To Sir With Leave

PARRIS ISLAND, S.C.: He'll always have Parris. Just three days into his Marine boot camp training, Riddick Bowe is dropping out. "It was just that he couldn't handle the regimented training lifestyle," said Master Sgt. Chuck Demar. "He's been released at his own request." Demar said one of Bowe's family members picked him up and they left the island at 12:40 p.m. Although a recruit can ask to be dismissed at any time, the first days of Marine boot camp are hardly the most grueling even though they begin at 5:30 a.m. and involve large amounts of physical exercise. But Bowe, who announced his enlistment Jan. 30 as "something I always wanted to do," evidently found the reality quite different than what he had imagined. Perhaps the reason was, as Bowe's manager Rock Newman said, that Bowe missed his wife and five children. Perhaps it was the haircut, or that the former heavyweight champion was not allowed to box along with the other recruits. But Bowe's major malfuction may simply have been that at 29 and a multimillionaire, he has other, more comfortable pipe dreams to pursue. "I would think Riddick would like to serve his country, but in some other capacity," Newman told CNN-SI television. "Maybe now he can run for Congress or something."