United States Marine Corps Recruit Training (commonly known as "boot camp") is a 13-week recruit training program, including in & out-processing, that each recruit must successfully complete in order to serve in the United States Marine Corps.
Most enlisted individuals entering the Marine Corps, regardless of eventual active or reserve duty status, will undergo recruit training at one of the two Marine Corps Recruit Depots (MCRD): MCRD Parris Island or MCRD San Diego. Male recruits from the 8th, 9th and 12th recruiting districts (areas west of the Mississippi River except Louisiana and including parts of Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan) are sent to MCRD San Diego. All recruits from the 1st, 4th and 6th recruiting districts (and until 2021, all female recruits) are sent to Parris Island. Those desiring to become officers attend training at Officer Candidates School at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia.
The only Marine Corps recruits not required to undergo such training are those selected for the United States Marine Band. Upon passing an audition and satisfying security and physical fitness requirements, they are granted the rank of Staff Sergeant and assigned exclusively to the band for a four-year enlistment.
History
In the earliest years of the Corps, training was performed by the individual Marine barracks where the individual was recruited before being assigned to a permanent post. Marine non-commissioned officers were responsible for instructing privates in discipline, drill, weapons handling and other skills. In approximately 1808, Commandant Franklin Wharton established a formal school for recruits at Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C., but no records indicate that this served as a centralized recruit depot, and the training regimen remained inconsistent and primitive because of manpower shortages and lack of funding. For example, recruits at Washington were hastily formed into a battalion in July 1861 and drilled as they marched on their way to the First Battle of Bull Run.
In 1911, Commandant William P. Biddle standardized a mandatory two-month recruit training program (including drill, physical exercise, personal combat and intensive marksmanship qualification with the M1903 Springfield rifle) and set up four training depots at Philadelphia, Norfolk, Puget Sound and Mare Island, California. In 1912, Mare Island became the sole training depot for the west coast. In 1915, the Norfolk depot was shifted to its current location at Parris Island, and was merged with the Philadelphia depot. As the United States entered World War I, the number of recruits being trained surged from 835 at any given time to a peak of 13,286, while follow-on training was provided at Quantico and in France. During the summer of 1923, the West Coast recruit depot was moved from Mare Island to its current location in San Diego, and the training program was modified to include three weeks of basic indoctrination and three weeks on the rifle range; the final two weeks were occupied in bayonet drill, guard duty, drill and ceremonies.
With the September 1939 Nazi German invasion of Poland, Congress authorized an increase in manpower in preparation for a possible entry of the United States into World War II and the Marine Corps recruit training syllabus was halved to four weeks to accommodate the influx of personnel. After standards and marksmanship plummeted as a result, the seven-week schedule was returned and additional training was given at Camp Lejeune or Camp Pendleton, based on specialties, before being assigned to a unit. An additional segregated depot was established at Montford Point for roughly 20,000 African American recruits; integration occurred by 1949. Overall, half a million recruits were trained by the end of the war at the three depots.
During the Korean War, training was shortened from ten weeks to eight but was returned afterward to ten. The Ribbon Creek incident in 1956 led to considerable scrutiny and reform in recruit training, such as an additional layer of command oversight. During the early 1960s, the training period was increased to 13 weeks, including three weeks of marksmanship training at the Rifle Range. The Vietnam War-era syllabus was shortened to nine weeks and again saw infantry recruits attend follow-on training at Lejeune and Pendleton.
Overview In Helmet for My Pillow, his World War II memoir, journalist Robert Leckie writes of Marine Corps Recruit Training:
Leckie adds: "If you are undone in Parris Island, taken apart in those first few weeks, it is at the rifle range that they start to put you together again".
Marine Boot Camp Structure Duration: 13 weeks
Locations:
MCRD San Diego (for recruits west of the Mississippi) MCRD Parris Island (for recruits east of the Mississippi)
Phases:
Phase 1 (Weeks 1–4) – Forming, discipline, drill, initial strength tests, swim qualification. Phase 2 (Weeks 5–9) – Rifle marksmanship, field training, combat conditioning. Phase 3 (Weeks 10–13) – The Crucible, final testing, and earning the title “Marine.”
Daily structure: 0400–2100, constant motion, strict schedules, physical training, marching, drill, and classes. Recruits average 12–15 miles of travel on their feet per day, usually wearing boots.
Daily schedule A day typically begins at 0400 hours, or 4:00 AM.MRCD Parris Island. Recruit Training Reveille is sounded, and all recruits present themselves for accountability. After personal hygiene and morning clean-up, recruits perform physical training (on Monday through Saturday). After the morning meal, the recruits begin the day's scheduled training, which may include classes, drills or martial arts. On Sundays, recruits are offered the morning to attend various religious services and take personal time ("square-away time"); the latter may be used to engage in personal activities such as writing letters, working out, doing laundry, or preparing uniforms and equipment.
