thedrifter
01-24-06, 08:34 AM
Singled out
By Gidget Fuentes
Times staff writer
A generation ago, an enlistment in the Marine Corps meant "three hots and a cot" along with a rifle and gear to get you through the rigors of training and deployment.
In the post-Vietnam years, few leathernecks were married. The old adage, "If the Corps wanted you to have a wife, it would have issued you one," remained an oft-stated but unofficial service policy, reflected in budgets at the time.
How times have changed.
More Marines today are married than in previous generations, but just over a majority - about 57 percent - are still single, according to service demographic figures for 2005.
And these days, they're more likely to hang up their boots. A Center for Naval Analyses study in 2005 turned conventional wisdom on its head: Single Marines who deployed were more likely to leave the Corps than their married buddies.
Specifically, the study found that the more days a first-term Marine was deployed, the less likely he was to re-enlist. No shocker there. But of those first-termers who were deployed more than 400 days, only 14 percent of the single Marines re-enlisted, far fewer than the 31 percent of married Marines who said they wanted to stay.
Whether those figures will amount to a long-term trend isn't clear. The Corps continues to hit its retention goals, and so far this year has re-enlisted about 77 percent of its goal to re-enlist 5,887 first-term Marines.
But the continuing rotation of units to Iraq and Afghanistan this spring includes several battalions and squadrons making their second or third seven-month combat deployment.
Of course, deployment isn't the only factor in most Marines' decision to re-enlist. Like their married counterparts, single Marines want a good quality of life, too. Having a variety of choices for off-duty fun, a decent place to kick up their heels and relax, extra money in their pockets, and help when they need it are important for them.
A decade ago, initiatives by then-Defense Secretary William Cohen infused a billion dollars and Beltway attention to the plights of military families, whose members outnumbered uniformed service members.
In the ensuing years, the military services beefed up their programs geared to families, including day care, new parent programs and youth sports, along with projects to renovate or build more on-base family housing. Quality of life became a hot topic on Capitol Hill and the Pentagon - often tied to family-related issues and programs - and, with the consistent chime of military family advocacy groups, it remains so today.
But who advocates for the single Marine? When the Center for Naval Analyses released its study several months ago, the Corps' senior leadership took notice. Now, what needs to be done to make sure the Corps doesn't lose too many quality, single Marines?
Lewis G. Lee, who served as sergeant major of the Marine Corps under former Marine Commandant Gen. Charles Krulak, said it falls to commanders to take care of single Marines because no one else will.
"The families have a huge lobby in Congress, there are programs, etc.," he said. "The fact of the matter is the single Marine, single soldier, really doesn't have a champion other than the commander. And the commander will fight for him, but there is only so much the commander can do."
The answer, often, comes down to money, said Maj. Gen. David Bice, the Corps' inspector general.
"If we don't make the investment, then it's going to influence retention. It always does," he said.
Here are some of the major quality-of-life areas - from housing to food to transportation to entertainment to benefits - that single Marines say make Corps life livable or miserable, depending on how serious their base takes a given issue. As in other areas of life in the Corps, some are being improved while others still need serious attention.
For many leathernecks, quality of life begins at home. Aside from the field, or the flight line, it's where they spend most of their time off duty. And across the Corps, enlisted barracks remain an area of concern and a mark of progress.
Corps housing officials say they want to improve all inadequate barracks by 2012. And progress is already being made.
Across the Marine Corps, modern furnishings, new landscaping and the smell of fresh paint mark the addition of newly built or renovated bachelor enlisted quarters.
But some BEQs haven't entered the modern age. At San Mateo - the Camp Pendleton, Calif., home to 5th Marines and its battalions - and at Camp Horno, home of 1st Marines, for example, new construction is outshining older barracks and flat-top buildings.
"We're doing the best we can with what we've got," said Sgt. Maj. Raynard Watkins, base sergeant major at Quantico, Va., "but in my opinion, we can always improve."
He'd like to see the Corps modernize the barracks and add things like wireless communications and Internet access, although "right now, we don't have the means to be able to offer that to a lot more Marines."
The shortages put Marines in a crunch at times. Recently, most of 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, took shelter for nearly two months in old Corps Quonset huts after they returned to Camp Pendleton from the battalion's third combat tour. Why? Barracks space at San Mateo wasn't free until one of the battalions deployed overseas.
This month, 1/5 was able to move back into spaces at San Mateo.
