thedrifter
11-20-05, 08:44 AM
Becoming warriors at Marine Corps' basic training
By Michael McCord
mmcord@seacoastonline.com
Editor’s note: Herald Sunday photographer Jackie Ricciardi and Business Editor Michael McCord were part of an all-expenses-paid workshop for New England educators and media members to get a glimpse of what U.S. Marines recruit training is all about.
Under clear blue fall skies, 545 Marine recruits from the First Training Battalion graduated from basic training and became Marines before approximately 2,500 family members who were seeing their sons, husbands, brothers and friends for the first time in three months.
For each of the graduating Marines, the graduation ceremony marked what Marine Corps officials emphasize is a major milestone in the transformation from blissful civilian to warrior.
"I’m a man now," said Jacob Smith, 18, of South Berwick, Maine, who was one of the 545 who successfully navigated the 13 long weeks of training.
"I have a lot more respect for authority. I also learned a lot more about values," said Smith, who graduated from Marshwood High School in June and followed his brother Ben’s lead by enlisting in the Marine Corps.
The 545 who graduated Oct. 28 at Parris Island, S.C., have done so in the midst of the longest wartime deployment of American fighting forces since the draft ended and the all-volunteer military was formalized in 1973.
While debate about the Iraq war is heating up and becoming more pointed outside the protected confines of Parris Island, this is one place where there’s no debate at all. No one joining today can have any illusions about where they are likely to end up.
Jacob Smith signed up to be an infantryman, the most demanding and hazardous of jobs in the Marine Corps.
"(Drill instructors) said that 80 percent of us would be sent to Iraq," he said. "I’m a little nervous, but that’s what I signed up for."
On the same day Smith graduated from basic training, the Department of Defense released the names of two former Parris Island graduates - Lance Cpl. Robert F. Eckfield, 23, of Cleveland, Ohio, and Lance Cpl. Jarad J. Kremm, 24, of Hauppage, N.Y. - killed during fighting in Iraq.
Down the rabbit hole
Located in the southeastern corner of South Carolina along the Atlantic Ocean and Beaufort River, Parris Island is 8,095 acres large, but only about 3,300 acres are habitable. The low-land geography is highlighted on post by the steam pipes that wind through the base aboveground because they can’t be buried under the soil.
Pine and palm trees and Spanish moss co-exist, and absent the military-post aspect, the entire island could pass for a salt marsh-dominated wildlife refuge complete with exotic bids, alligators and snakes.
"You don’t realize how beautiful this place is until you leave," one drill instructor said.
There’s only one entrance on and off Parris Island. Except for a drill instructor’s school and administrative offices for the 22-state Eastern Recruiting Region, Parris Island has one focus and one focus only - recruit training.
Not unlike Alice In Wonderland, basic training for recruits is a collective tumble down a rabbit hole. First and foremost, individuality is metaphorically packed away for 13 weeks. They become mostly faceless and anonymous while undergoing a social reorientation process unlike any they could have imagined.
As one drill instructor shouted to a new batch of recruits, "I no longer exists."
The Marine Corps supplies everything they need for their training. Everything they don’t need - their cell phones, iPods, books (except the Bible), clothing, even their own toiletries - is either thrown away or stored until the end of training. They also begin to learn a new Marine dictionary that includes seafaring terms such as hatch for door, deck for floor, and bulkhead for wall.
They are also young - average age 20 for men, and 21 for women - and almost all are high school graduates from lower- to middle-class backgrounds.
"It’s all fast-paced and confusing," Smith said at home upon returning from graduation. "All throughout basic, they test you all day mentally and physically. A lot of it is a mind game and it’s important not to take it personally."
Michael Embry, of Kittery, joined the Marines after graduating from Traip Academy last spring. Embry’s brother, Christopher, is also in the Marines.
Embry, 19, plans on being a "computer guy," a highly trained command and control-systems operator dealing with the high-tech aspects of modern warfare.
Though Embry said he had learned a lot from his brother, who also went through Parris Island, he said, "There’s no way to prepare for (basic training)."
"You go 100 miles an hour and you never know what you’re gonna do. They push you in a positive way to make you stronger," Embry said during a break from rifle qualifying.
