Bowe Down for the Count With Marines

The Marines may still be looking for a few good men but, please, no more heavyweight boxers.

Platoon 1036, C Company, 1st Recruit Battalion at Parris Island, S.C., was one recruit light Friday after former heavyweight champion Riddick Bowe told his drill instructor and battalion commander that he wasn’t cut out to be a Marine.

His military career lasted three training days, making it slightly shorter than that of Shannon Faulkner, the first woman at The Citadel, the military academy in nearby Charleston, S.C.

“It was just too shocking a lifestyle,” said Master Sgt. Chuck DeMar of the U.S. Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island.

That lifestyle included responding to his drill instructor, “Sir, yes, sir,” something that Bowe never had to say to his manager, Rock Newman, and answering, “Click!” and turning complete attention to the DI, who has just shouted, “Eyeballs!”

And that lifestyle included going from perhaps the loneliest sport, one man in the ring against another, to going through boot camp as a part of a team.

It also included forgoing a boxer’s entourage.

“All individuality is removed for a while,” said Staff Sgt. Ty Talbert of the Marine Corps public affairs office in Los Angeles. “You learn that you do everything as a team.”

Or maybe it was the pay of $900.90 a month.

“It has to do with a guy who’s 29, who’s a multimillionaire, who’s had control over his life . . . coming and going whenever he pleased, losing control,” said Newman in a news conference before he had talked with Bowe. “That was a big culture shock, something very hard for Riddick to deal with.”

Bowe, who turned pro in 1989, after losing to Canadian Lennox Lewis in the gold-medal heavyweight bout at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, won the undisputed heavyweight championship over Evander Holyfield in November 1992, earning $10 million. Holyfield won the title back a year later. That was the only defeat for Bowe, who has won 39 fights, 32 by knockout.

Bowe, however, had gone to the Marine Reserves with bugles blowing, having declared in December, shortly after defeating Andrew Golota for the second time when Golota was disqualified for low blows, that joining the Corps was a dream.

“I want to be part of the elite,” Bowe had said.

To accommodate him, the Marines had to waive weight, age and dependent requirements:

* At Bowe’s height, 6-feet-5, a recruit can weigh no more than 230 pounds. Bowe weighed 250-plus when he reported to Parris Island.

* A recruit can be no older than 28. Bowe is 29.

* A Reserve recruit can have no more than three dependents. Bowe and his wife, Judy, have five children.

According to the Marines, recruiters had long talks with Bowe, emphasizing the difficulty of what he would be going through.

“We had him at the depot, watching to see what was going on,” DeMar said.

Still, Bowe declared his desire to join as a reservist, which committed him to 12 weeks at Parris Island, three years of active Reserve duty and five years in the inactive Reserves.

“It’s something I wanted to do before I get too old,” he said. Younger recruits “might run a little faster, but I’ll run longer.”

He never had to run more than 1 1/2 miles, the beginning distance for a recruit.

Always a reluctant trainer, Bowe reported to Parris Island for several days of indoctrination, going through the requisite medical and psychological tests and being issued uniforms. His training began Tuesday, with reveille at 5 a.m., physical training, classes in Marine tradition, rifle maintenance and the rifleman’s code, sentry duty and meals by the numbers.

He was told to dress in one minute, that latrine breaks were three minutes long, and to answer every order with “Sir, aye, aye, sir.”

It was too much.

“The overall sentiment was one of respect for trying,” said Maj. Rick Long of Parris Island.

“From the Marines I talked to, they said he at least gave it a shot,” Long said. “That’s more than you can say for some.”

The Marine Corps allows a recruit to leave voluntarily or through dismissal--called a “level-entry” separation--if he or she demonstrates an inability to adjust to the rigors and regimentation of the Corps.

“I am not surprised the regimen and the discipline that the Corps requires is something Riddick had a bit of a problem with . . . ,” Newman said. “To say the least, this is a monumental change for him.”

It’s what the Marines promise in their recruiting brochures: “The change is forever.”

Or, in this case, three days.

And that’s not unusual. The third day of training, said a Southern California Marine recruiter, is a benchmark.

“It’s where they have found that the Marines may not be what they thought they were,” he said. “And they get homesick.”

DeMars said Bowe was the second recruit from his platoon to resign.

Officers and the drill instructor tried to get Bowe to stay and were told that he wished he had enlisted earlier in life.

“Riddick said that because of his experiences as a heavyweight champion and having everything he wanted, it was a difficult transition to make,” Long said.

Bowe decided that on Thursday, when he called his wife and said he had had enough. A relative picked him up and Bowe went into seclusion.