Just how great an impact modern amenities and recreational options have on re-enlistment rates isn't yet clear.
Watkins, for one, isn't sure there's a simple make-or-break rule.
"Marines all stay in for their own individual reason," he said. "My barracks room did not have big impact on staying a Marine." In his early years, Watkins said he lived in squad bays and had little privacy.
"Most Marines, if they were young and single like I was, it was nice [to have] but it wasn't the most important criteria," he said. "It wasn't a no-go."
For single Marines, the dorm-style life of barracks living is fine for some but not for others.
At Camp Lejeune, N.C., Cpl. Eddie Thiroux likes living on base.
"It's cheaper, and you don't have to deal with traffic," said Thiroux, 22, a guitarist from Long Beach, Calif., with the 2nd Marine Division Band. "I can walk to work. Maybe that's just me taking the easy way out."
His roommate, Cpl. Derrick Nichols, 20, a trumpet player from Newport News, Va., shook his head in disbelief.
"To me, it sucks," Nichols said. "I can't stand living in the barracks."
Nichols' discontent comes from typical issues, including tight quarters, high operations tempo and a lack of off-duty options.
"I sit on my laptop 24/7, playing games and watching movies," Nichols said. "I'd rather be going out and doing more stuff. But there isn't too much to do."
Like many others, Nichols had never heard of the Single Marine Program, and he said he didn't feel like there was any strong push to get guys like him involved. Thiroux thought he remembered hearing about the program shortly after the Marines returned from Iraq, "but I really couldn't tell you what they do."
A program of their own
Although the Single Marine Program has been on the books for a decade, it's remained one of those programs many young Marines don't know about.
"It really didn't get pushed a lot out here," said Cpl. Levi Ethridge, a motor transport specialist who deployed to Iraq in 2004 with Marine Wing Support Squadron 374, based at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, Calif.
The expansive base sits five miles outside a small desert town two hours east of Los Angeles, so its relative isolation from more populated areas, beaches and mountains limits the types of off-base activities for many leathernecks.
The 22-year-old Ethridge, who is single, bought a vehicle shortly after he arrived at the base and spent much off-duty time visiting friends in Los Angeles and Oceanside, outside of Camp Pendleton. At times, he volunteered to pull security at concerts and events, including the Rose Bowl.
When he was assigned as assistant Single Marine Program coordinator at the base, he realized the benefits to the Marines. Among its events are river-rafting trips, weekends in San Diego, free pizza-and-bowling nights and poker tournaments.
The program also organized volunteers for the Los Angeles triathlon, a soapbox derby in Palm Springs and support for other community events. Trips include day and weekend excursions for which singles pay a small amount - $10 or more for day events up to about $60 to $80 for weekends - and get transportation, entry fees and some meals.
Another hallmark of life as a Marine bachelor - chow hall food - has gone through a radical change in the last decade.
That source of three squares a day now features more selections, brand-name items, healthier foods, take-out and self-serve bars, and selections and themes that vary from day to day. Many have expanded hours, even mid-rats. Chow halls are called dining facilities and, along with improved decor and the growing presence of plasma TVs, eating a meal is a bit more gentrified.
"The days of coming through the line with a six-section tray, well, those days are over," said Master Gunnery Sgt. Manny Oquendo, a regional food technician at Marine Corps Installations-West at Camp Pendleton.
While a master menu drives food selections, there's more variety and styles that challenge the popular fast-food eateries that still lure many single enlisted Marines to pay extra from their pocket. A full meal, said Oquendo, including fruit, snacks, drinks and dessert, can be had for $3.55.
Mess facilities are slowly seeing some big changes.
A newly renovated dining hall soon will open at Camp Horno, and two new facilities for Edson Range, a renovation and expansion of the Del Mar chow hall, and a new mess hall at Las Flores are all in the works, said Maj. Carlos Sanabria, regional food services director.
Other bases, including Twentynine Palms, are getting new facilities this year. One of those, said Oquendo, will have 16 plasma TVs.
There's a long-running generalization that most Marines marry to get out of living in barracks and thus immediately improve their quality of life.
And for the perks, which can include more money and other concessions, like getting off early to deal with family issues.
"I mean, I got a dancing polar bear in my room that needs his toenails clipped. Can I get off early, too?" said Cpl. Andy Lang, a light-armored crewman answering his own question with a shake of the head. "Being married, you get special favors."