As the constant sound of M-16 fire and the smell of gunpowder filled the air, Embry said the constant, repetitive nature of everything done in training is a mental and physical shock.
"You don’t understand why the drill instructor said it was important, but eventually it starts to make sense," Embry said before he returned to the firing line.
"I learned a lot more discipline, a lot more respect for authority," said Stephen Bolz, 18, of Kittery.
Bolz is a Traip classmate of Michael Embry and he considers himself "gung-ho" and enjoying every second of basic training. He’s also perceptive when it comes to a major purpose of basic training.
"They teach you a lot about keeping you alive," said Bolz, who signed up to be an infantryman and hopes to be a scout/sniper.
There are more than 450 different job classifications in the Marine Corps, but each and every Marine is considered a rifleman and trained to be a warrior. Even Marine band members are often required to put down their trombone and pick up an M-16 to perform convoy duty in combat areas.
"They, the privates and the NCOs, are the backbone of the Corps, and we make this training the most demanding and hardest anywhere in the world," said Capt. David Baril, the executive officer of the Portsmouth recruiting station. "Their parents depend on us so when they do go into battle, they won’t be hurt by half-assed training. They will be prepared."
Kinder and gentler?
Recruits are given 13 weeks of intense and highly programmed training that often seems like an incomprehensible, demanding blur that teaches them a wide range of tangible warrior skills such as working as a team, firing a rifle, rappelling down a 48-foot high tower, practicing lethal and non-lethal Marine Corps martial arts skills and water survival. They also learn the intangible skills of patience and dealing with constant mental adversity.
According to Marine Corps figures, attrition rates for recruits are around 10 percent for men and 18 percent for women who flunk out of basic for a number of physical, emotional or even legal reasons.
Senior drill instructor Michael Flanagan of Sanford, Maine, oversees a platoon of 90 recruits and estimates about 60 percent will come to him at one time or another and ask to be sent home.
"I counsel them," Flanagan said. "Some of them are momma’s boys and need more coddling, and others are more like street toughs and I need to be more forceful."
The result of these discussions is that almost all stay.
"I prayed every night," said James Benoit, 18, of Leominster, Mass., who graduated Oct. 28. He said he thought of quitting every day, but he said his own desire to make it through the training kept him going.
For someone like myself who went through U.S. Army basic training years ago, some of the 21st century changes in training are worthy of note.
First of all, recruits run in running shoes that are far more comfortable than running mile after mile in combat boots. For safety reasons, there is no more grenade throwing in basic training. Except for special training days, recruits are scheduled for a nightly eight hours of sleep, which struck me as remarkable considering my training consisted of dealing with sleep deprivation from day one through the end - six hours of sleep was a luxury and four to five hours was the norm.
The most significant evolution is the relations between recruits and their drill instructors. The personal, profanity-laced shouts and threats that sometimes led to physical contact were a daily diet during my training. They have been replaced by profanity-free monologues - loud to be sure and still chilling to civilian ears, but meant more to motivate than to inspire fear.
Flanagan told me the two other drill instructors he oversees have different roles to play - an understanding cop, a bad in-their-faces cop, and Flanagan, who said, "I’m the daddy."
Parris Island has the only female recruit-training unit in the Marines and Gunnery Sgt. Suzie Hollings, a 14-year veteran and drill instructor, said her job is to "prepare female warriors."
The extreme hazing and to-the-brink training tactics of the past have given way to more sensible tactics, given that the Corps estimates it costs $11,000 to recruit each potential Marine and another $14,320 to train him or her.
Hollings said training is constantly changing, and drill instructors are "more sensitive to the different needs" of recruits.
"You need to know your recruits and know what’s happening," Hollings said about the safety focus of drill instructors.
A warrior’s oasis
"Everybody knows the lore of the Marine Corps," said Capt. Baril, a combat engineer who was part of the initial invading force into Iraq in March 2003.
