thedrifter
06-07-06, 05:22 AM
Given to me by hubby...aka fontman
How We Make Marines
By Larry Smith
Published: June 4, 2006
How does the Marine Corps take 17-year-old civilians and, in 13 short
weeks, transform them into Marines? How do they motivate these young men
and women to become
members of a group that needs to function at the highest level under
enormous stress? PARADE Contributing Editor Larry Smith spent two years
researching his new book, "The
Few and the Proud: Marine Corps Drill Instructors in Their Own Words."
He discovered that drill instructors are the key to making a Marine-and
that there are lessons all of us can
learn from them.
They arrive by bus, usually after dark, when they are more likely to be
disoriented. A drill instructor wearing a "Smokey" hat comes in yelling
that he will give them only seconds to
get off "his" bus and line up on the yellow footprints painted on the
street outside or face unmentionable peril.
Thus begins what many former Marines call the most difficult period of
their lives. "In the beginning, we cried," recalls Staff Sgt. Christine
Henning, 29. "We didn't know what they
were saying. We didn't know what they wanted us to do."
They have joined the Marine Corps for different reasons. "I'd say that
half come to escape from something," notes Sergeant Henning, who
eventually became a D.I.-drill
instructor-herself. "It may be family, limited prospects, a small town,
no jobs, drugs, alcohol, abuse. They want to fix things in their lives.
Some just come for education. Some come
for travel."
"Many are totally convinced, by the time they're 17 or 18, that they'll
never amount to anything," says R. Lee Ermey, 62, a D.I. at the
Marines' West Coast recruit depot in San Diego
in the 1960s who later played the rugged Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in
the film Full Metal Jacket. "The drill instructor's job is to turn that
around-and that's what he does."
"Drill instructors were not spit out on a rock, and the sun didn't
hatch them," says Ermey. "They graduate from the D.I. School, and the drill
instructor is the best the Marine Corps has
to offer. Their leadership qualities are second to none. Nobody ever
forgets his drill instructor."
"The underpinning of the psychology of recruit training is leadership
by example," explains Maj. Keith Burkepile, 37, who was director of the
Drill Instructor School at Parris Island,
S.C., for the last two years. "The drill instructor becomes the role
model, and the recruit is inspired to emulate him or her. We want the
Marines to be successful with their units,
successful on the battlefield, successful in life."
Here's how they do it: "We Toughen Them Up"
Once "aboard" the depot-whether at Parris Island or San Diego-recruits
go through "Receiving," where they get their heads shaved, receive gear
and undergo medical and
physical tests. During the next three days, called "Forming," they meet
their drill instructors and learn how to be recruits. Twelve weeks of
actual training follow.
Parris Island is 4 miles long and 3 miles wide-is known as a hard
place, made special by sand fleas, stultifying heat and 500 fearsome drill
instructors. It has four recruit-training
battalions, one of them exclusively for women. More than a million
young men and women have survived training there since 1915.
The physical challenge is grueling. In three months, recruits learn to
march, to move through water with packs on, to rappel from 60-foot
towers, to practice hand-to-hand combat
and fight with a bayonet simulated by use of the pugil stick (like a
giant Q-tip). They must qualify with the M-16 rifle, handle gas masks and
solve the "Confidence Course,"
culminating in an 11th-week event known as "The Crucible," which lasts
54 hours and consists of combat-related activities that can only be
accomplished through teamwork.
Recruits get four hours of sleep a night and limited rations.
The very first thing a Marine learns is immediate obedience to orders.
"There's no getting around that Marines are trained to kill," says
Chuck Taliano, 61, who trained recruits at
Parris Island during the Vietnam era. "The drill instructor's job is to
teach the basics of how to do it-by hand, by bayonet or by rifle-and
how to stay alive. In a war, you haven't got
time to debate the issue. You have to give them instant willingness to
obey orders."
How do you instill that kind of discipline? "By example," says Major
Burkepile, explaining: "The sand fleas are going crazy, biting all over
the recruits. The drill instructors are
standing there. They're not scratching. They're not itching. You don't
think they're getting bit? They're getting bit too. They're
demonstrating by example.
