For Corps and Country: Building the Next Generation of Marines

By GORDON I. PETERSON, Senior Editor

Senior Editor Gordon I. Peterson recently visited Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, S.C., to document the transformation of a recruit into a Marine.

As Staff Sgt. Joselito Valentin's raspy, sing-song voice carried over Platoon 1081, the drill instructor's cadence was echoed by the 45 tired but attentive Marine Corps recruits under his charge:

Take cover to the right, take cover to the right;

Luff, right, your luff, ho-lo right and left;

Right oblique, march; in-place, halt!

The fading afternoon sun of an early autumn Sunday flooded the platoon and others like it in gold as they practiced close-order drill on the "Parade Deck" at Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD), Parris Island, S.C. With a graded drill competition scheduled in just two days, the hours of added rehearsal would benefit drill instructors and recruits alike.

The timeless scene of drilling recruits would be immediately familiar to any of the approximately one million Marines who have graduated from basic training at Parris Island since a small recruit depot was established there in 1911.

"The basics of Marine Corps recruit training haven't changed significantly in years," said Col. Jeffery W. Bearor, commander of MCRD's Recruit Training Regiment. "We fine-tune to the nth degree, and now we're working on the margins."

Building on close to a century's experience in transforming recruits into Marines, recent refinements made to the 12 weeks of recruit training are aimed at developing highly confident, self-disciplined, and physically fit young male and female Marines who will work well together in a team.

Realigned instruction, the addition of Marine Corps "core values" acculturation, and the introduction of an intensive 54-hour "Crucible" during the 11th week of training are three noteworthy refinements adopted in recent years to meet the changing missions of the Corps and to address societal changes in recruits.

"You build up the individual's confidence and then have that individual become a member of a team," explained Brig. Gen. Joseph J. McMenamin, the commanding general of MCRD Parris Island and the Marine Corps' Eastern Recruiting Region. "Then you have confident individuals fighting as a team. That's what makes the Marine Corps successful."

Taking the "I" Out of Marine

Sea Power's week-long visit to Parris Island revealed that the process of transforming individual recruits into confident Marines and team players who will abide by the Corps' values takes many forms. Recruits face the shock of their changed life style from the moment they are ordered off their bus by their receiving drill instructors--"DIs," in the parlance of recruit training--to follow painted yellow steps on the pavement that guide them to their initial processing point, haircuts, and gear issue.

The personal pronoun "I" is immediately banished from a recruit's vocabulary. All questions must be answered with the preamble, "This recruit ... ." The privilege of being addressed as "Marine" must be painstakingly earned by successfully completing basic training.

On average, approximately 17,000 Marines graduate from recruit training annually at Parris Island. Approximately 3,800 male and 600 female Marines will be in training on any given day.

During the weeks that follow their initial processing, male and female recruits--trained separately but held to the same requirements--must complete formal academic instruction in a wide range of general military subjects, achieve proficiency in close-order drill, satisfy combat-survival swimming requirements, qualify with the M-16A2 service rifle, and master "warrior" skills encompassing martial arts, close-combat tactics, and physical training.

Learning objectives and standards are clearly defined, and performance is meticulously graded in these key areas. In addition to documenting the recruit's day-to-day progress, graded evolutions allow honor graduates, platoons, and companies to be recognized at graduation.

The Corps' recruit depots on both the East and West Coasts (MCRD San Diego, Calif., trains male recruits enlisted west of the Mississippi River) have held male attrition to a roughly consistent 9 percent in recent years--largely by adopting a more progressive stair-stepped physical training program and instituting a sports-medicine approach that has halved the number of recruits who are dropped from training because of physical injury.

Throughout recruit training, the Marine Corps' core values of honor, courage, and commitment are continually emphasized. In addition to 33 hours of programmed instruction, drill instructors frequently discuss core values during daily activities--teaching the importance of such qualities as tenacity, resilience, fortitude, loyalty, and integrity.

The Crucible, instituted by former Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Charles C. Krulak in 1996, serves as a final rite of passage during the 11th week of training. Recruit platoons, broken down into 18-member teams, are tested morally, mentally, and physically as they negotiate eight core events encompassing 29 exercises at 36 different stations--all aimed at developing teamwork and problem-solving skills.