At Parris Island, the lore is everywhere. A replica of the famous Iwo Jima statue in Washington, D.C., stands prominently near the parade ground where graduation ceremonies take place. On that statue, which comes from the most iconic photograph in American military history - the bloody battle on Mount Suribachi in February 1945 - one of the names of the men who lifted the American flag was Pfc. Rene A. Gagnon of Manchester, N.H., who graduated from Parris Island in May 1943. The epithet on the statue reads, "Uncommon valor was a common virtue."
Rifle ranges at Parris Island are named after famous Marine Corps battle sights such as Khe Sanh or Hue City from the Vietnam War or Inchon and Chosin from the Korean War. On the demanding Crucible training course - a 54-hour combat simulation tract that acts like a final exam for the recruits - the names of obstacle areas come from Medal of Honor winners.
I arrived at Parris Island the day the Pentagon announced the passing of the 2,000 military-death benchmark in Iraq. It’s not surprising there are few words of doubt or dissent about the Iraq war at Parris Island. The collective mantra is that the bloody sacrifices will not be in vain.
Parris Island has scores of NCOs and officers who have served one, sometimes two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and have been involved in some of the most intense urban warfare in places like Fallujah and Nasiriyah. Those who haven’t served in those war zones are either on their way or are trying to transfer to units already there or soon to be deployed.
Not surprisingly, recruits are forbidden to talk about the war and are briefed by press guides beforehand. If they have anything negative to say about the war or President Bush, the interview never happens.
Discussing policy or politics is "not my job," said 2nd Lt. Scott Miller, deputy public affairs officer at Parris Island. "Our job here is recruit training and to stay in our lane."
When I asked Lt. Miller to elaborate, he said, "We can’t have them talking about war. The reality is that they signed up for the Marine Corps in a time of war. I have a ton of respect for them for signing up in a time of war."
Stephen Bolz of Kittery, who is scheduled to graduate from recruit training next month, said he’s looking forward to combat. He told me, "I can’t wait to get to go (to Iraq), serve this country and do what needs to be done."
A MILLION RECRUITS
According to Marine Corps figures, in 2004, 15,628 male and female recruits graduated from Parris Island. Since Parris Island opened as training depot in 1915, more than a million recruits have trained there. The average daily recruit population is 3,922 for men and 616 for women.
Ellie
By Michael McCord
mmcord@seacoastonline.com
Editor’s note: Herald Sunday photographer Jackie Ricciardi and Business Editor Michael McCord were part of an all-expenses-paid workshop for New England educators and media members to get a glimpse of what U.S. Marines recruit training is all about.
Under clear blue fall skies, 545 Marine recruits from the First Training Battalion graduated from basic training and became Marines before approximately 2,500 family members who were seeing their sons, husbands, brothers and friends for the first time in three months.
For each of the graduating Marines, the graduation ceremony marked what Marine Corps officials emphasize is a major milestone in the transformation from blissful civilian to warrior.
"I’m a man now," said Jacob Smith, 18, of South Berwick, Maine, who was one of the 545 who successfully navigated the 13 long weeks of training.
"I have a lot more respect for authority. I also learned a lot more about values," said Smith, who graduated from Marshwood High School in June and followed his brother Ben’s lead by enlisting in the Marine Corps.
The 545 who graduated Oct. 28 at Parris Island, S.C., have done so in the midst of the longest wartime deployment of American fighting forces since the draft ended and the all-volunteer military was formalized in 1973.
While debate about the Iraq war is heating up and becoming more pointed outside the protected confines of Parris Island, this is one place where there’s no debate at all. No one joining today can have any illusions about where they are likely to end up.
Jacob Smith signed up to be an infantryman, the most demanding and hazardous of jobs in the Marine Corps.
"(Drill instructors) said that 80 percent of us would be sent to Iraq," he said. "I’m a little nervous, but that’s what I signed up for."
On the same day Smith graduated from basic training, the Department of Defense released the names of two former Parris Island graduates - Lance Cpl. Robert F. Eckfield, 23, of Cleveland, Ohio, and Lance Cpl. Jarad J. Kremm, 24, of Hauppage, N.Y. - killed during fighting in Iraq.
Down the rabbit hole
Located in the southeastern corner of South Carolina along the Atlantic Ocean and Beaufort River, Parris Island is 8,095 acres large, but only about 3,300 acres are habitable. The low-land geography is highlighted on post by the steam pipes that wind through the base aboveground because they can’t be buried under the soil.