Lance Cpl. Frank World doesn't get mad when the married guys take off early because of family issues.
"They have to pay more attention to them," said World, 21, an infantryman from Buffalo, N.Y. "I'm not married, so I don't know how that feels. You have more responsibilities when you're married."
Despite the intangible perks, the more concrete disparity in pay and benefits between single and married Marines continues to create a major morale problem, according to the senior enlisted leaders from each of the services who testified before a Pentagon pay commission last summer.
"Throughout my travels, a lot of complaints I get is that single Marines really are left behind," Sgt. Maj. John Estrada, sergeant major of the Marine Corps, told the commission.
"Quite a few will go out and get married [just] so they have the same type of standards as those that are married," he said.
Those benefits involve meal allowances. Although single and married members draw the same meal allowances, nondeployed single service members often are required to give up their food allowance in exchange for free dining-hall meals - regardless of where they eat.
Married service members get larger housing allowances and household-goods limits, too. When deployed, troops who have dependents receive a monthly $250 family separation allowance for which there is no equivalent for single service members.
"If you go overseas," said Chief Master Sgt. Gerald Murray, the Air Force's top enlisted leader, "the cost-of-living allowance … is based on the number of dependents." As the COLA increases with larger households, it potentially pushes the disparity in single-versus-married pay to $1,000 per month, "depending on family size," he said.
Stateside, the disparity ranges "from under $100 to perhaps $700 to $800, depending on the area they live in," he said.
Despite those temptations, there are single Marines who keep a level head.
Being single beats marrying for reasons other than love, said Cpl. James Cantrell, 21, a horn player with the 2nd Marine Division Band.
"I've been OK with it," said Cantrell, of Beckley, W.Va. "Love doesn't come from money. People talk about getting married for the [Basic Housing Allowance] or whatever. But I believe marriage is a unity of love."
During his time as a young infantryman, Greg Leal was a rarity among his infantry platoon: He owned his own car.
It was a generation ago, and Leal, now a sergeant major, had scraped together enough money from a job before he enlisted to have his own set of wheels.
It was a good thing, too, because his orders took him to Camp Pendleton. And as an infantryman, he'd spend his first tour in the northern hinterlands of the 198-square-mile base. "I took a lot of my friends around," he said.
Back then, though, the base ran shuttle buses from 7th Motor Transport Battalion between the camps and mainside.
"It was on time, and you could go from camp to camp," he recalled. There were local city buses, "but you had to pay for it," he added.
Leal has spent much of his 30-year career at Camp Pendleton, and he deployed to Iraq in 2003 as 1st Marines' sergeant major.
The need for some type of shuttle remains today, Leal said, because many young infantrymen still don't own vehicles.
"You can order a Marine to go to mainside for a dental appointment, so he's got to pay to get there or he's got to beg for a buddy to take him there," said Leal, now stationed at the Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth, Texas.
County buses run several routes through Camp Pendleton and into nearby cities, but service was reduced when the bulk of I Marine Expeditionary Force began rotating into Iraq in 2003 and ridership dropped as camps emptied out.
Small measures like shuttle buses and renewed priorities can have huge positive effects on the infantryman, Leal said.
"We're counting so much on keeping the first-termers," he said. "We're counting on them, but we're not doing that much with them to entice them to stay."
Leal, whose current command is a mix of active-duty Marines and reservists, said the Corps needs to invest more in the young folks, including the grunts. It won't take much to get huge rewards.
"You have a captured audience that you need these guys to stay and keep their focus and keep the benefits coming at them," he said. "Our dilemma is trying to keep people in … especially nowadays with the war going on."
Some Marines say that the Corps should balance priorities and projects better, too. It's common to hear infantrymen who live and work in Pendleton's northern camps lament the lack of amenities there compared to the services in mainside, which include a state-of-the-art modern gym.
Leal said the thinking often is, "'If you ain't in mainside, you don't rate it.' It's kind of an accepted reality."
"When I enlisted in '76, I kind of expected squad bays," he said. "But nowadays, Marines, they expect a little bit more, and I think we should give it to them."
Things such as providing football fields, more recreational gear and small movie theaters at the camps can go a long way. Taking care of the single first-termer's needs can't help but strengthen retention and recruiting, Leal said.
"If you concentrate on the younger force, if you take care of the young guys, they're the ones talking, and who's going to listen to them? The new guys.
