Educators take tour as Marine recruits prep for Crucible (see PHOTO GALLERY)

[thedrifter]

Educators take tour as Marine recruits prep for Crucible (see PHOTO GALLERY)

January 30, 2009 12:01:00 AM
By JONAS HOGG / News Herald Writer

PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. — If Wednesday's lessons were about the gray matter of making a Marine, then Thursday's lessons focused on the gristle.

The smattering of Floridians and Georgians attending the workshop at the Marine Recruit Training Depot in Parris Island, S.C., began their Thursday in the cold rain. Soon, the educators, counselors and resource officers were busy slurping down coffee and digesting the briefings of the previous day. On the agenda was a rundown of the various trials Marine recruits face to earn their title.

The group piled into a squad bay, the plain open box of a room, adorned with a row of bunkbeds on either side, antique-looking wooden foot lockers and very little else. Once inside, the educators learned the rules. As a drill instructor finished his briefing -- the same onenew recruits receive -- a trio of drill instructors walked into the squad bay and delivered their version of an official welcome. Recruits will have to stay with the drill instructors for 13 weeks; the educators only have one more day.

Throughout the day, the educators were given a whirlwind tour of the physical hurdles of boot camp.

"There's so many levels of training that the recruits go through, and they actually start them at one point, and they work with them and teach them to reach certain levels. They actually want them to succeed as opposed to just throwing them out there," said Brenda Garth, a Panama City resident whose son Hunter is in training.

On a brief skim through the base, educators observed recruits treading water, armed with a rifle and dressed in full gear; the endless drills of "grass week," where students spend hours practicing rifle marksmanship; and multi-faceted martial arts training, covering everything from unarmed combat, to bayonets, knives and improvised weapons.

The events, drills and repetitions are not meaningless. All of the various exercises, training and events lead up to the Marines' mother-of-all-physical challenges: the Crucible. It's a 54-hour exam, punctuated with only eight hours of sleep and four meals throughout. Recruits, hungry and exhausted, are put through a battery of physical and mental gauntlets. Recruits enter the Crucible, and if they emerge successfully, they are recruits no more; they can carry the title of "Marine."

But each portion of the Crucible also serves a more philosophical purpose. Interspersed with the sand, barbed wire, obstacles and struggles are stations that honor the Marines' "core values:" honor, courage and commitment. At these stations, drill instructors test the haggard recruits on these values. It is at these stations, one instructor said, that you learn the most about your recruits. It is also at these stations where the drill instructors receive a test of sorts, as teaching about the core values is one of the hardest parts of the job, said Staff Sgt. Christopher Brewer, a drill instructor at the depot.

"They're an intangible thing," Brewer said. "I mean, I can teach a kid how to hold a rifle; I can show him how to hold a rifle. But the things honor, courage and commitment are our three core values that we hit a lot on throughout the training cycle.

"Trying to sit down and talk to a kid who has never been taught what honor means or what courage means ... or commitment - kids have never heard these terms before. It's a lot harder to convey the meaning of those words."

Understanding and internalizing those terms, instructors said, is a key component of making Marines.

"From day one until they leave here, even when they get out to the fleet, we see the terms in the Marine Corps: honor, courage and commitment. It's a constant thing," Brewer said.

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Ellie