Pine and palm trees and Spanish moss co-exist, and absent the military-post aspect, the entire island could pass for a salt marsh-dominated wildlife refuge complete with exotic bids, alligators and snakes.
"You don’t realize how beautiful this place is until you leave," one drill instructor said.
There’s only one entrance on and off Parris Island. Except for a drill instructor’s school and administrative offices for the 22-state Eastern Recruiting Region, Parris Island has one focus and one focus only - recruit training.
Not unlike Alice In Wonderland, basic training for recruits is a collective tumble down a rabbit hole. First and foremost, individuality is metaphorically packed away for 13 weeks. They become mostly faceless and anonymous while undergoing a social reorientation process unlike any they could have imagined.
As one drill instructor shouted to a new batch of recruits, "I no longer exists."
The Marine Corps supplies everything they need for their training. Everything they don’t need - their cell phones, iPods, books (except the Bible), clothing, even their own toiletries - is either thrown away or stored until the end of training. They also begin to learn a new Marine dictionary that includes seafaring terms such as hatch for door, deck for floor, and bulkhead for wall.
They are also young - average age 20 for men, and 21 for women - and almost all are high school graduates from lower- to middle-class backgrounds.
"It’s all fast-paced and confusing," Smith said at home upon returning from graduation. "All throughout basic, they test you all day mentally and physically. A lot of it is a mind game and it’s important not to take it personally."
Michael Embry, of Kittery, joined the Marines after graduating from Traip Academy last spring. Embry’s brother, Christopher, is also in the Marines.
Embry, 19, plans on being a "computer guy," a highly trained command and control-systems operator dealing with the high-tech aspects of modern warfare.
Though Embry said he had learned a lot from his brother, who also went through Parris Island, he said, "There’s no way to prepare for (basic training)."
"You go 100 miles an hour and you never know what you’re gonna do. They push you in a positive way to make you stronger," Embry said during a break from rifle qualifying.
As the constant sound of M-16 fire and the smell of gunpowder filled the air, Embry said the constant, repetitive nature of everything done in training is a mental and physical shock.
"You don’t understand why the drill instructor said it was important, but eventually it starts to make sense," Embry said before he returned to the firing line.
"I learned a lot more discipline, a lot more respect for authority," said Stephen Bolz, 18, of Kittery.
Bolz is a Traip classmate of Michael Embry and he considers himself "gung-ho" and enjoying every second of basic training. He’s also perceptive when it comes to a major purpose of basic training.
"They teach you a lot about keeping you alive," said Bolz, who signed up to be an infantryman and hopes to be a scout/sniper.
There are more than 450 different job classifications in the Marine Corps, but each and every Marine is considered a rifleman and trained to be a warrior. Even Marine band members are often required to put down their trombone and pick up an M-16 to perform convoy duty in combat areas.
"They, the privates and the NCOs, are the backbone of the Corps, and we make this training the most demanding and hardest anywhere in the world," said Capt. David Baril, the executive officer of the Portsmouth recruiting station. "Their parents depend on us so when they do go into battle, they won’t be hurt by half-assed training. They will be prepared."
Kinder and gentler?
Recruits are given 13 weeks of intense and highly programmed training that often seems like an incomprehensible, demanding blur that teaches them a wide range of tangible warrior skills such as working as a team, firing a rifle, rappelling down a 48-foot high tower, practicing lethal and non-lethal Marine Corps martial arts skills and water survival. They also learn the intangible skills of patience and dealing with constant mental adversity.
According to Marine Corps figures, attrition rates for recruits are around 10 percent for men and 18 percent for women who flunk out of basic for a number of physical, emotional or even legal reasons.
Senior drill instructor Michael Flanagan of Sanford, Maine, oversees a platoon of 90 recruits and estimates about 60 percent will come to him at one time or another and ask to be sent home.
"I counsel them," Flanagan said. "Some of them are momma’s boys and need more coddling, and others are more like street toughs and I need to be more forceful."
The result of these discussions is that almost all stay.
