(soft piano music) - Marines are different.

They like to think they're the best.

Culture is a warrior spirit.

- We consider ourselves warriors that we have an obligation to be the most ready when the nation is the least ready and do the kinds of things that our country would ask of its elite warriors.

- The Marines are smaller than the other major military services, they're more oriented on combat.

- Throughout history, at times kill is necessary.

- The Marines run to the sound of the guns.

(marines shouting) - Marines understand that what they do is a brutal business, but they never lose their humanity.

- They're the most ancient of all the arms services.

I say, ancient, not primitive.

They're arguably the most functional of all the armed services.

They're a cult that works, they're a gang that's lawful.

- To me, it's the baddest fraternity on the planet that you can belong to.

- Semper Fidelis, always faithful.

(person shouting) - Marines more than any service unit emphasize that notion of comradery.

A kind of specialness and a special comradery to each other.

- There's a myth out there that the Marines are Neanderthals.

I actually find the Marines very intellectual.

- Marines, I firmly believe are idealists to their core who really truly believe that they can in some way help make the world a better place.

They live in such a tough world that they have to cloak their idealism in a shell just to survive.

- The professional warrior has a very strong emphasis on a code of ethics.

Integrity, morality is a big factor.

- Our core value is honor, courage and commitment.

That's the foundation of that ethos.

- Repeat after me.

- And we took that oath.

We promised everybody in our country that for four years or for a lifetime we'd give them the best we had.

And we do every day.

- Marines don't argue about should we or should we not have intervened.

The mission is everything.

- And a Marine, no matter how many times you knock him down, he's going to get to his feet.

And that probably makes us as feared as any organization in the world.

- We are the nation's first line of defense.

But if you do something wrong to the country, we're the last people you want to see coming at your door.

That reputation has been well earned over the last 230 years.

(suspense music) - [Announcer] Funding for the Marines is provided by the Alfiero Family Charitable Foundation, which celebrates the National Museum of the Marine Corps and Marine Corps Heritage Center, and by contributions to your PBS Station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(birds chirping) (slow music) - I never started out to be a Marine.

When I came aboard, I didn't really know what a Marine was.

I found that I liked this stuff and stuck around for about 35 years.

I think it's important that the story be told.

- When I tell you to get out, you're going to get out quickly without getting injured and you're going to get my yellow footprint.

Do you understand?

- [Recruits] Yes sir.

- Get out and get my yellow footprint.

- [Narrator] Recruits arrive at bootcamp the same as generations of Marines before them.

- Let's go.

Fast, fast.

Let's go, let's go, let's go.

- [Narrator] At night on a bus.

- Let's go, let's go faster.

Let's go faster.

Let's go faster, faster.

Let's go.

- The journey of a thousand miles starts when the drill instructor invites those recruits off the bus and puts them on the yellow footprints.

- And they symbolize you leaving the live as you knew it and entering the United States Marine Corps.

Do you understand?

- [Recruits] Yes sir.

- No, do you understand?

- [Recruits] Yes sir.

- [Narrator] In that first moment at bootcamp, recruits literally step into the distinctive culture of the Marine Corps.

These symbols and traditions and the values they represent are what bind Marines together and what set them apart.

- The Marines do maintain that distinctive culture.

It's a commitment to others, a sense that the organization comes before the self, a real downplaying of the individual and playing up the importance, the role and the goals of the group.

- They can't help but fall into a formation when they stand on the yellow footprints.

And it's kind of the first symbol of becoming part of a team.

- You will be what you're told to be.

Your hair and eyes are straight to the front and your mouth are shut.

- When they step on those yellow footprints and when that bus departs our receiving barracks (bus engine roaring) it is an eerie experience.

They know they're at bootcamp and they're about to begin the toughest, basic training in the department of defense.

- You need to remember... - [Narrator] Far from elite warriors, recruits question their decision to join the Marine Corps.

Many wonder if they'll survive the first night of bootcamp, let alone the next 12 weeks of training.

- All those little details that people take for granted are stripped away and it really makes a great impact on them.

- Move back and get your toes upon my step.

Say, aye sir.

- [Recruits] Aye sir.

- The main thing is, they realize that the world as they knew it has changed.

- When someone asks you a question, you'll respond with yes sir or no sir.

Do you understand?

- [Recruits] Yes sir.

- And I remember interviewing recruits about their thoughts about that night and it typically was, oh my God, what have I done?

- Stop at the edge when the Marine tells you step.

- The Marine bootcamp experience, it's a real shock.

And it really is off the deep end of the pool.

(people shouting) - Aye, sir!

- Go, move back and cover that little- - We want the moms and dads to know that their son or daughter has arrived safely at Paris Island.

- Now, when I tell you to pick up the phone, you going to read your divisions from line one all the way down to line five.

Do you understand?

- [Recruits] Yes sir.

- We have a very short message that we prepare and then we put next to the telephones.

- Pick up the phone right now.

(recruits responding) - This is recruit (indistinct) I've arrived safely in Paris Island.

Please do not send me any food or bulky items... - This is recruit (indistinct) I have arrived safely in Paris Island.

Please do not send any food or bulky items to me in the mail.

I will contact you in three, five days (indistinct) - The phone call is going to be short, it may come late at night and it may seem abrupt to them.

- I'll contact you in three to five days (indistinct).

