Marines Must Survive The Crucible in Basic Training

[thedrifter]

Marines Must Survive The Crucible in Basic Training
Feb. 9, 2005

("HONOR COURAGE COMMITMENT, EVERYDAY 24/7."

That's what recruits with the United States Marines are taught --

Especially during the 'The Crucible', a 54 hour endurance test that pushes even the most fit marines to the limit.

The 12 weeks of training it takes to become a United States Marine is the toughest of any branch of the military.

But there's two and half days of it that are almost unbearable.

Amanda Butterfield shows us more about 'The Crucible...' The Crucible is a test of endurance, for both the body and mind.

Every marine must complete it. It's purpose: to give recruits a taste of battle.

This is war.

Or at least how the United States Marines train for it.

For the next two and a half days these recruits will be lucky if they get a total of 8 hours of sleep. They'll only eat three times.

And they'll have to complete 37 obstacles, or exercises like this one, before it's over.

In this platoon there's a young man from Payson, who simply describes the Crucible as hard.

(Andrew Jones, Marine Recruit:) "CAUSE THESE RECRUITS ARE MENTALLY WORN OUT FROM CONTINOUS MOVEMENTS, AND THEIR JUST OVER ANXIOUS TO GET IT DONE."

The Utah recruits we've been following, Ryan Christensen, and Kyle Soules haven't gotten this far in training yet... but they've been preparing for it.

Both will not only need to be physically, but mentally tough because not all the missions require strength.

THIS PART OF THE CRUCIBLE IS CALLED THE 12 STALL, IN EVERY STALL THERE'S A DIFFERENT MISSION... HERE THEY HAVE TO CROSS THIS AREA ONLY TOUCHING THAT POLE, THEY TOUCH RED OR THE GROUND, THEY'RE DEAD.

In the other stalls are different challenges -- even though these men are exhausted... they've got to keep focused, and figure out their mission.

For Ryan and Kyle the Crucible is only a couple weeks away.

(Kyle Soules:) "I'M THINKING IT'S NOT GOING TO BE AS HARD AS I THOUGHT IT WAS WHEN I FIRST CAME HERE, I'M A LITTLE MORE CONFIDENT, THE DRILL INSTRUCTORS MADE SURE OF THAT."

Once the recruits finish a drill -- there's no rest, only marching.

They'll travel over 40 miles with full packs on in the next 54 hours.

But they'll also be one step closer to being done with The Crucible... and training. And one step close to seeing family again.

("THIS RECRUITS GOING TO HUG HIS WIFE."

And *soon... these recruits will officially be marines.

After 'The Crucible', it's all down hill until graduation -- The first time recruits are called marines.

Tomorrow we'll show it to you -- as a group of Utahns make their families, and country proud.

to watch video click link.....
http://tv.ksl.com/index.php?nid=39&sid=149667

The Drifter's Wife

Ellie

[James F. Owings]

The Crucible seems to be a fine idea. It fills a gap that was created by removing some of the older methods of training.

It is easier today to wash out "non-hackers" than it was in 1968 when the orders were "make 'em or break 'em" But a point is reached when the obvious "mistakes" are gone and it is no longer so easy to deal with the wheat and chaff problem.

At a certain point in training the recruits are fit enough that pushups "forever and ever" merely tires them out rather than being a stress factor. Figuring out who has the vocation and who just has the earmarks got tough when old practices were abolished.

Since the tragedy at Ribbon Creek in the 1950s, the Corps has weeded out brutality and other unprofessional practices in recruit training. In spite of what most civilians believe, boot camp is not about brutality, it is about stress.

During the Vietnam war the D.I.'s had less time to turn out the same product and sometimes a slap to the back of the neck saved much time. (R. Lee Ermy has commented on this) With very few exceptions, the D.I.'s who did this were stable mature men who believed that they were acting in the best interests of the Corps and the young recruits.

With the end of the Vietnam war physical intimidation became rare... The Crucible seems to be an excellent replacement. This final screening is a last chance to avoid sending the unsuited into combat. It also creates a sense of accomplishment and pride.

