Why I joined the Corps
I was in the 6th grade when I first looked into the Marines. I picked up a book about the Marines and needless to say I was amazed at the tradition the battles and the discipline of these stories I read in this book. Other than that book I knew nothing about the Marines. I just figured all the military was the same. At that point I was to young to really start thinking about what I wanted to do in life but the seed was planted.
It wasn’t till the 9th grade when I saw the greatest site I have ever seen walk onto my campus. A Marine Sgt in his dress blues, with all his shinny medals reflecting the sunlight into my eyes. I’m not going to say I joined the Marines for the uniforms. Not at all but that is what got my attention again. That seed that was planted years ago now started to grow.
Now 15 years old I spent my time on the internet, not this high speed click and go internet either. I’m talking AOL 56k loads a page in 5 hour’s - internet. I studied all I could about the Marines and visited the website religiously.
Back at school posters lined the hallways saying that the Marine recruiter would be in the counselor’s office today at lunch. I skipped the chow for the day and was the first one there. I saw that same Sgt but this time in his Dress Charlie’s. I walked up to him with a “I’m the **** attitude” and told him I “wanted to be a Marine”. He looked at me and said how old are you son? I told him I was 15 years old at which point he laughed and said come see me in 2 years kid and than maybe, just maybe we will take you.
I couldn’t believe that he just sent me on my way and didn’t give a dang about me. So now I wanted to show this Sgt that I meant business. Their recruiting station was right next to the Army RSS much like they always are. So I went out there and made sure this Marine Sgt who didn’t care if I enlisted or not saw me walk into the Army’s office. I had no intention of ever joining the Army but I wanted this Marine Sgt to do his job and recruit me.
The Army was more than happy to accommodate me way to quickly, they started telling me all these stories about how I could join the Army with no hassle and how the Army offers money for enlistment. But after the Army talked to me for about an hour I felt as though I had betrayed the Corps that I was not even a part of yet. So I left the Army RSS with my head held low felling like crap.
It wasn’t till the Army wanted me so oh so bad that I realized what this Marine Sgt recruiter was doing. I thought back to the book I read years ago that planted the seed of the Corps in my mind. The Marine Corps is not “be all you can be” or “an Army of one” it was something much greater than that. The Corps has traditions and great honor you are not given a title, you had to earn it. The recruiter was just upholding the Corps honor and traditions he was making sure that I would not jack all that up. Not just anyone can join the Marines and your selection process begins long before you even realize it. It is a Marine recruiter’s job to pick the best of the best and not give the FMF crap.
It blew my mind how someone who’s promotion, pro/cons or fitrep depended on how many people they enlisted could turn away a +1 in their book and on the RSS quota. I guess what I’m saying in all this is that experience explains exactly what the Marine Corps is about. The Corps is the best of the best and you can’t be that way by being like the Army, Air force or Navy who are at it for numbers more often than not. To uphold the values of the Corps, its traditions and battle record you can not just have anyone who walks into the recruiting station sign up. If the Corps did that they would be no different than any of the other armed services. It was these facts that made me want to be the best of the best – a US Marine and I did it and earned the title of Marine which I could not be more proud of.