United States of America needs the Marines.
By the time you read this, General Krulak will be at least halfway through his four-year tour as Commandant of the Marine Corps. His goals and visions will have been scrutinized, the first hard results of his initiatives will have been seen, and his programs will be showing signs of life. Yet, it is perhaps his own persona and character that will be the defining aspect of his commandancy. He has brought the Corps back to its roots, showing a hereditary line back to the qualities that have always made the Marines special to the United States. He truly is a warrior prince of the Marine Corps, and will be an important force as they enter the 21st century. In spite of the shortage of funds and the cutbacks that have been at the core of recent Marine Corps history, there will always be Marines. Trust the son of Brute Krulak to keep that promise.
Transformation: Making Marines
Marine human material was not one whit better than that of the
human society from which it came. But it had been hammered
into form in a different forge.
In early 1996 the United States Marines were a small, elite corps of only 195,000 men and women. Every one of these, whether officer or enlisted, shares a common experience as a Marine. They face similar physical and mental challenges, and they must pass the same tests of skill and endurance. Becoming a Marine is an achievement like winning an Olympic medal. No matter what else you may do in life, once you pin on the emblem at the end of Boot Camp, you are a Marine for life. Over the years, the Corps has had its share of members it would like to forget; Lee Harvey Oswald and the idiots who raped a young girl in Okinawa in 1995 come to mind. On the other hand, former Marines such as Art Buchwald, Ed McMahon, Jim Lehrer, and Senator John Glenn exemplify many different kinds of real success.
What kind of person does the Corps want to recruit? The answer to this question determines the kind of Marines we send around the world as America's representatives and, often, our first warriors in a conflict. Does the Marine leadership want automatons who mindlessly follow the orders of a superior? Or do they want a Corps of restless, intelligent young people, asking questions and exploring new solutions to old problems? Today's recruits have to be both physically fit and mentally agile, able to work well on a team, but also able to stay cool on their own in stressful situations. Just how you find such people every year is the subject of this chapter.
The Big Green Machine: The Corps Today
They serve in every country in the world where the United States has diplomatic relations, and probably a few where we don't! Their career specialties include everything from senior managers and leaders to pilots, machinists, and computer technicians. The first thing you notice when you enter their world is that as a group they are physically fit, with the sort of 'hard bodies' you might find working out at your local gym. This is a product of training, as well as the yearly requirement for every Marine (including the Commandant) to pass a rigorous physical examination called the Physical Fitness Test (PFT). Composed of a timed three-mile run combined with measured sit-ups and chin-ups on a bar, the PFT is one of the requirements that determines whether someone is still a Marine. Every day, rain or shine, at lunchtime along the riverfront park near the Pentagon, you see men and women in sweat suits running. Running hard. A lot of them are Marines. If you sit in an office all day and live on a diet of donuts and coffee, you won't pass the PFT, and failure to pass it results in an invitation to leave the Corps. This may seem harsh, but it means that Marines are on average the most physically fit personnel in the military services. Every Marine is also required to maintain proficiency with the M16A2 5.56mm combat rifle and other assigned weapons. For staff NCOs and officers this also includes proficiency with the M9 9mm pistol. Failure to maintain weapons qualification is also cause for dismissal. For some 220 years, every Marine has been qualified as a rifleman, and this is not about to change in today's Corps.
Another striking thing you notice about the Marine Corps is the surprisingly low proportion of officers, compared with other services. Traditionally the Corps has entrusted greater responsibility to enlisted personnel than other services, and it shows in the telling 'nose to tail' (officer-to-enlisted-personnel) ratio in each. While the Navy ratio is about 6 to 1, the Army about 5 to 1, and the Air Force a costly 4 to 1, the Marines have some 8.7 enlisted personnel for every officer. Beyond the benefits that such a ratio has on the morale and self-esteem of enlisted personnel, there are other noticeable effects. Person for person, the Marine Corps is remarkably inexpensive to operate and maintain, since enlisted personnel cost less in salary and benefits than an equivalent number of officers. As a result, the Corps assigns many leadership and supervisory responsibilities to non-commissioned officers. This means that enlisted Marines take orders from sergeants who at one time were just like them, raw recruits headed to Boot Camp.
Marines also have a sense of their personal identity and position in the world. Ask any Marine, and he or she will be able to trace the chain of command all the way from himself or herself right up to the President of the United States. This is not simply a trick, like dogs walking on their hind legs. It is an indication that every Marine is confident of his or her place in the world. And that shows in confident behavior. More important, Marines learn that they are trusted to make good decisions, follow orders, and accomplish tasks in the best way available. If you have worked for a big corporation, with numbing layers of middle management over your head and no sense of personal empowerment, you can appreciate the refreshing clarity that Marines feel about their individual positions and missions.
Prospecting for Gold: Recruiting for the Corps
The raw material for making Marines is provided by your local Marine Corps Recruiting Station. These nondescript little offices, many on the second floors of strip malls across America, are where the Corps puts its own out to find and deliver new Marine recruits for training. To find out more, I spent a Saturday morning at the Recruiting Station in Fairfax County, Virginia. Located just west of Washington, D.C., the station covers much of Northern Virginia. This is a tough place for recruiters. With a median family income of just over $70,000 per year, it is among the most affluent suburban regions in America. That makes recruiting Marines difficult. Very difficult. Running the Fairfax station is Gunnery Sergeant James Hazzard, along with Staff Sergeant Warren Foster and Staff Sergeant Ray Price. Their backgrounds range from artillery operations to helicopter maintenance. Gunny Hazzard also supervises another recruiting annex with two more Staff Sergeants in Sterling, Virginia, covering Loudoun County all the way out to the West Virginia state line. His territory extends from the high-tech headquarters of the U.S. Intelligence community (CIA, NRO, etc.) in Langley and Chantilly to the horse farms and cornfields of Leesburg.
It is a big territory, with an expanding population and economic base. The demographics combine a solidly