Milk maids who got Cowpox proved to be largely resistant to Smallpox. Properly stressed Marine recruits have proved better able to handle the far greater stress of combat. Kudos to those who created the Crucible...

-Jim-

[thedrifter]

Making Marines
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By MIKE BILLINGTON / The News Journal
03/20/2005

PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. -- Heather Bradley once spent pain-filled hours dancing on her toes. She dreamed of being Camden, Del.'s, first world-class ballerina.

An injury ended that dream. After a year of college, she came home searching for a new challenge - and found it in the Marines.

"She wanted to prove to herself that she could do it, that she could be a Marine," her mother, Carol Bradley, says. "Heather has always wanted to be the best."

Bradley is in basic training at Parris Island, S.C. - a sand-flea-infested, swampy lump of ground where, in the winter, a steady breeze can chill bone marrow and in the summer the heat can be so oppressive that training sometimes is suspended. Parris Island, where millions of men have made the journey from civilian to Marine, is the only place where female recruits are sent to boot camp.

Bradley, 20, stands in a mess hall line with three plates balanced on her tray - one holding a salad, another with bread, mashed potatoes and a rice-and-chicken combination, and a third with pie and whipped cream.

There is little time to eat. And because talking gets in the way of chewing, conversations are short, to the point and in the third person.

"This recruit thinks the food is very good here, sir," she tells a reporter.

On the second anniversary of the war in Iraq, with more than 1,500 dead, the military - including the self-described "911 Force," the Marines - is struggling to recruit soldiers to field operations there and in Afghanistan.

The Marines have historically relied on their storied past to attract recruits to four- and six-year enlistments. The Corps has hit its quotas the past nine years. Last year, 36,794 enlisted - 21 more than its goal. And, unlike other branches of service, the Marines did that while offering few bonuses.

"Honestly, I've never offered one," says Sgt. Jeffery Gonzales, the top Marine recruiter in the Baltimore district, which covers most of Maryland and all of Delaware.

But these days the Corps is finding it more difficult to sign up people. In January and February, the Marines failed to meet internal recruiting goals.

The intensity and length of military operations, combined with the rising number of casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, have hurt recruiting somewhat, recruiters said. But it hasn't been as bad for them as it has for the National Guard, which is about 30 percent below its authorized strength and failed to hit its recruiting goal last year. Still, Marine recruiters admit that fewer young men and women are walking through their doors and recruiters are working harder than ever.

Gonzales works six and seven days a week, often spending 14 hours a day in his office on Main Street in Newark or out on the road. Winters are slow recruiting seasons, he says. In the summer, enlistments traditionally jump, soon after graduation for a fresh crop of high school seniors.

Besides, he and other recruiters say, the enlistment goals the Corps failed to meet are higher than the Pentagon's. The result: Recruiters remain confident.

"There will always be people who want to be the best, who are patriotic and want to serve their country," says 2nd Lt. Scott Miller, a Parris Island public affairs officer. "There will always be men and women who want to be Marines."

There are about 177,000 Marines on active duty. Each one, regardless of race or gender, is made the same way.

'The Marine Way'

The process starts the moment recruits step off the bus in front of the massive red-brick Parris Island reception center. Drill instructors line them up on Panama Street, each recruit standing on a set of painted yellow footprints.

"We start by telling them that millions of men and women have stood in those footprints," Staff Sgt. Patrick Wiley says. "Some of those Marines won the Medal of Honor, others went on to careers in politics and business. We tell recruits we expect them to live up to the examples set by those Marines."

A few weeks ago, Wilmington native Joshua Smith stood in those yellow footprints.

"It makes you stop and think," he says. "It makes you want to do your best."

Smith, 20, grew up wanting to be a cop, someone who made the mean streets safe. His dream didn't die, but it didn't turn out quite the way he'd planned. He never quite fit in at the three colleges he attended after graduating from Concord High School in 2002.

Not sure of his future, he knew only that he wanted to do something significant, something big - so he walked into a Marine recruiter's office and enlisted.

"College just didn't work out for this recruit," he says. "The training here is very challenging physically, mentally and spiritually, but every night this recruit goes to bed proud."

