The Mettle to Lead Marines: Officers
Though there are some subtle differences, the career paths of the small cadre of commissioned officers who constitute the leadership of this more-than-220-year-old institution are generally similar to those of the Army ranks described in _Armored Cav and the Air Force ranks described in Fighter Wing. However, unlike the other services, the Marines don't get most of their officers from the service academy of their parent service. The USMC receives only a few of its new 2nd Lieutenants (0-1s) from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. (A much larger percentage of Army and Air Force 2nd Lieutenants come from West Point and the Air Force Academy.) Every year, a portion of the Annapolis graduating class chooses a career in the Marines and is directly commissioned into the Corps. But this small group (no more than 175) fills only a fraction of the Corps' demand — it needs over 1,500 new officers per year. Most of the other officers the Corps develops are recruited from colleges around the country.
Whether they are Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) graduates or join directly out of college, they all go to the institutional home of Marine officers, the USMC Officer Candidate School (OCS) at Quantico, Virginia. A few dozen miles south of Washington, D.C. along the lower Potomac River, Quantico is where the Corps makes the majority of its officers. Interestingly, some leaders at Quantico wish the Corps would require Academy graduates to go through OCS as well, so that all Marine officers would share a common initial training experience. The ten-week OCS is similar to the Recruit Training course at Parris Island. Though there is a greater emphasis on leadership training and basic command and control skills like radio procedures, land navigation, and calling in artillery and air strikes, the training is just as physically demanding, the hours just as long, and the tests just as challenging as those enlisted Marines must meet. To prove it, just watch the officer candidates (the officer equivalent of a recruit) go through a particularly demented Combat Obstacle Course nicknamed the "Quigly." It starts with a slime- and ooze-filled ditch that flows into a small creek. The course continues through dense woods, followed by climbs and descents on a steep hill. Other obstacles follow, ending with a crawl over ground under fire from a light machine gun (don't worry, the staff uses blanks!). The sight of a slime-covered group of officer candidates moving down a bone-chilling creek is bad enough. But when you see the instructors moving a few yards/meters ahead of them, to clear out poisonous water snakes that linger in the area, you get some idea of how much these young officer candidates want to lead Marines. They quickly come to understand that they are being entrusted with the most valuable asset the USMC possesses, its young men and women. Supervising them throughout OCS are the ubiquitous Gunnies.
Following OCS, officers go through another training course at Quantico called the Basic School. Here they learn the skills needed to run a rifle platoon. This training includes not only weapons and tactical instruction, but lessons in the inevitable supervisory and paperwork skills necessary to keep any bureaucracy running. Infantry officers must complete Camp Lejeune's twenty-six-week School of Infantry as well. From there, they head out into the Corps to their MOS schools and their first assignments. Like the enlisted Marines they will lead, there is one common thread: Whatever their primary specialty (pilot, logistics officer, etc.), they are all riflemen first. They are all capable of fighting on the ground. This makes the USMC different from any other U.S. military service. It is also why the national leadership trusts Marines above any other military force to get a tough job done. You can trust Marines!
Taking young men and women and turning them into Marines is hard work, and General Krulak would tell you that the Corps only entrusts such work to its best members. From the recruiters like Gunny Hazzard at the Fairfax Station, to Series Commanders like Captain Whitney Mason at Parris Island, to the instructors at the Basic Warrior School, the process of building new Marines is the toughest job you can imagine. It goes on and on, and the process cannot be allowed to end, lest the very survival of the Corps be put into jeopardy. It remains in good hands.
When I was visiting the Fairfax recruiting office, Gunny Hazzard showed me a special corner. On a crowded bulletin board were dozens of letters, snapshots, and postcards from some of the young Marines he and the other recruiters had sent to Parris Island. Every letter I saw was a message of deep, personal gratitude from the new Marine, thanking the recruiter for showing the path to a new life. This is the payoff for a recruiter who has had too many rejections and not enough commitments. Or, as Gunny Hazzard likes to point out, this is what the Corps is all about — finding young people and showing them a path to a life of service and honor.
Small Arms
THIS IS MY RIFLE. There are many like it but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I master my life.
My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than any enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will….
My rifle and myself know that what counts in this war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit….
My rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weakness, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights, and its barrel. I will keep my rifle clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will….
Before God I swear this creed. My rifle and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life.
So be it, until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but Peace.
The ethos of the Marine Corps is not found in the technology of its weapons, but in the character and morale of the individual Marine with a rifle in the presence of an enemy. Back in the 1970s, when the Marines were still short on the new anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs), there was a Marine officer training a class on anti-armor tactics. When the instructor was asked what weapon was best against heavy enemy armored vehicles, he showed a slide of the Marine Corps emblem, saying, "Gentlemen, this is your best weapon." Just being Marines was their best weapon. Themselves.
While better equipped than a quarter century ago, today's Marine Corps is still taking young men and women and making each one into a lethal fighter. Marines are also taught that they are likely to find themselves thinking and acting on their own in situations requiring great responsibility-operating alone, making decisions, and taking actions that represent American policy. A recent recruiting poster showed a Marine sniper and his rifle in full camouflage, with the words "Smart Weapon."