thedrifter
02-17-04, 05:49 PM
Issue Date: February 23, 2004
The few. The proud. The Recon Marines.
Many come calling, few make the cut in a growing field
By C. Mark Brinkley
Times staff writer
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — With 28 minutes of treading water in the deep end of the pool already under his belt, the exhausted sergeant gives up, climbs out of the water and heads for the locker room, his soaked cammies dripping a trail of failure behind him.
Gunnery Sgt. Deryck Dervin shows no pity. The sergeant had only two minutes left to go.
“There wasn’t much we could do with him anyway,” Dervin said, looking at the results of the physical fitness test the sergeant took earlier that morning. Nine pull-ups, 70 crunches and a 28:11 run — a PFT score of 153. “He could have swam like a fish, but we can’t work with that.”
That Dervin and the other training instructors from 2nd Force Reconnaissance Company kicked off their qualifying test before sunrise, in 30-degree weather, on the first day back from a 96-hour holiday weekend makes no difference to the 10-year recon veteran. He won’t accept anything short of greatness today.
He needs people with heart.
“What’s amazing to me is that most of these Marines aren’t over the age of 25,” Dervin said, studying his clipboard. “And their PFT scores are just ridiculous. It’s sad.”
A lance corporal soon follows the sergeant out of the pool, this one a bigger disappointment because he started the day with a promising 16-92-22:40, a 244 PFT. Dervin shakes his head, and recalls the days when he first joined recon. Back then, you couldn’t even try out for Force Recon without a 285.
“So you can imagine, if we had that standard today, we wouldn’t get anybody,” he said.
While the rules have changed over time, the task facing Dervin and others like him is as tough as it’s always been. To find the best of the best and train them to do a job that doesn’t allow for quitting.
His job is even tougher these days, as the demand for reconnaissance Marines grows. There’s a new Marine Corps special-operations detachment serving with U.S. Special Operations Command, and combat duties in Iraq and Afghanistan to consider. Seven Marine Expeditionary Units out there still need recon Marines for traditional deployments.
And there are the lures of the civilian world — big money from private security companies and better hours from government police forces — that suck good recon Marines out of the service. Others are drawn away by the Army, Air Force or Navy, where a former recon Marine can change jobs and spend the remainder of his career in the high-intensity world of special operations.
But the Corps has done its part to improve life in recon, opening it to qualified Marines from any occupational specialty and by allowing recon Marines to spend an entire career in the job most grow to love. Any junior Marine can join recon and be there for 20 years, as long as they pass the tests.
And these tests are not scored on a curve. So Dervin, and other recon training leaders like him throughout the Corps, keep looking.
The search
“We’re having a hard time fielding a full battalion,” said Gunnery Sgt. Chad Ramsey, 32, commander of the Recon Training Platoon for 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion at Camp Lejeune. “Recruiting, retention, all of it.”
There are two paths into the recon world, both beginning with “indoc” tests that qualify Marines for Force Recon or battalion recon training. Most of the battalion-recon trainees come straight from the Schools of Infantry, though any Marine through the rank of sergeant can audition. Force Recon accepts only senior lance corporals, corporals and sergeants for their indoctrination tests.
Ramsey will run five recon training platoons this year, a number that compares with his counterparts on the West Coast, and will hold more than a dozen screenings to fill them. Once assigned to a training platoon, the Marines will train for the Basic Reconnaissance Course, where graduation earns a recon military occupational specialty (0321) and an assignment in the reconnaissance battalion.
Force Recon hopefuls follow the same path, but return to Force Reconnaissance Company after graduating BRC. The smaller unit and different mission require a more experienced Marine, but recon Marines who start at a recon battalion often earn future Force assignments.
Until the Marine earns the recon MOS, his future remains in doubt. Some make it through indoc, only to wash out in the training platoons or at school. Those that don’t make the grade are shipped back to their units for assignment elsewhere.
“We want to have people here who want to be here,” said 1st Sgt. Jose Santiago, first sergeant for Bravo Company, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion at Camp Pendleton, Calif. Daily physical training — lots of it, with running courses that wind their way up and down Pendleton’s scrubby hills and across the beach — helps separate the serious from the wannabes.
And the swimming’s no joke, either.
“There’s the challenge of going into that surf and [swimming] 1,000 meters and coming back,” Santiago said. “Sometimes we do it with our rucksacks, which is 50 pounds.”
But the incentives are plentiful for those that make it. Once they’re MOS-qualified, recon Marines have the opportunity to go to dive school, jump school, Army Ranger school and other elite courses.