The Transformation

While the Crucible is viewed as a culminating event in the life of a recruit, the Marine Corps' transformation process really begins with the work of the Marine recruiter many months before induction. The process is accelerated during recruit training. Recruits are personally--and intensely--supervised and instructed by their DIs from the moment they are awakened by reveille at 5 a.m. until "lights out" at 9 p.m., when Taps is sounded in the barracks' squad bays.

Because of the individual experiences of each recruit, it is difficult to identify any one training challenge that stands apart as being more demanding than the rest. Non-swimmers may find water-survival training to be the most demanding task. Regular three-mile runs during morning physical training will daunt some recruits. Martial arts training (covering knife fighting, bayonet drill, and hand-to-hand combat) will challenge others.

Pfc. William Algarin-Mendoza, of Miami, Fla., the honor graduate of Hotel Company's Platoon 2086, said he was stressed mentally throughout his training. Creating a sense of teamwork in his platoon of recruits also proved to be demanding. "Members of the platoon are from many different places, and they all have different thoughts," he said. "You have to come together as a team."

The need for mental toughness, along with a growing sense of self-confidence, permeates all aspects of the recruit's transition. As Pvt. Christine E. Helmes, of Brooklyn, N.Y., told Sea Power, "This recruit learned a lot about myself--what I could do with sheer willpower. This recruit realized that she had more heart than she ever thought she had--if I can endure this training I can endure anything in life."

Parris Island Marines agree that developing the attributes of an effective team is likely the most difficult task a recruit will face.

"Recruits tell me that the hardest thing about recruit training was working together since they were so focused on their individual needs and their own agendas," Bearor told Sea Power. "Nobody excels as an individual at recruit training. They excel as a fire team, as a squad, as a platoon, and as a series--and the DIs work that every day. Everything is focused on the team."

"You Can Start to Say 'I' Again"

As the weeks of training unfold, the recruit's transformation process builds to a crescendo just before the Crucible and "transformation week." DIs slowly but methodically begin to lower some of the barriers between instructor and recruit.

Recruits are allowed to sleep a total of only eight hours--in two four-hour periods--during the Crucible, and they are given just two-and-a-half "MREs" (meals, ready to eat) as rations during their 54 hours in the field. DIs must still deliver pointed guidance as fatigue sets in.

When the recruits in Platoon 3083 experienced difficulty in erecting their tent shelters quickly and orderly (only 15 minutes are allowed for the evolution) during their first day's bivouac, for example, their drill instructor's command was clear. "Just don't stand there--help somebody," ordered Sgt. Ian Brady. "Stop messing around. Lay down and set up your shelters."

Early in the Crucible, the members of a team drawn from Platoon 3093 were assembled to introduce themselves to their fellow recruits and DI. As his men rested on the grass and ate a small portion of their first MRE, Brady simply told them, "You can start to say 'I' again." He then asked his recruits to relate something about themselves and to explain why they joined the Marine Corps.

Most recruits offered such traditional reasons as self-improvement, the opportunity for advanced schooling, and the example set by family members who served in the Corps.

"I come from a Marine family," said one. "Instead of hearing all their stories, I want to tell some of my own." Another asserted, "I've been a slacker my entire life; I need to be pushed."

Some young recruits, however, offered more poignant insights. "My father was an alcoholic who beat the stuffing out of me," said one. Others also freely admitted to joining the Corps to escape a broken home or to make something more meaningful out of their lives. Such candid revelations contributed almost visibly to the emotional bonding that transpired as the young recruits (their average age is 19) journeyed together on the path to graduation.

"Standing Tall With Pride"

Each of the numerous "Warrior Stations" in the Crucible, named for enlisted Marines who were awarded the Medal of Honor, must be negotiated by recruits working as a team. Beside each station is a photograph of the Marine for whom the station is named. A poster-sized copy of the award citation for the Medal of Honor also is displayed.

"Anderson's Fall," for example, is named in honor of Pfc. James Anderson, posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his "inspirational and supreme self-sacrifice" while assigned to the 3rd Marine Division in 1967 in South Vietnam. During a savage firefight with North Vietnamese soldiers, Anderson threw himself on an enemy hand grenade to protect the men in his platoon.