"You know," he adds, "self-discipline-even if it starts with letting
yourself be bitten by a sand flea-will take you a long way in life.
Americans love to eat good food, and it takes
discipline to say when you've had enough without overdoing it. What
makes a woman take care of kids and a family all day long and then, when
her husband gets home, go out on
a run? That's discipline. She makes herself do it."
That self-discipline fosters independence and confidence. "If you think
about it," says Burkepile, "self-discipline will get a young man or
woman of 22 to do a lot of things. It may
send them to college, where they'll have good study habits and succeed.
It also translates to the workforce: Your self-discipline will get you
to work every day. It'll get you to pay
your bills. When you talk to bosses in charge of hiring people, they
say that once they have a former Marine on the job, they start looking
for more."
"Motivation," says Major Burkepile, "comes from wanting to be better in
life. It makes you feel good. We do two-hour physical-training sessions
here in the morning that are very
hard. You've got to get up for that, you've got to get motivated.
Motivation comes from each of us being around each other. You see another
person pumped up, and you go out
and get pumped up, and it rubs off on the next person. It's infectious.
If they're fired up and motivated-if they're working together as a
team-they're going to perform better.
"In the civilian world, you look for like-minded people who are
similarly motivated to help you acquire discipline."
"Recruits learn how much easier everything becomes when they put the
other guy first and help each other out-whether it's making a rack or
cleaning your weapon," says Major
Burkepile. "When people start helping each other, things get done
faster and better.
"We all get selfish. That's just human. But you feel better if you help
someone else."
"If there's one thing recruits do at Parris Island, it's work hard,"
says Major Burkepile. "Discipline, pride, self- respect, motivation-they
all tie into that. If nothing else, hard work builds
character. Hard work makes the unit better, it makes the individual
better, and it keeps you mentally sound. A lot of times when they're
working hard, the recruits don't realize that
their physical condition is getting better. At the same time, they're
learning something new. Now they can translate that skill that they just
learned by working hard into another
task-whether in the Marine Corps or out. Hard work also builds
camaraderie.
"I'm a horrible procrastinator around the house, but once I start doing
something, I feel a lot better than if I'm sitting on my lazy butt
watching TV.
"Hard work also prepares you for what could be down the road. Nobody
knows what tough times are ahead-in the Marine Corps or out. If you know
how to work hard, you can
cope. It's a habit of mind.
"It's the same with kids. If they have halfway-decent work habits, it's
going to pay off in school, it's going to pay off in life, and it's
going pay off for society."
"If the recruit isn't busy," says Major Burkepile, "he feels sorry for
himself. He thinks about Mom and Dad, TV, other stuff he could be
doing. He thinks, 'Why did I do this?' But if he's
busy all day, he doesn't have time to think about it. Training is over
before he knows it.
"Keeping busy is a value in itself. It keeps you focused, keeps your
mind off things that might drag you down."
Attitude also is important, adds Major Burkepile: "The PT instructor
will say, 'Look, you have to be here. Why not get the most you can out of
it and make it fun? Make it positive.' All
of sudden, they're motivated, and they're getting in shape.
"To anybody out there who wants to get fit, I say: 'Find a way to make
it fun-whether it's a walk in the evening or running with friends or
competing in a small way. The same with your
job: Find a way to make it fun.'"
"As training goes on," says Major Burkepile, "the weight and
responsibility of the Marine Corps tradition really starts to sink in. When they
receive that eagle, globe and anchor pin
the day before graduation, many recruits will cry. They know the torch
has been passed to them.
"In the civilian world, you make sure your children know where they
came from-what their grandparents did, how they came over from the old
country and built a life or worked
selflessly for decades to provide for the family, surviving the Great
Depression or World War II or Vietnam. It's important to pass that stuff
on. That's family tradition.
"If you believe in democracy and America, it doesn't matter if you're a
Democrat or Republican: You believe in the freedoms we have.
Preservation of that doesn't always come
without work and even bloodshed. That's part of the responsibility
faced by these young recruits. They have not only the weight of the nation
on their shoulders but also the weight
of the Corps: not letting down the Marines of the past and the Marines
right beside them-the man on the right and the man on the left. That's
a powerful motivation. It's learning to be
part of something larger than yourself."
Ellie
How We Make Marines
By Larry Smith
Published: June 4, 2006
How does the Marine Corps take 17-year-old civilians and, in 13 short
weeks, transform them into Marines? How do they motivate these young men
and women to become
members of a group that needs to function at the highest level under
enormous stress? PARADE Contributing Editor Larry Smith spent two years
researching his new book, "The
Few and the Proud: Marine Corps Drill Instructors in Their Own Words."
He discovered that drill instructors are the key to making a Marine-and
that there are lessons all of us can
learn from them.
They arrive by bus, usually after dark, when they are more likely to be
disoriented. A drill instructor wearing a "Smokey" hat comes in yelling
that he will give them only seconds to
get off "his" bus and line up on the yellow footprints painted on the
street outside or face unmentionable peril.
Thus begins what many former Marines call the most difficult period of
their lives. "In the beginning, we cried," recalls Staff Sgt. Christine
Henning, 29. "We didn't know what they
were saying. We didn't know what they wanted us to do."
They have joined the Marine Corps for different reasons. "I'd say that
half come to escape from something," notes Sergeant Henning, who
eventually became a D.I.-drill
instructor-herself. "It may be family, limited prospects, a small town,
no jobs, drugs, alcohol, abuse. They want to fix things in their lives.
Some just come for education. Some come
for travel."
"Many are totally convinced, by the time they're 17 or 18, that they'll
never amount to anything," says R. Lee Ermey, 62, a D.I. at the
Marines' West Coast recruit depot in San Diego
in the 1960s who later played the rugged Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in
the film Full Metal Jacket. "The drill instructor's job is to turn that
around-and that's what he does."
"Drill instructors were not spit out on a rock, and the sun didn't
hatch them," says Ermey. "They graduate from the D.I. School, and the drill
instructor is the best the Marine Corps has
to offer. Their leadership qualities are second to none. Nobody ever
forgets his drill instructor."
"The underpinning of the psychology of recruit training is leadership
by example," explains Maj. Keith Burkepile, 37, who was director of the
Drill Instructor School at Parris Island,
S.C., for the last two years. "The drill instructor becomes the role
model, and the recruit is inspired to emulate him or her. We want the
Marines to be successful with their units,
successful on the battlefield, successful in life."
Here's how they do it: "We Toughen Them Up"
Once "aboard" the depot-whether at Parris Island or San Diego-recruits
go through "Receiving," where they get their heads shaved, receive gear
and undergo medical and
physical tests. During the next three days, called "Forming," they meet
their drill instructors and learn how to be recruits. Twelve weeks of
actual training follow.
Parris Island is 4 miles long and 3 miles wide-is known as a hard
place, made special by sand fleas, stultifying heat and 500 fearsome drill
instructors. It has four recruit-training
battalions, one of them exclusively for women. More than a million
young men and women have survived training there since 1915.
The physical challenge is grueling. In three months, recruits learn to
march, to move through water with packs on, to rappel from 60-foot
towers, to practice hand-to-hand combat
and fight with a bayonet simulated by use of the pugil stick (like a
giant Q-tip). They must qualify with the M-16 rifle, handle gas masks and
solve the "Confidence Course,"
culminating in an 11th-week event known as "The Crucible," which lasts
54 hours and consists of combat-related activities that can only be
accomplished through teamwork.
Recruits get four hours of sleep a night and limited rations.
The very first thing a Marine learns is immediate obedience to orders.
"There's no getting around that Marines are trained to kill," says
Chuck Taliano, 61, who trained recruits at
Parris Island during the Vietnam era. "The drill instructor's job is to
teach the basics of how to do it-by hand, by bayonet or by rifle-and
how to stay alive. In a war, you haven't got
time to debate the issue. You have to give them instant willingness to
obey orders."
How do you instill that kind of discipline? "By example," says Major
Burkepile, explaining: "The sand fleas are going crazy, biting all over
the recruits. The drill instructors are
standing there. They're not scratching. They're not itching. You don't
think they're getting bit? They're getting bit too. They're
demonstrating by example.
"You know," he adds, "self-discipline-even if it starts with letting
yourself be bitten by a sand flea-will take you a long way in life.
Americans love to eat good food, and it takes
discipline to say when you've had enough without overdoing it. What
makes a woman take care of kids and a family all day long and then, when
her husband gets home, go out on
a run? That's discipline. She makes herself do it."
That self-discipline fosters independence and confidence. "If you think
about it," says Burkepile, "self-discipline will get a young man or
woman of 22 to do a lot of things. It may
send them to college, where they'll have good study habits and succeed.
It also translates to the workforce: Your self-discipline will get you
to work every day. It'll get you to pay
your bills. When you talk to bosses in charge of hiring people, they
say that once they have a former Marine on the job, they start looking
for more."
"Motivation," says Major Burkepile, "comes from wanting to be better in
life. It makes you feel good. We do two-hour physical-training sessions
here in the morning that are very
hard. You've got to get up for that, you've got to get motivated.
Motivation comes from each of us being around each other. You see another
person pumped up, and you go out
and get pumped up, and it rubs off on the next person. It's infectious.
If they're fired up and motivated-if they're working together as a
team-they're going to perform better.
"In the civilian world, you look for like-minded people who are
similarly motivated to help you acquire discipline."
"Recruits learn how much easier everything becomes when they put the
other guy first and help each other out-whether it's making a rack or
cleaning your weapon," says Major
Burkepile. "When people start helping each other, things get done
faster and better.
"We all get selfish. That's just human. But you feel better if you help
someone else."
"If there's one thing recruits do at Parris Island, it's work hard,"
says Major Burkepile. "Discipline, pride, self- respect, motivation-they
all tie into that. If nothing else, hard work builds
character. Hard work makes the unit better, it makes the individual
better, and it keeps you mentally sound. A lot of times when they're
working hard, the recruits don't realize that
their physical condition is getting better. At the same time, they're
learning something new. Now they can translate that skill that they just
learned by working hard into another
task-whether in the Marine Corps or out. Hard work also builds
camaraderie.
"I'm a horrible procrastinator around the house, but once I start doing
something, I feel a lot better than if I'm sitting on my lazy butt
watching TV.
"Hard work also prepares you for what could be down the road. Nobody
knows what tough times are ahead-in the Marine Corps or out. If you know
how to work hard, you can
cope. It's a habit of mind.
"It's the same with kids. If they have halfway-decent work habits, it's
going to pay off in school, it's going to pay off in life, and it's
going pay off for society."
"If the recruit isn't busy," says Major Burkepile, "he feels sorry for
himself. He thinks about Mom and Dad, TV, other stuff he could be
doing. He thinks, 'Why did I do this?' But if he's
busy all day, he doesn't have time to think about it. Training is over
before he knows it.
"Keeping busy is a value in itself. It keeps you focused, keeps your
mind off things that might drag you down."
Attitude also is important, adds Major Burkepile: "The PT instructor
will say, 'Look, you have to be here. Why not get the most you can out of
it and make it fun? Make it positive.' All
of sudden, they're motivated, and they're getting in shape.
"To anybody out there who wants to get fit, I say: 'Find a way to make
it fun-whether it's a walk in the evening or running with friends or
competing in a small way. The same with your
job: Find a way to make it fun.'"
"As training goes on," says Major Burkepile, "the weight and
responsibility of the Marine Corps tradition really starts to sink in. When they
receive that eagle, globe and anchor pin
the day before graduation, many recruits will cry. They know the torch
has been passed to them.
"In the civilian world, you make sure your children know where they
came from-what their grandparents did, how they came over from the old
country and built a life or worked
selflessly for decades to provide for the family, surviving the Great
Depression or World War II or Vietnam. It's important to pass that stuff
on. That's family tradition.
"If you believe in democracy and America, it doesn't matter if you're a
Democrat or Republican: You believe in the freedoms we have.
Preservation of that doesn't always come
without work and even bloodshed. That's part of the responsibility
faced by these young recruits. They have not only the weight of the nation
on their shoulders but also the weight
of the Corps: not letting down the Marines of the past and the Marines
right beside them-the man on the right and the man on the left. That's
a powerful motivation. It's learning to be
part of something larger than yourself."
Ellie