Ramsey’s dive and specialized parachutist certifications earn him an extra $450 a month. It sounds good, but it’s not easy.
“A lot of these schools will wear you out,” Ramsey said. “It’s not for everybody.”
Passing ‘indoc’
But that all comes later, after a candidate passes indoc. And few do.
During a January battalion recon indoc, Ramsey started the day with 24 Marines from Camp Lejeune’s School of Infantry East, who came out of the field the previous night for a briefing on the recon program. Most selected for tryouts had no idea what they were in for the next morning.
“If you want to quit, quit,” Ramsey said, pointing to a big brass bell brought to the swimming pool for the tests. “That’s what that bell’s for. Ring it three times and go get changed over.”
The first test of the day was a 500-meter swim in cammies, using only the breaststroke or sidestroke. Soon the pool area sounded like a Sunday afternoon at church, as the clang-clang-clang rang out four times in the first five minutes to signal candidates giving up.
There will be many more before it’s all said and done. Only a handful make the cut.
“We’ll get three to five,” said one trainer, looking at the Marines in the pool. “We average about three.”
After 20 minutes, 75 percent of the candidates were changing clothes. Then came a 15-foot drop into the pool from the high dive, the 30-minute water treading exercise and the brick retrieval, where the swimmer must dive to the bottom, grab a 10-pound plastic brick, and bring it back to the surface.
Two more Marines were out before the group ever made it to the morning PFT. Another failed to score a first-class rating and was cut, leaving the crop of hopefuls at five, just as predicted.
At the Force Recon indoc two weeks later, things were no easier, but the more experienced Marines fared better. Four sergeants, three corporals, two lance corporals and a lieutenant kicked off the day with a PFT before heading to the pool. By the end, seven of the 10 were still around.
Among the seven was a bright spot, one Marine who came hobbling out of the pool after completing the tests, limping on a sore knee.
“We got a Marine here, he was in a car accident in Virginia during the 96,” Dervin said. “He’s still here, putting out. That’s what I’m talking about.”
C. Mark Brinkley is the Jacksonville, N.C., bureau chief for Marine Corps Times. He can be reached at (910) 455-8354 or via e-mail at cmark@marinecorpstimes.com. Gidget Fuentes contributed to this report from Camp Pendleton, Calif.
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=0-MARINEPAPER-2627456.php
Sempers,
Roger
:marine:
The few. The proud. The Recon Marines.
Many come calling, few make the cut in a growing field
By C. Mark Brinkley
Times staff writer
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — With 28 minutes of treading water in the deep end of the pool already under his belt, the exhausted sergeant gives up, climbs out of the water and heads for the locker room, his soaked cammies dripping a trail of failure behind him.
Gunnery Sgt. Deryck Dervin shows no pity. The sergeant had only two minutes left to go.
“There wasn’t much we could do with him anyway,” Dervin said, looking at the results of the physical fitness test the sergeant took earlier that morning. Nine pull-ups, 70 crunches and a 28:11 run — a PFT score of 153. “He could have swam like a fish, but we can’t work with that.”
That Dervin and the other training instructors from 2nd Force Reconnaissance Company kicked off their qualifying test before sunrise, in 30-degree weather, on the first day back from a 96-hour holiday weekend makes no difference to the 10-year recon veteran. He won’t accept anything short of greatness today.
He needs people with heart.
“What’s amazing to me is that most of these Marines aren’t over the age of 25,” Dervin said, studying his clipboard. “And their PFT scores are just ridiculous. It’s sad.”
A lance corporal soon follows the sergeant out of the pool, this one a bigger disappointment because he started the day with a promising 16-92-22:40, a 244 PFT. Dervin shakes his head, and recalls the days when he first joined recon. Back then, you couldn’t even try out for Force Recon without a 285.
“So you can imagine, if we had that standard today, we wouldn’t get anybody,” he said.
While the rules have changed over time, the task facing Dervin and others like him is as tough as it’s always been. To find the best of the best and train them to do a job that doesn’t allow for quitting.
His job is even tougher these days, as the demand for reconnaissance Marines grows. There’s a new Marine Corps special-operations detachment serving with U.S. Special Operations Command, and combat duties in Iraq and Afghanistan to consider. Seven Marine Expeditionary Units out there still need recon Marines for traditional deployments.
And there are the lures of the civilian world — big money from private security companies and better hours from government police forces — that suck good recon Marines out of the service. Others are drawn away by the Army, Air Force or Navy, where a former recon Marine can change jobs and spend the remainder of his career in the high-intensity world of special operations.