"And who's your career force? It's the young guys," he said.
By Gidget Fuentes
Times staff writer
A generation ago, an enlistment in the Marine Corps meant "three hots and a cot" along with a rifle and gear to get you through the rigors of training and deployment.
In the post-Vietnam years, few leathernecks were married. The old adage, "If the Corps wanted you to have a wife, it would have issued you one," remained an oft-stated but unofficial service policy, reflected in budgets at the time.
How times have changed.
More Marines today are married than in previous generations, but just over a majority - about 57 percent - are still single, according to service demographic figures for 2005.
And these days, they're more likely to hang up their boots. A Center for Naval Analyses study in 2005 turned conventional wisdom on its head: Single Marines who deployed were more likely to leave the Corps than their married buddies.
Specifically, the study found that the more days a first-term Marine was deployed, the less likely he was to re-enlist. No shocker there. But of those first-termers who were deployed more than 400 days, only 14 percent of the single Marines re-enlisted, far fewer than the 31 percent of married Marines who said they wanted to stay.
Whether those figures will amount to a long-term trend isn't clear. The Corps continues to hit its retention goals, and so far this year has re-enlisted about 77 percent of its goal to re-enlist 5,887 first-term Marines.
But the continuing rotation of units to Iraq and Afghanistan this spring includes several battalions and squadrons making their second or third seven-month combat deployment.
Of course, deployment isn't the only factor in most Marines' decision to re-enlist. Like their married counterparts, single Marines want a good quality of life, too. Having a variety of choices for off-duty fun, a decent place to kick up their heels and relax, extra money in their pockets, and help when they need it are important for them.
A decade ago, initiatives by then-Defense Secretary William Cohen infused a billion dollars and Beltway attention to the plights of military families, whose members outnumbered uniformed service members.
In the ensuing years, the military services beefed up their programs geared to families, including day care, new parent programs and youth sports, along with projects to renovate or build more on-base family housing. Quality of life became a hot topic on Capitol Hill and the Pentagon - often tied to family-related issues and programs - and, with the consistent chime of military family advocacy groups, it remains so today.
But who advocates for the single Marine? When the Center for Naval Analyses released its study several months ago, the Corps' senior leadership took notice. Now, what needs to be done to make sure the Corps doesn't lose too many quality, single Marines?
Lewis G. Lee, who served as sergeant major of the Marine Corps under former Marine Commandant Gen. Charles Krulak, said it falls to commanders to take care of single Marines because no one else will.
"The families have a huge lobby in Congress, there are programs, etc.," he said. "The fact of the matter is the single Marine, single soldier, really doesn't have a champion other than the commander. And the commander will fight for him, but there is only so much the commander can do."
The answer, often, comes down to money, said Maj. Gen. David Bice, the Corps' inspector general.
"If we don't make the investment, then it's going to influence retention. It always does," he said.
Here are some of the major quality-of-life areas - from housing to food to transportation to entertainment to benefits - that single Marines say make Corps life livable or miserable, depending on how serious their base takes a given issue. As in other areas of life in the Corps, some are being improved while others still need serious attention.
For many leathernecks, quality of life begins at home. Aside from the field, or the flight line, it's where they spend most of their time off duty. And across the Corps, enlisted barracks remain an area of concern and a mark of progress.
Corps housing officials say they want to improve all inadequate barracks by 2012. And progress is already being made.
Across the Marine Corps, modern furnishings, new landscaping and the smell of fresh paint mark the addition of newly built or renovated bachelor enlisted quarters.
But some BEQs haven't entered the modern age. At San Mateo - the Camp Pendleton, Calif., home to 5th Marines and its battalions - and at Camp Horno, home of 1st Marines, for example, new construction is outshining older barracks and flat-top buildings.
"We're doing the best we can with what we've got," said Sgt. Maj. Raynard Watkins, base sergeant major at Quantico, Va., "but in my opinion, we can always improve."
He'd like to see the Corps modernize the barracks and add things like wireless communications and Internet access, although "right now, we don't have the means to be able to offer that to a lot more Marines."
The shortages put Marines in a crunch at times. Recently, most of 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, took shelter for nearly two months in old Corps Quonset huts after they returned to Camp Pendleton from the battalion's third combat tour. Why? Barracks space at San Mateo wasn't free until one of the battalions deployed overseas.
This month, 1/5 was able to move back into spaces at San Mateo.