The front of the reception center is dominated by two massive, polished metal doors. Recruits who pass through them will never go through them again.

"You can only go in them; you can't come out," Wiley says. "Just like standing in the yellow footprints, it's a rite of passage."

Inside, almost everything recruits bring with them is taken away.

"We confiscate tobacco products, alcohol, clothes, books, magazines, prescription medicines," Wiley says. "We provide them with everything they need to sustain life in boot camp." Recruits are allowed to keep only their religious texts.

Drill instructors immediately begin demanding that recruits act like Marines. During training, recruits must reply with "Yes, sir" or "Aye, sir" or "No, sir" when spoken to. They must refer to themselves in the third person, sit up straight, stand up straight and eat like Marines.

"No elbows on the table, heels touching as they sit. We teach them how to walk, how to talk, everything from the ground up. It's a bit of a culture shock," Wiley says.

Smith, standing at attention despite being told it's OK to relax, agrees.

"Yes sir," he says. "Culture shock is a good way to put that."

Drill instructors teach recruits the history and traditions of the Marines and their core values: honor, courage, commitment.

"This recruit joined because he felt a need to serve his country during a time of war, a time of need," says Michael Miller, 21, of Baltimore, not long after completing one phase of water training in the Parris Island swimming pool - the same pool where another recruit recently drowned. Standing at attention, water dripping from his uniform, he says the "training is tough and relentless and you don't get to sleep a lot, but it's worth it because you have to be at your best to be a Marine."

Why they join

Saturday marked the second anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. In a matter of weeks the Iraqi army was left in shambles and Baghdad taken. Despite President Bush's declaration that major combat was over in May 2003, coalition forces have been involved in an ongoing guerrilla war with insurgents, many of them foreign volunteers.

The past 24 months have been costly for U.S. troops. A total of 1,528 have been killed, including eight from Delaware. Another 11,285 have been wounded - 5,867 so severely that they could not return to duty, according to Department of Defense figures.

Of those killed, almost 400 were Marines.

In addition to Iraq and Afghanistan, Marines are deployed around the world, from Africa to Hawaii to Southeast Asia.

Walter Adams, a 22-year-old from Georgetown, enlisted "to add a little excitement" to his life, but he also felt a need to serve his country.

It was a decision that shocked those who know him.

"I could not believe that he would join the Marine Corps," says Carole Hunt, Adams' English teacher at Sussex Central High in Georgetown.

"I remember he was the first kid to introduce me to 'South Park' on television. He would do all the voices from that show and crack me up. He was a joy, absolutely. He never caused any trouble and he made class interesting," Hunt says.

At Parris Island, Adams focuses intently on training that could save his life.

"When this recruit gets through boot camp, sir," he says, "he will go to the School of Infantry. This recruit realizes that he will probably go to Iraq, but he has no problem with that because his country is at war."

Like Smith, Dagsboro native Bryan Vaught, 21, was not sure what he wanted to do with his life. He was searching for some direction and thought the Marines would provide that. He knows it's likely he will go to Iraq or Afghanistan at some point during his enlistment, but he is not troubled by that.

"This was the right thing for this recruit to do," says Vaught, a 2002 graduate of Indian River High School. "This recruit is not scared of going to war, sir. Marines always go to war, sir."

By stressing core values, Wiley says, drill instructors turn recruits into good Marines and good citizens.

"We consider that part of the job," he says. "We know most of these young men and women are going to leave active duty at some point and we want to prepare them for life as a civilian - so that they succeed when they leave the Corps."

Tests of courage

Many recruits these days are not as physically fit as the Marines who came before them.

"They're smarter and have better hand-eye coordination than the Marines who came through here 20 years ago," Staff Sgt. Larry McNair shouts over the sound of rifle fire on the shooting range.

A drill instructor and the son of a Marine, McNair says today's recruits are "on the whole, not as strong."

That has forced the Corps to alter its training.

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[thedrifter]

"We found in the past few years that we had to have recruits wear sneakers because a lot of young people these days seldom wear hard shoes," Lt. Miller says. "As a result, when they trained in boots a lot of them developed stress fractures and other foot problems."

Nearby, a company of recruits stretch one leg, then the other. They rotate their trunks, reach for the sky and then the ground. Stretching helps prevent injuries during exercise drills and training runs, Miller explains.

McNair, wearing the brown-and-tan colors of a desert camouflage uniform, topped by the drill instructor's traditional "Smokey Bear" campaign hat, spots something out of the corner of his eye. He sticks out his chin and barks a command. A recruit snaps to attention and sprints off.

While in the past many new recruits had fired a rifle or a shotgun, the majority of new recruits these days have not. That makes it easier to train them, McNair says.

"They don't have any bad habits," he says, squinting past a recruit who, lying on his belly, is firing an M-16 rifle at pop-up targets. McNair watches the targets topple, one by one.

"These men who never fired a weapon before do exactly as they are told. That," McNair says, "could save their lives."

Most of a recruit's time is spent in physical training. Male and female recruits scramble through obstacle courses and so-called "confidence" courses: leaping over logs, rappelling off towers, climbing ropes and hoisting themselves over walls. They run a lot. Besides being physically demanding, the training can be frightening. A recruit's courage is tested regularly.

During one exercise, recruits stand atop a 40-foot tower. They are required to reach out about three feet over the edge, grab a rope and climb down. The recruits, already fatigued from completing other drills, are testing their strength and their gear, and learning to trust the sergeants ordering them to reach for the rope.

Most recruits, reacting instantly to the orders of drill instructors, reach out, snatch the rope and climb down.

Some do not react so quickly.

Drill instructors don't automatically start shouting. They begin by coaxing, explaining that the rope will hold, that the recruit has the strength to do this. If the recruit still does not reach for the rope, drill instructors bellow and then bark direct orders. Failing to obey direct orders, they warn, can result in punishment.

This combination of soft talk/hard talk works. When the reluctant recruit reaches the ground, a drill instructor offers congratulations and hurries him or her to the next exercise.

"These drill instructors have to have a lot of patience," says Lt. Col. Patrick Campbell, a native of Wilmington who is commander of a recruit training battalion at Parris Island.

A rifleman first

Parris Island is named after British Army Col. Alexander Parris, who bought it and eight other small islands in 1715. He established a plantation that remained in operation until the Civil War. The Marines set up camp here in 1891, acting as security for the former Port Royal naval base and performing rescue operations during hurricanes that hit Parris Island in 1891 and 1893.

In 1915, the base formally became a training center.

The Marines, formed in 1775, have fought in every war the United States has been involved in and a majority of its peacekeeping operations, ranging from Nicaragua and Haiti to Bosnia and the Horn of Africa. Originally formed to provide security and landing forces for the Navy, the Corps has seen its share of inland fighting. There were Marines at Bull Run during the Civil War and on the front lines during World War I.

Marines stationed in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan are primarily assault forces. While the Army and civilian contractors are doing much of the reconstruction work in both countries, the Marines are seeking out insurgents. It is dirty, dangerous work and the drill instructors at Parris Island, many of them veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, know it.

"The [drill instructors] work 17- to 18-hour days and they are hard, physical days. They are tough on recruits but they are tougher on themselves," Campbell says. "For them, it's all about success, about getting these recruits through training. They don't want to see a recruit fail and they do everything possible to prevent that."

Training is designed to prepare recruits for duty in a war zone, no matter what their job might be. That fits in with the long-standing Corps belief that everyone who wears a Marine uniform is a rifleman first, a clerk or mechanic or truck driver second.

"We do that because we are not a large force. In a place like Iraq, a clerk could be called upon to pull security at night," McNair said. "If a unit gets hit hard, we might have to call on truck drivers to fill in the ranks of a rifle platoon."

Not all the recruits who hit Parris Island are in bad shape, of course. Bradley, after years of training to be a dancer, finds the physical training to be easier than she expected.

"A lot of people laughed when this recruit joined the Marines because she studied ballet," she says, "but the physical training and the discipline it takes to be a dancer is not very different from boot camp."

Her mother agreed.