But the Corps has done its part to improve life in recon, opening it to qualified Marines from any occupational specialty and by allowing recon Marines to spend an entire career in the job most grow to love. Any junior Marine can join recon and be there for 20 years, as long as they pass the tests.
And these tests are not scored on a curve. So Dervin, and other recon training leaders like him throughout the Corps, keep looking.
The search
“We’re having a hard time fielding a full battalion,” said Gunnery Sgt. Chad Ramsey, 32, commander of the Recon Training Platoon for 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion at Camp Lejeune. “Recruiting, retention, all of it.”
There are two paths into the recon world, both beginning with “indoc” tests that qualify Marines for Force Recon or battalion recon training. Most of the battalion-recon trainees come straight from the Schools of Infantry, though any Marine through the rank of sergeant can audition. Force Recon accepts only senior lance corporals, corporals and sergeants for their indoctrination tests.
Ramsey will run five recon training platoons this year, a number that compares with his counterparts on the West Coast, and will hold more than a dozen screenings to fill them. Once assigned to a training platoon, the Marines will train for the Basic Reconnaissance Course, where graduation earns a recon military occupational specialty (0321) and an assignment in the reconnaissance battalion.
Force Recon hopefuls follow the same path, but return to Force Reconnaissance Company after graduating BRC. The smaller unit and different mission require a more experienced Marine, but recon Marines who start at a recon battalion often earn future Force assignments.
Until the Marine earns the recon MOS, his future remains in doubt. Some make it through indoc, only to wash out in the training platoons or at school. Those that don’t make the grade are shipped back to their units for assignment elsewhere.
“We want to have people here who want to be here,” said 1st Sgt. Jose Santiago, first sergeant for Bravo Company, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion at Camp Pendleton, Calif. Daily physical training — lots of it, with running courses that wind their way up and down Pendleton’s scrubby hills and across the beach — helps separate the serious from the wannabes.
And the swimming’s no joke, either.
“There’s the challenge of going into that surf and [swimming] 1,000 meters and coming back,” Santiago said. “Sometimes we do it with our rucksacks, which is 50 pounds.”
But the incentives are plentiful for those that make it. Once they’re MOS-qualified, recon Marines have the opportunity to go to dive school, jump school, Army Ranger school and other elite courses.
Ramsey’s dive and specialized parachutist certifications earn him an extra $450 a month. It sounds good, but it’s not easy.
“A lot of these schools will wear you out,” Ramsey said. “It’s not for everybody.”
Passing ‘indoc’
But that all comes later, after a candidate passes indoc. And few do.
During a January battalion recon indoc, Ramsey started the day with 24 Marines from Camp Lejeune’s School of Infantry East, who came out of the field the previous night for a briefing on the recon program. Most selected for tryouts had no idea what they were in for the next morning.
“If you want to quit, quit,” Ramsey said, pointing to a big brass bell brought to the swimming pool for the tests. “That’s what that bell’s for. Ring it three times and go get changed over.”
The first test of the day was a 500-meter swim in cammies, using only the breaststroke or sidestroke. Soon the pool area sounded like a Sunday afternoon at church, as the clang-clang-clang rang out four times in the first five minutes to signal candidates giving up.
There will be many more before it’s all said and done. Only a handful make the cut.
“We’ll get three to five,” said one trainer, looking at the Marines in the pool. “We average about three.”
After 20 minutes, 75 percent of the candidates were changing clothes. Then came a 15-foot drop into the pool from the high dive, the 30-minute water treading exercise and the brick retrieval, where the swimmer must dive to the bottom, grab a 10-pound plastic brick, and bring it back to the surface.
Two more Marines were out before the group ever made it to the morning PFT. Another failed to score a first-class rating and was cut, leaving the crop of hopefuls at five, just as predicted.
At the Force Recon indoc two weeks later, things were no easier, but the more experienced Marines fared better. Four sergeants, three corporals, two lance corporals and a lieutenant kicked off the day with a PFT before heading to the pool. By the end, seven of the 10 were still around.
Among the seven was a bright spot, one Marine who came hobbling out of the pool after completing the tests, limping on a sore knee.
“We got a Marine here, he was in a car accident in Virginia during the 96,” Dervin said. “He’s still here, putting out. That’s what I’m talking about.”
C. Mark Brinkley is the Jacksonville, N.C., bureau chief for Marine Corps Times. He can be reached at (910) 455-8354 or via e-mail at cmark@marinecorpstimes.com. Gidget Fuentes contributed to this report from Camp Pendleton, Calif.
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=0-MARINEPAPER-2627456.php
Sempers,
Roger
:marine: