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Critics have suggested that today's Marine boot camp is ineffective, that reduced stress and restrictions on drill instructors make boot camp too easy on today's recruit, that graduates lack the "temper" needed by Marines. Authors who are in a position to know say"Nothing could be further from the truth!"
Boot camp is the most significant experience that a young man undergoes in his entire career in the Corps. Members of other Services complete their basic training and much of the experience is soon forgotten; boot camp lives with a Marine forever. I doubt if anyone who has ever completed Marine boot camp cannot vividly recall his drill instructor. It has always been so and will continue, but still there are significant differences in today's boot camp. Before describing some of these differences, however, some background on recruiting and recruit training is necessary.
Recent articles in the GAZETTE have suggested that perhaps Marine recruit depot graduates are falling short of traditional goals. Nothing could be further from the truth! The Marines leaving boot camp today are better than ever, and it appears that they will continue to improve.
One of the main reasons for recent success undoubtedly is the high quality of the recruits entering the Corps. We suffered through a period in the 1970s when that was not true. Hopefully, we will never make that mistake again. LtGen Trainor wrote an incisive synopsis that was published in the January 1978 edition of the GAZETTE about the quality problem of the mid-1970s:
In the process of meeting a demanding schedule, trying to train recruits while coping with a percentage of misfits found in every platoon, the frustration factor for the drill instructor began to tell. Certain improper practices began to creep onto the drill field in the name of discipline and motivation. At best these could be described as petty harassment: the screaming, the gratuitous profanity, the order/ counter-order. At worst they can be defined as debasement, maltreatment, and abuse, to include the laying-on of the hands. The roots of these unhappy practices went well back into recruit training history, but for the most part, past incidents of real abuse had been aberations. Unfortunately, in the seventies, the process became institutionalized. Supervisory safeguards against...