Can Boot Camp Prepare Recruits For Iraq?

(CBS)  In all, 30,000 new recruits come into the Marine Corps each year. Their average age is 19, and they almost certainly will end up in Iraq, CBS News correspondent David Martin reports. Before they leave boot camp for more advanced training, they have to make it through what the Marines call "the crucible" — 54 hours on the move with little sleep and less food, always under the eye of an impossible-to-please drill instructor.

There's no question the training is tough. They have a 32-mile march, for example. But does it prepare young men for what they will face in Iraq?

"Who thinks they know what in the Marine Corps we feel about honor?" Drill Sgt. Mike Brown asks.

"Sir, this recruit believes that honor is doing the right thing when no one is looking, sir," a recruit answers.

Brown, a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan, runs his recruits through the Marines' mantra — honor, courage and commitment.

"For three solid months, 13 weeks, that's all we do is teach them over and over and over about Corps values and making the right decisions, about Marines making the right decision," Brown says.

Rodriccos Williams, 18, is straight out of high school and says that's what's going to get him through the crucible.

"With the honor, courage and commitment, you have something that pushes you and helps you to make it every time," Williams says. "It's an important factor in becoming a Marine."

Enduring the relentless harassment and pressure from the drill instructors requires both mental and physical strength. Which is tougher, the mental or the physical?

"The mental, because the human mind acts in different ways when it's being pressured. When you get angry you want to hit something, you want to act out, you want to swear. But here it's teaching you how to keep your bearing and how to stay focused," a recruit says.

The Marines now under investigation for giving in to their anger and committing possible war crimes in Iraq went through the same do-the-right-thing training as these recruits. So how do they translate their training in an airfield in South Carolina to Iraq?

"There's really no way you can actually make that happen," Brown says.

That's because even the toughest boot camp can't fully prepare a young man for the chaos and cruelty of combat.

[debra51-2009]

To correspondent David Martin and CBS:

How would you like every reference to you and the professional standards you profess to impose upon yourself to be tainted with the names Marla Mapes (CBS producer who used forged documents from a highly questionable source in a story about President Bush's military service in the Texas National Guard), Jayson Blair (New York Times reporter whose error-ridden, fabricated and plagerized stories were published over a five-year period), Janet Cooke (Washington Post reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize for a story about an 8-year-old drug addict named "Jimmy"...a story wholly made up about a boy who didn't exist)?

Whatever those Marines in Hadditha did or didn't do will be decided by a military court of law, not you, Mr. Martin. And since they are presumed innocent, by what journalistic standard can you possibly defend writing that they are being investigated for "giving in to their anger and committing possible war crimes in Iraq?"

Where is the word "allegedly" in your copy? Shame on you and on CBS for publishing this trash on Veterans Day.

[dctrainer-2009]

What a predictable focus and ending to a story about the Marine Corps on it's birthday. Even though I'm a stereotype of the Eastern Democratic Liberal I'm also the father of two Marines, one of whom is still serving in Anbar province in Iraq. Considering the the total number of Marines who have served in Iraq and the actual number even accused of any sort of crime I think the story could have shed a more positive light on their service the day before Veteran's Day. This is particular so when one considers our opponents strive to commit every possible act of depravity and bestial cruelty against the most innocent victims they can find. Nonetheless they get a free pass for doing so while even a single criminal act by our own forces is considered sufficient pretext for questioning the entire legitimacy of the struggle against that same enemy.

Devin Croft
Littleton, CO

[barrieoz]

I had to read the copy to make sure that I heard correctly--you made no mention of women trained at Parris Island. My daughter, honored as the youngest Marine in her squadron at their birthday celebration last night, is preparing to deploy for Iraq in the Spring. How did this segment air with the phrases, "young men" and "young man". I think you owe the women in the Marines an apology. I had my son, also a Marine, review this story and he agrees that it does not do justice to the training Marines receive. He adds nothing can really prepare men and women for war other than being there, but Marine bootcamp and the subsequent training Marines receive makes them the most prepared soldiers in the world. I think you owe the Corps an apology in general.

Semper Fi,

Proud Marine Mom

[hhdispenza]

I enjoyed your piece on "Boot Camp Preparation for Iraq." Unfortunately, only "young men" were referenced throughout the entire segment. My sister is a marine in Iraq and from watching your piece, a viewer would never know there were women marines too! How hard would it have been to add "and women?" Shame on CBS and Katie especially for perpetuating this marine stereotype.

[marhuk]

David Martin's report on Marine Corps training. Who made the last statement in the story? They chose to denagrate Marine training on the Marine Corps Birthday! The Marine Corps has been training men fight in combat for 231 years. How long have you been spinning the news? Now, all of a sudden David Martin knows better. Don't talk about something of which you have not the slightest idea. I can asure you,you are clueless. That's is all Marines do is prepare for war. That's their job.
But I want you to get the idea! I want you to walk off that bus and on to Parris Island at 2 am in the morning. Then march off Parris Island, 12 weeks later, a United States Marine. You sir have no shame. No balls! You discust me.
Semper Fi,
Vaughn Bayer