"A dancer has to be strong and very disciplined. Her movements have to be very precise and that demands a lot of control, so I'm not surprised that Heather isn't having any problems with her training," Carol Bradley says.

Bradley is more than halfway through her 12 weeks of training. According to the Corps, she is still a recruit, not quite a Marine. If she makes it through boot camp and earns the eagle-globe-and-anchor insignia of the Corps, then she will be a Marine.

The dreaded pool

Some of the scariest training is in the swimming pool. In one exercise, recruits jump off a 10-foot-high platform wearing heavy packs. After bobbing to the surface, they swim 60 yards. Some recruits don't know how to swim.

Earlier this year, a recruit drowned in a training accident before he could be saved, says Sgt. Gene Kardos. An autopsy determined the recruit had pneumonia. He had refused to go on sick call because he wanted to stay with his buddies.

With Kardos looking on, two recruits jump off the 10-foot-high platform, hit the water and send a plume 12 feet into air heavy with the smell of chlorine.

"The training is tough," Kardos says. He stands on the side of the pool, his eyes roaming the water where about a hundred recruits are swimming in uniform. "But at the end of the day, recruits will have done things that they never believed were possible. They not only need to learn how to do this, they need to know they can do this."

The swimming didn't bother Smith, or Dover High School graduate Steve Pritchard, 23, a surfer.

That didn't stop Pritchard's mother, Barbara, from worrying.

"I worry about him a hundred percent of the time, but especially when he was doing that because of the recruit who drowned," she says.

Pritchard joined the Marines after going to college, working as a valet at Dover Downs and at a liquor store.

"The question my friends ask me all the time is 'Doesn't he know there's a war on?' when they learn he joined the Marines," Barbara Pritchard says. "All I say is, 'Yes, he knows.' Steven is a kid who goes his own way. He rows his own boat."

His mother and his high school principal were both surprised when Pritchard enlisted.

"He played soccer with my son, was a solid student and he was never in any trouble, but if you'd asked me I would never have said he'd join the Marines," Principal Robert Adams says.

Pritchard wouldn't have guessed he'd be a Marine either. He joined after talking to friends in the Corps.

"I have friends who are Marines, who have gone to Iraq and come back," he says. "After talking with them I figured it was time to uphold my end of the bargain - so I enlisted."

Recruit training ends with two final physical tests: a 54-hour exercise called "The Crucible" and a five-mile run.

The Crucible is a simulated combat patrol. Male and female recruits crawl under concertina wire, solve a variety of field problems and exert themselves beyond what they probably would have considered their limits 12 weeks earlier. The exercise builds a sense of teamwork and trust, Lt. Miller says.

The run isn't a serious test of recruit conditioning. It is designed primarily to instill in them a sense that, at long last, they are ready for the challenges they will soon face.

Running in tight formations, recruits sing and call cadence through the streets of Parris Island, their sneakered feet hitting the ground in unison while friends and family who came to watch them graduate from boot camp cheer them on. Near the end of the run, a member of each formation jogs to a shiny bell and rings it repeatedly, signifying the end of training.

"I watch this every time I can," Lt. Miller says. "It's inspiring to hear that bell being rung."

No longer a recruit

Recruits go through a two-part graduation ceremony, usually on a Thursday and a Friday. The first part is what's called the "emblem ceremony," where they receive the eagle-globe-and-anchor pin of the Marine Corps. Once a drill instructor gives it to them, they are no longer recruits.

They are Marines.

"Much is expected of you," says 1st Sgt. Melanie Hunt, the top enlisted woman in one of the female recruit companies. She speaks just before recruits are handed their pins. "To you is entrusted the future of the Marine Corps."

The next day they officially graduate in a ceremony that has been repeated thousands of times since the base was founded in 1915. Once they have been officially dismissed, hundreds of family members stream onto the parade field.

The newly minted Marines and their families won't have much time together. After a 10-day leave, they report to their next duty station for more training because, for Marines, graduation doesn't mean the end of anything.

It is only the first step in a long journey.

Contact Mike Billington at 324-2761 or mbillington@delawareonline.com.

The Drifter's Wife

Ellie