In the "event" named after Anderson, each recruit stands with arms folded and falls backwards from a five-foot-high platform into the locked arms of other recruits waiting below. After all of his recruits had completed the exercise--and he had stripped off his web gear to conclude the exercise with them--Brady read the citation for Anderson's award aloud to the recruits seated before him.

He then quietly emphasized several points. "Anderson was about your age," Brady said. "And when that grenade landed, he just pulled it under his body. He didn't look around to see if there were whites, blacks, or Hispanics around him--they were Marines." Similar discussions--and self-evaluations of the team's performance--were conducted at each Warrior Station.

Following another five-mile night hike, a final 20 hours of team-building exercises, and their last four-hour rest period, recruits concluded the grueling Crucible with a nine-mile dawn hike from their training area to a replica of the Iwo Jima flag-raising monument located adjacent to the Parris Island Parade Deck.

There, drill instructors presented each male and female recruit with their first "eagle, globe, and anchor" Marine Corps insignia. More than 700 recruits--some with tears streaming down their cheeks--huskily sang the Marines' Hymn to conclude the ceremony. They had proudly claimed the title of United States Marine.

Said Pvt. Jason Rose of Baltimore, Md., "After my experience at the Iwo Jima monument, I finally realized why our drill instructors kept talking to us about standing tall with pride."

A week after completing the Crucible, Parris Island recruits are graduated in a formal pass-in-review ceremony on the Parade Deck. The bleachers are crowded with families and friends--each of whom share in the pride of their Marine's accomplishment. Mamie Alston, of Siler City, N.C., traveled to Parris Island with her husband to watch her son, Enasio, graduate on 5 October. "I love him, and I'm very proud," she told Sea Power. "I'm glad he's with the Marines to stand up for his country."

The Foundation for Success

No individual exerts a greater influence on the recruits during their transformation into Marines than their drill instructors.

"The DI-recruit relationship is probably the foundation for the Marine Corps' success," Bearor said. "It's what I call the 'shared-enlisted experience' in boot camp. None of the Marines in any Medal of Honor citations died because some officer told him to do so. They died to save their buddies. Where does that start? Right here in the squad bays--that's the secret. It's the relationship of the DI with the recruit and then, the magic--when the recruits start to support each other."

Career-minded NCOs (noncommissioned officers) often are inspired to serve as DIs because of the example provided by their own DIs in recruit training. "The number one reason why I wanted to be a DI was the impression my drill instructors left with me when I graduated from recruit training in 1992," said Staff Sgt. Therester A. Cox, of Collinsville, Miss. "As I came up through the Marine Corps, I always heard that the drill instructor was the cream of the crop. I wanted to be a part of that elite force."

The DI also takes personal pride in sustaining a Marine's pride in serving for Corps and country. "If you look at the legacy of the Marine Corps, everything is passed down from Marine to Marine," said 1st Lt. Michael L. Salisbury, a former enlisted Marine who completed basic training at Parris Island in 1990 and now oversees several platoons in India Company. "When you quote something you heard before from somebody you really respect, you are passing that knowledge along. The legacy continues.

"It's an interesting job--you put in some long hours as a DI, but you learn a lot," Salisbury continued. "You're a teacher, a guidance counselor, a father, a brother--you play all the different roles. It's challenging, but it also is very rewarding.

The full impact of the DI's influence will not be fully apparent until after--sometimes long after--the recruits graduate and leave Parris Island for advanced training. "I'm waiting for my reward when I leave here and go back to the Fleet Marine Force and run into the recruits I've trained," said Staff Sgt. James Emch, a senior drill instructor. "I am hoping and praying that I'll see them as successful and squared-away Marines ready to take our place one day."

Recruit training is primarily an enlisted business, and DIs are granted some leeway in adapting their leadership styles to meet the needs of their recruits. A "zero-tolerance" policy on hazing or physical harassment is rigidly enforced, however, to ensure recruits are not abused during their training. "We watch this like a hawk," said Bearor, "and so do the DIs."