"I prayed every night," said James Benoit, 18, of Leominster, Mass., who graduated Oct. 28. He said he thought of quitting every day, but he said his own desire to make it through the training kept him going.
For someone like myself who went through U.S. Army basic training years ago, some of the 21st century changes in training are worthy of note.
First of all, recruits run in running shoes that are far more comfortable than running mile after mile in combat boots. For safety reasons, there is no more grenade throwing in basic training. Except for special training days, recruits are scheduled for a nightly eight hours of sleep, which struck me as remarkable considering my training consisted of dealing with sleep deprivation from day one through the end - six hours of sleep was a luxury and four to five hours was the norm.
The most significant evolution is the relations between recruits and their drill instructors. The personal, profanity-laced shouts and threats that sometimes led to physical contact were a daily diet during my training. They have been replaced by profanity-free monologues - loud to be sure and still chilling to civilian ears, but meant more to motivate than to inspire fear.
Flanagan told me the two other drill instructors he oversees have different roles to play - an understanding cop, a bad in-their-faces cop, and Flanagan, who said, "I’m the daddy."
Parris Island has the only female recruit-training unit in the Marines and Gunnery Sgt. Suzie Hollings, a 14-year veteran and drill instructor, said her job is to "prepare female warriors."
The extreme hazing and to-the-brink training tactics of the past have given way to more sensible tactics, given that the Corps estimates it costs $11,000 to recruit each potential Marine and another $14,320 to train him or her.
Hollings said training is constantly changing, and drill instructors are "more sensitive to the different needs" of recruits.
"You need to know your recruits and know what’s happening," Hollings said about the safety focus of drill instructors.
A warrior’s oasis
"Everybody knows the lore of the Marine Corps," said Capt. Baril, a combat engineer who was part of the initial invading force into Iraq in March 2003.
At Parris Island, the lore is everywhere. A replica of the famous Iwo Jima statue in Washington, D.C., stands prominently near the parade ground where graduation ceremonies take place. On that statue, which comes from the most iconic photograph in American military history - the bloody battle on Mount Suribachi in February 1945 - one of the names of the men who lifted the American flag was Pfc. Rene A. Gagnon of Manchester, N.H., who graduated from Parris Island in May 1943. The epithet on the statue reads, "Uncommon valor was a common virtue."
Rifle ranges at Parris Island are named after famous Marine Corps battle sights such as Khe Sanh or Hue City from the Vietnam War or Inchon and Chosin from the Korean War. On the demanding Crucible training course - a 54-hour combat simulation tract that acts like a final exam for the recruits - the names of obstacle areas come from Medal of Honor winners.
I arrived at Parris Island the day the Pentagon announced the passing of the 2,000 military-death benchmark in Iraq. It’s not surprising there are few words of doubt or dissent about the Iraq war at Parris Island. The collective mantra is that the bloody sacrifices will not be in vain.
Parris Island has scores of NCOs and officers who have served one, sometimes two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and have been involved in some of the most intense urban warfare in places like Fallujah and Nasiriyah. Those who haven’t served in those war zones are either on their way or are trying to transfer to units already there or soon to be deployed.
Not surprisingly, recruits are forbidden to talk about the war and are briefed by press guides beforehand. If they have anything negative to say about the war or President Bush, the interview never happens.
Discussing policy or politics is "not my job," said 2nd Lt. Scott Miller, deputy public affairs officer at Parris Island. "Our job here is recruit training and to stay in our lane."
When I asked Lt. Miller to elaborate, he said, "We can’t have them talking about war. The reality is that they signed up for the Marine Corps in a time of war. I have a ton of respect for them for signing up in a time of war."
Stephen Bolz of Kittery, who is scheduled to graduate from recruit training next month, said he’s looking forward to combat. He told me, "I can’t wait to get to go (to Iraq), serve this country and do what needs to be done."
A MILLION RECRUITS
According to Marine Corps figures, in 2004, 15,628 male and female recruits graduated from Parris Island. Since Parris Island opened as training depot in 1915, more than a million recruits have trained there. The average daily recruit population is 3,922 for men and 616 for women.
Ellie