Just how great an impact modern amenities and recreational options have on re-enlistment rates isn't yet clear.
Watkins, for one, isn't sure there's a simple make-or-break rule.
"Marines all stay in for their own individual reason," he said. "My barracks room did not have big impact on staying a Marine." In his early years, Watkins said he lived in squad bays and had little privacy.
"Most Marines, if they were young and single like I was, it was nice [to have] but it wasn't the most important criteria," he said. "It wasn't a no-go."
For single Marines, the dorm-style life of barracks living is fine for some but not for others.
At Camp Lejeune, N.C., Cpl. Eddie Thiroux likes living on base.
"It's cheaper, and you don't have to deal with traffic," said Thiroux, 22, a guitarist from Long Beach, Calif., with the 2nd Marine Division Band. "I can walk to work. Maybe that's just me taking the easy way out."
His roommate, Cpl. Derrick Nichols, 20, a trumpet player from Newport News, Va., shook his head in disbelief.
"To me, it sucks," Nichols said. "I can't stand living in the barracks."
Nichols' discontent comes from typical issues, including tight quarters, high operations tempo and a lack of off-duty options.
"I sit on my laptop 24/7, playing games and watching movies," Nichols said. "I'd rather be going out and doing more stuff. But there isn't too much to do."
Like many others, Nichols had never heard of the Single Marine Program, and he said he didn't feel like there was any strong push to get guys like him involved. Thiroux thought he remembered hearing about the program shortly after the Marines returned from Iraq, "but I really couldn't tell you what they do."
A program of their own
Although the Single Marine Program has been on the books for a decade, it's remained one of those programs many young Marines don't know about.
"It really didn't get pushed a lot out here," said Cpl. Levi Ethridge, a motor transport specialist who deployed to Iraq in 2004 with Marine Wing Support Squadron 374, based at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, Calif.
The expansive base sits five miles outside a small desert town two hours east of Los Angeles, so its relative isolation from more populated areas, beaches and mountains limits the types of off-base activities for many leathernecks.
The 22-year-old Ethridge, who is single, bought a vehicle shortly after he arrived at the base and spent much off-duty time visiting friends in Los Angeles and Oceanside, outside of Camp Pendleton. At times, he volunteered to pull security at concerts and events, including the Rose Bowl.
When he was assigned as assistant Single Marine Program coordinator at the base, he realized the benefits to the Marines. Among its events are river-rafting trips, weekends in San Diego, free pizza-and-bowling nights and poker tournaments.
The program also organized volunteers for the Los Angeles triathlon, a soapbox derby in Palm Springs and support for other community events. Trips include day and weekend excursions for which singles pay a small amount - $10 or more for day events up to about $60 to $80 for weekends - and get transportation, entry fees and some meals.
Another hallmark of life as a Marine bachelor - chow hall food - has gone through a radical change in the last decade.
That source of three squares a day now features more selections, brand-name items, healthier foods, take-out and self-serve bars, and selections and themes that vary from day to day. Many have expanded hours, even mid-rats. Chow halls are called dining facilities and, along with improved decor and the growing presence of plasma TVs, eating a meal is a bit more gentrified.
"The days of coming through the line with a six-section tray, well, those days are over," said Master Gunnery Sgt. Manny Oquendo, a regional food technician at Marine Corps Installations-West at Camp Pendleton.
While a master menu drives food selections, there's more variety and styles that challenge the popular fast-food eateries that still lure many single enlisted Marines to pay extra from their pocket. A full meal, said Oquendo, including fruit, snacks, drinks and dessert, can be had for $3.55.
Mess facilities are slowly seeing some big changes.
A newly renovated dining hall soon will open at Camp Horno, and two new facilities for Edson Range, a renovation and expansion of the Del Mar chow hall, and a new mess hall at Las Flores are all in the works, said Maj. Carlos Sanabria, regional food services director.
Other bases, including Twentynine Palms, are getting new facilities this year. One of those, said Oquendo, will have 16 plasma TVs.
There's a long-running generalization that most Marines marry to get out of living in barracks and thus immediately improve their quality of life.
And for the perks, which can include more money and other concessions, like getting off early to deal with family issues.
"I mean, I got a dancing polar bear in my room that needs his toenails clipped. Can I get off early, too?" said Cpl. Andy Lang, a light-armored crewman answering his own question with a shake of the head. "Being married, you get special favors."
