We worked to change that:
We performed stretching exercises in the squad bay.
We started enforcing the use of the stretching kits during free time.
We kept track of the injury rates by company and started seeing incredible improvement.
We encouraged recruits to say something when they hurt. Knee problem? Maybe we can do some physical therapy. Or maybe you're overpronating and we should switch out your shoes. Prior to my tenure with the Fourth Battalion, reporting an injury was seen as an excuse to get out of training or a mark of shame. You joined the “sick, lame, and lazy” for “sick call”—a visit to the clinic.
We concluded that perhaps that way of thinking had caused recruits to hide injuries, which had contributed to our injury rate.
I had two investigations going that showed the recruits from November Company weren't being sent to the clinic when they complained of pain. As my other companies improved, November Company had the highest number of recruits with lower-extremity injuries and the highest number of drops from training.
They weren't referring their recruits to the athletic trainer at the first sign of injury. They didn't ensure their recruits did stretching exercises in the squad bays during free time. Why? Because the drill instructors were convinced that the only way to make recruits tough was by screaming at them.
At night in the squad bay, the drill instructors were supposed to go down the line: Raise your arms. Put them down parallel to the deck. Flip your hands over. It's to check hygiene—disease spreads quickly through a room with fifty beds—but also to see if anyone has an injury. November Company didn't bother to do anything more than cursory inspections. If someone complained that she had an injury, she was told to “suck it up.” When I reviewed their hygiene-inspection logbooks, there were no notes to show that they kept track of bruises, illnesses, or injuries, much less that they referred recruits to the athletic trainer or Medical.
Just as an aside, because you might be wondering about this: When a battalion commander tells you to do something, you do it. You might be able to offer input. You may even talk your commander out of an action. But, ultimately, she's the boss and you do what you're told.
November Company did not.
We'll get there.
As soon as we started focusing on the basics, we started seeing huge improvements.
After the first four-week phase of training ended, we encouraged the drill instructors and recruits to use their spare time to continue physical training. After the second phase of training began, we had less opportunity for PT throughout the day, so we asked the drill instructors to allow the recruits to use the elliptical trainers and pull-up bars during free time and between training events.
Previously, we had also been taking buses to the rifle range instead of hiking. My drill instructors and I recognized that hiking that short distance to the range would not only improve the fitness levels of the recruits but also would give them the mental space they needed to prepare for shooting on the range. We started marching. We wore light day packs and carried our rifles, and we did a nicely paced administrative move, without yelling by the drill instructors.
In the third phase of training, we better prepared for the Crucible hike. In addition to making sure that the recruits were fit enough to complete the hike, we also had to address the issue of packing their rucksacks. This is because packing it properly can make all the difference in how your back feels during a hike.
Therefore, my athletic trainer developed a presentation to familiarize the DIs with exactly what the recruits were supposed to carry and how they should be carrying it. She also walked the drill instructors through how to properly fit the packs to the recruits’ bodies and increased their awareness of how taking long strides and running with packs increased lower-extremity injury rates.
What she taught certainly wasn't rocket science. It was no different from what Marines all over the Marine Corps are expected to do. But Fourth Battalion had always been different.
We also worked on the mental aspect of hiking.
When I first arrived at Parris Island, despite our hike routes being shorter than they should have been, we still had women getting into the van at the halfway mark—at incredibly high rates. This is because we let them. Hell, we expected them to.
To combat this, we started having the medical teams evaluate the women who fell out of the hikes. When they weren't found to be injured, we told them they had to keep going. You know what happened? They finished the hike, and they were mentally tougher for it.
Cultivating this sense of a need to complete a task was important. It's what motivated the recruits to keep moving forward when the going got tough. However, there was one incident that I will not forget. I had a young woman who took it too far. Actually, it was terrible; I was horrified at the risk she took. She finished the Crucible on the parade field right before the emblem ceremony—with a temperature of 107°. She had not displayed any heat-casualty symptoms. She got all the
