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Marine boot camp

Marine boot camp is 13 weeks long, the longest of the basic trainings of the military, and is located at either MCRD, San Diego, or Paris Island, South Carolina. The place you go generally depends on where you’re enlisting out of. If you’re living on the west coast, you’ll most likely go to San Diego and east coast, Paris Island. Marine boot camp starts at the infamous yellow footprints. That’s where all hell breaks loose and the fun begins. At Marine boot camp, you do not use the words I or me. You will speak in the third person saying things like this. Recruit these recruits, you get the deal. The first person vernacular no longer applies here.

 

Marine bootcamp is broken down into four challenging phases, each one serving their purpose in building a United States Marine. These phases will push you to your physical and mental limits to test your resilience and enable growth. Phase one consists of receiving your gear and rifle issue. You’ll conduct an initial strength test, be introduced to MicMap, which stands for Marine Corps martial arts program. Have some fun fighting with pugle sticks, learn about weapon safety, and start close order drill. Once you make it through that, now it’s time for phase two. This is where you’ll begin to develop your resolve and gain the confidence to overcome every obstacle and defeat every internal and external enemy. This phase has combat, water, survival, physical and combat conditioning, more martial arts training, and academic classroom instruction. Phase three is where things start to get even more intense. You’ll learn the fundamentals of marksmanship, where you’ll even go an entire week learning about your weapon and not firing it. Get basic warrior training. Get field skills like land navigation. And then, for one of the most famous parts of marine boot camp, the Crucible. The Crucible takes place over 54 hours and includes food and sleep deprivation and over 45 miles of marching.

 

The Crucible event pits teams of recruits against a barrage of day and night events requiring every recruit to work together to solve problems, overcome obstacles, and help each other along the way. The obstacles you’ll face include long marches, combat assault courses, the leadership reaction course, and the team building warrior stations. It is a rite of passage for everyone who becomes a Marine. Once you complete the Crucible, you’ll receive your eagle, globe and anchor, or ega for short, and you’re now considered a full fledged United States Marine. Phase four is the easy stuff. It’s essentially an administrative phase that sends you off to your follow on training. You’ll get your final uniform issue, do your final PFT and CFT, and have your graduation. The PFT consists of max pull ups, max crunches in 2 minutes, and a three mile run. Marines will either go to ITB or MCT afterwards and then receive training in their MOS, moving on to Air Force and Space Force Basic Military Training
George N.
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