To the officers and NCOs at Parris Island, training recruits represents a compact between the commandant of the Marine Corps and the parents of America. "Send us your great sons and daughters," Bearor said, "and we will transform them into Marines--and we will take good care of them while we do that." Each DI takes a pledge each time he or she is assigned a new platoon: These recruits are entrusted to my care. "DIs take that seriously," Bearor added. "Recruits learn how to be Marines by watching their DIs."

Role Models for the Corps

The performance standards for qualification as a DI are high, and each student must complete a tough three-month course of instruction at Parris Island's Drill Instructor School. The Depot's roughly 600 DIs served nearly eight years in the Marine Corps, on average, before their assignment to instructor duty.

"This is probably the Marine Corps' most difficult leadership school," said Maj. Matthew G. St. Clair, the school's command-er. "We expect our students to be role models for the Marine Corps 100 percent of the time--by their presence, manner, and professional knowledge."

The Drill Instructor School also is helping to shape the future of NCO training in the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe. This summer, students from Romania and Bulgaria were graduated from the course.

The school's curriculum covers eight areas of professional knowledge. Instruction takes place in the classroom, on the Parade Deck, and in discussion groups. Students in the school also serve as assistant DIs, under observation, during the Crucible.

The Marine Corps is beginning to graduate NCOs from Drill Instructor School who, during their own recruit training, were in the first cohort to complete the Crucible. "From this day forward," Bearor said, "we will really reap the benefits as those Marines who first came through their training with our increased emphasis on ethics and core values start to rise through the leadership ranks of the Marine Corps."

Formal evaluation does not end when the NCO graduates from school certified to serve as a DI. Other enlisted drill masters and company officers continually evaluate the DI's performance and skill in leading, training, drilling, and instructing his or her recruits. As Staff Sgt. Melissa Martinez, of New York City, N.Y., told Sea Power, "It's nerve-wracking." DIs will, on average, regularly work a 100- to 120-hour week.

After supervising recruit platoons or companies for nine to 12 months, DIs may rotate temporarily to other duties as academic, martial arts, swimming, or weapons instructors under a quota system designed to provide some break in their arduous routine.

A successful tour as a DI is a distinct career-enhancing assignment in today's highly competitive Marine Corps. Meritorious advancements and awards are bestowed on top performers. When they return to the operating forces, DIs generally are the "go-to" people for the toughest assignments. They also are viewed as the Corps' future first sergeants and sergeants major.

A Reinforced Sense of Purpose

News of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon spread quickly across Parris Island on 11 September, and the Depot's officers and NCOs immediately took action to inform all recruits of developments as additional information became available. Recruits from the New York City area and the Washington, D.C., area were allowed to call home to check on the status of friends and family members. Chaplains counseled recruits, and any who had lost family members were sent home on emergency leave.

"We told the recruits--they needed to know," Bearor said. "This was a significant event in every American's life." Before the week was out, each recruit company had conducted a remembrance service to help the recruits come to closure. "They understand that this will have some effect on their lives," Bearor said, "and for many it may eventually have a great effect."

The recruit-training curriculum, which already includes instruction on "level one" force protection and terrorism, is being re-evaluated to determine if added emphasis is needed. "Whether we change anything or not depends on both East and West Coasts [Recruit Depots] getting together and working with the Training and Education Command in Quantico [Va.]," McMenamin said.

All of the graduating recruits with whom Sea Power spoke voiced a strong desire to progress with their advanced training quickly so they could join the Marines Corps' operating forces at the earliest opportunity. All also said they would like to be where the action is, but the reality is that this will not happen for most new Marines in the near future.

Immediately after the attacks, base security at Parris Island was increased significantly. Public access to the installation was curtailed, and armed sentries manned checkpoints at several locations on the causeway leading to the island. Roving security patrols guarded the Depot's perimeter and waterways.

The terrorist attacks also strengthened the resolve of the Depot's support personnel, DIs, and recruits to hone their skills and to be ready for whatever the future might hold.

"We always have a sharp focus, " McMenamin said, "but the events of 11 September have reinforced our sense of purpose in what we do." *

[Ed. Note: Learn more about Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, S.C., at www.mcrdpi.usmc.mil]