After the noon meal, the day's training continues until the evening meal, typically around 17:00 to 18:00 (5:00 to 6:00 pm). After this time, recruits will have hygiene time to shower and clean their weapons and the barracks. Recruits are then given approximately one hour of square-away time, during which they remain under the supervision of their drill instructors (DIs) and may not leave the squad bay. In preparation to sleep, recruits may hydrate, pray together for five minutes, ensure footlockers and rifles are locked and often recite the Rifleman's Creed or Marines' Hymn before lights-out. Lights-out can range from 20:00 to 22:00 (8:00 to 10:00 pm), depending on the next day's activities. Throughout all of recruit training, a guard, or ”firewatch", is posted for the entire night. Four recruits at a time stand one-hour shifts, during which they keep order in the squad bay, clean, or carry out any tasks assigned by the DIs. Extra firewatch is frequently assigned as punishment for minor infractions.
Organizational structure Recruits are organized by regiment, battalion, company, platoon, squad and often fireteam. A Recruit Training Regiment is composed of three recruit training battalions for males and one battalion to train female recruits. All three of the male battalions are made up of four companies, while the female battalions comprise three companies. Each company is broken down into two series, designated as Lead and Follow, which may have between one and four platoons, depending on the number of recruits in the company at the time the training cycle begins. Each company is much like a class at a civilian education institution; each company begins and finishes recruit training together (with the exception of those who are dropped for medical or personal reasons to a different company), thus each of the companies will be at a different stage in the thirteen-week training cycle.
Each series is broken down into a number of platoons, usually from two to four in each. These platoons will be the basic unit for recruit training, assigned a four digit number as identification. Drill instructors are assigned to each platoon and will usually stay from the beginning to the end of training. The senior drill instructor of each platoon will select recruits to billets of responsibility, to mimic command and staff positions of a Marine unit. The selections often change on the whims of the drill instructors and can include: The platoon guide, the senior-most recruit responsible for carrying the platoon's guidon Four squad leaders, each in charge of one-fourth of the platoon; DIs may choose to further subdivide their squads into four-man fire teams A scribe, responsible for maintaining administrative records such as the interior guard schedule A whiskey locker recruit, known as a whiskey pig, responsible for maintaining the platoon's supplies House mouse, who cleans the normally off-limits drill instructors' offices A Prac/Knowledge recruit, responsible for leading the platoon in memorizing and reciting academic knowledge
Drill Instructors
Central to the training of Marine recruits is the drill instructor (DI). The tough treatment of Marine recruits by DIs is legendary. As one magazine describes it:
In his World War II memoir With the Old Breed, Eugene Sledge describes Corporal Doherty, his DI, as having:
Sledge describes an incident in which several of the recruits in his platoon left their quarters to observe the aftermath of a nearby plane crash: "When we got back to our area, Corporal Doherty delivered one of his finest orations on the subject of recruits never leaving their assigned area without the permission of their DI. We were all impressed, particularly with the tremendous number of push-ups and other exercises we performed instead of going to noon chow." He writes: Sledge concludes "I disliked [Doherty], but I respected him. He had made us Marines".
Each platoon is assigned three or more DIs, sometimes informally referred to as "hats" because of their distinctive Campaign hat. The DIs of a platoon are responsible to the series commander, a level of command added below that of the company commander, as a safety measure put into place following the Ribbon Creek incident. Drill instructors are trained at the DI schools at each MCRD. Those DIs who successfully complete three years or a total of 30 months of duty are eligible to receive the Drill Instructor Ribbon.
By 2021, the two U.S Marine Corps depots in Parris Island and San Diego each had female drill instructors training female recruits.
Physical strength and fitness
The United States Marine Corps requires each recruit to pass the Initial Strength Test (IST) upon arriving to the Marine Corps Recruiting Depots. The three tests consist of pull-ups/push-ups, crunches/ planks, and a 1.5-mile run. The minimum requirements are as follows: +Initial Strength Test (IST) Minimum RequirementsTestsMaleFemalePull-ups/Push-ups3 Pull-ups
or
34 Push-ups1 Pull-up or
15 Push-upsPlank/Crunches44 Crunches or
40 seconds Plank44 Crunches or
40 seconds Plank1.5 miles13 minutes 30 seconds15 minutes Throughout recruit training, recruits will run the Physical Fitness Test (PFT) 2-3 times. The PFT requires higher standards on each of the three tests. Pull-ups/push-ups and crunches/planks are the same as the IST, but the run is increased to 3 miles. The requirements for each test varies depending on which group an individual falls under depending on age. Prior to 2017, women did flexed arm hangs instead of pull-ups. As a result of the change, the option of push-ups instead of pull-ups was included in the fitness tests. Any individual that chooses to do push-ups will only be able to score a maximum score of 70, compared to a maximum of 100 on all other tests.
Final Expected Standards