you know [this staff sergeant] and could you help me find them. In the last three to five years I have probably had 20 people that I have put in contact with their drill instructor."
Some of those drill instructors Taliano knew through his associations and dealings with the Drill Instructor Association and would try to put them in contact with them.
"That is the best way [to try and establish contact] ... there is a Web site for the National Association and there is one for the Parris Island chapter, and each of those sites has a forum."
If you are interested in contacting your former drill instructor, one place to begin is by contacting the Parris Island Drill Instructor Association by logging on to www.diassn.com.