Lance Cpl. Frank World doesn't get mad when the married guys take off early because of family issues.
"They have to pay more attention to them," said World, 21, an infantryman from Buffalo, N.Y. "I'm not married, so I don't know how that feels. You have more responsibilities when you're married."
Despite the intangible perks, the more concrete disparity in pay and benefits between single and married Marines continues to create a major morale problem, according to the senior enlisted leaders from each of the services who testified before a Pentagon pay commission last summer.
"Throughout my travels, a lot of complaints I get is that single Marines really are left behind," Sgt. Maj. John Estrada, sergeant major of the Marine Corps, told the commission.
"Quite a few will go out and get married [just] so they have the same type of standards as those that are married," he said.
Those benefits involve meal allowances. Although single and married members draw the same meal allowances, nondeployed single service members often are required to give up their food allowance in exchange for free dining-hall meals - regardless of where they eat.
Married service members get larger housing allowances and household-goods limits, too. When deployed, troops who have dependents receive a monthly $250 family separation allowance for which there is no equivalent for single service members.
"If you go overseas," said Chief Master Sgt. Gerald Murray, the Air Force's top enlisted leader, "the cost-of-living allowance … is based on the number of dependents." As the COLA increases with larger households, it potentially pushes the disparity in single-versus-married pay to $1,000 per month, "depending on family size," he said.
Stateside, the disparity ranges "from under $100 to perhaps $700 to $800, depending on the area they live in," he said.
Despite those temptations, there are single Marines who keep a level head.
Being single beats marrying for reasons other than love, said Cpl. James Cantrell, 21, a horn player with the 2nd Marine Division Band.
"I've been OK with it," said Cantrell, of Beckley, W.Va. "Love doesn't come from money. People talk about getting married for the [Basic Housing Allowance] or whatever. But I believe marriage is a unity of love."
During his time as a young infantryman, Greg Leal was a rarity among his infantry platoon: He owned his own car.
It was a generation ago, and Leal, now a sergeant major, had scraped together enough money from a job before he enlisted to have his own set of wheels.
It was a good thing, too, because his orders took him to Camp Pendleton. And as an infantryman, he'd spend his first tour in the northern hinterlands of the 198-square-mile base. "I took a lot of my friends around," he said.
Back then, though, the base ran shuttle buses from 7th Motor Transport Battalion between the camps and mainside.
"It was on time, and you could go from camp to camp," he recalled. There were local city buses, "but you had to pay for it," he added.
Leal has spent much of his 30-year career at Camp Pendleton, and he deployed to Iraq in 2003 as 1st Marines' sergeant major.
The need for some type of shuttle remains today, Leal said, because many young infantrymen still don't own vehicles.
"You can order a Marine to go to mainside for a dental appointment, so he's got to pay to get there or he's got to beg for a buddy to take him there," said Leal, now stationed at the Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth, Texas.
County buses run several routes through Camp Pendleton and into nearby cities, but service was reduced when the bulk of I Marine Expeditionary Force began rotating into Iraq in 2003 and ridership dropped as camps emptied out.
Small measures like shuttle buses and renewed priorities can have huge positive effects on the infantryman, Leal said.
"We're counting so much on keeping the first-termers," he said. "We're counting on them, but we're not doing that much with them to entice them to stay."
Leal, whose current command is a mix of active-duty Marines and reservists, said the Corps needs to invest more in the young folks, including the grunts. It won't take much to get huge rewards.
"You have a captured audience that you need these guys to stay and keep their focus and keep the benefits coming at them," he said. "Our dilemma is trying to keep people in … especially nowadays with the war going on."
Some Marines say that the Corps should balance priorities and projects better, too. It's common to hear infantrymen who live and work in Pendleton's northern camps lament the lack of amenities there compared to the services in mainside, which include a state-of-the-art modern gym.
Leal said the thinking often is, "'If you ain't in mainside, you don't rate it.' It's kind of an accepted reality."
"When I enlisted in '76, I kind of expected squad bays," he said. "But nowadays, Marines, they expect a little bit more, and I think we should give it to them."
Things such as providing football fields, more recreational gear and small movie theaters at the camps can go a long way. Taking care of the single first-termer's needs can't help but strengthen retention and recruiting, Leal said.
"If you concentrate on the younger force, if you take care of the young guys, they're the ones talking, and who's going to listen to them? The new guys.
"And who's your career force? It's the young guys," he said.