- This is my postcard with my new address.

Thank you for your support.

Goodbye for now.

- That's it.

It won't be, no, I miss you, I love you, please save me.

None of that stuff.

- Stop, I said, stand right there and face that way.

Shift to your right.

Say aye sir.

- Aye sir.

- You get right next to him.

You get behind him.

Say aye sir.

- Aye sir.

- But it's just part of that transition from civilian to recruit.

- We get them here and we (indistinct) them and we get them ready for the training company where they're going to spend three months.

For some recruits that really comes like a shock.

- I joined the Marine Corps as a teenager in 1942.

We got off that bus and we went inside, my whole life was changed.

It was tough, there were some sore muscles in bootcamp and maybe a bruise or two.

I watched the transformation of myself and others and we really tried hard to become Marines.

- Once he move, you move.

- And to live up to the expectations of the older Marines, the ones that have gone before us.

- I enlisted in the Marine Corps the 9th of September, 1942.

Oh, I think it's indelible till the day you die.

(phone ringing) It's the most degrading day you'll ever have in your life.

And I think it's all part of that vast plan, which none of us understood to reduce us all to nothing and then build Marines.

- You, did you speak to a lab person?

- Yes sir.

- Who'd you speak to?

Don't look at me (indistinct) straight to the front.

Who'd you speak to?

- My mom, sir.

- This recruit's mother, say.

- This recruit's mother sir.

- Who'd you speak to?

- My father, sir.

- My father, this recruit's father.

- This recruit's father.

- Who?

- This recruit could not contact anyone.

- Get on the phone again.

Who'd you speak to?

- This recruit's father, sir.

- Who?

- This recruit's father.

- Who?

- This recruit's mother, sir.

- It was a terrible day.

And that's over 60 years ago and I could almost tell you every move we made.

- In a matter of less than 12 hours, everything what they knew for 18 or more years is suddenly gone and stripped away.

- We take these individuals off the street, we got to get their attention, we got to build discipline into them, we got to get them functioning as a team.

That's all part of that ingraining transformation that has to take place from a citizen off the street into the training process, the end result being a basically qualified Marine.

I don't know how you grow that, but we seem to do it very well.

- [Narrator] The Marine Corps has two basic missions, to make Marines and to win battles.

(slow calm music) - Our job is to fight the nations battles.

It's as simple as that.

We're warriors, that's what we do.

- The job of the Marines is to get there first, ready to fight and ready to kill if necessary.

- We pride ourselves on mission accomplishment.

We'll pick up, move out, draw fire, shape the battlefield plant a flag.

- [Narrator] The Marine Corps is the smallest of the four or services.

It is designed to be the tip of the military spear, deployed first and quickly.

- The Marines run to the sound of the guns.

It's counterintuitive in terms of a survival instinct when you actually experience it.

But that's what the Marines do.

- [Narrator] The Marines embrace in aggressive warrior ethos that they feel sets them apart.

- I don't know whether it's specifically set up that way or it just evolved out as they definitely have an identity of, we are Marines and it is distinct and different.

- Being a Marine isn't just a job, it's not a profession even, it's more a vocation.

It's a state of mind.

(slow piano music) - [Narrator] The Marine Corps trains more than 30,000 new recruits each year at two basic training facilities in California and South Carolina.

- Paris Island, because of its history and its association with the Marine Corps is very often shrouded in a lot of mystery and mystique and lore and legend.

- Is one of the most remote parts of the east coast.

It's just a long swamp.

- [Narrator] Here is where the transformation begins.

Recruits are shaped by the values of the Marine Corps.

They take the Marine culture with them for the rest of their military career, and for many, the rest of their lives.

- Marine bootcamp teaches very little in the way of genuine combat skills.

Marine bootcamp is about cultural immersion, indoctrination.

And it does it extremely well.

- You come in, you're part of a team.

This is your family now, you learn how to take care of each other.

You have to trust the guy on your left and the guy on your right.

You build upon the recognition that you fight as a team.

- If you come together as a team and you look after one another, you will be successful.

- I think that's the essence of what the Marines are about, is creating that bond and saying that that's the most important thing about being a Marine, is taking care of each other.

- [Narrator] The Marine Corps is the youngest service among America's military organizations.

60% of Marines are younger than 25, 16% are teenagers.

- There are a number of reasons why a young person joins the Corp these days.

They see an organization that's elite in their minds and they're looking for a challenge.

And they affiliate the Marine Corps with an organization that embraces the challenge.

I think the most important factor is a sense to serve his or her country.

I believe these youngsters have inside them an intense sense of patriotism.

The idea that service above and beyond self is a worthy endeavor.

- [Announcer] You will be changed forever.

- Look at the Marine recruiting commercials, a man being knighted in a church or a castle, a guy on a horse specs laying a dragon, a mountain climber reaching over the precipices.

They definitely play up that image.

- [Advert] In all the world... - [Mike] We have a central message.

- [Advert] There are a select view... - [Mike] We want kids to realize that there's something special about the Marine Corps.

- [Advert] Incredible transformation.

- We focus on kind of the image of the Marine Corp being the elite warrior, the smart, tough elite warrior that is the epitome of military virtue and then we show them that there's a process.

- [Advert] One of the most grueling conditions, they're shaped, hardened.

- [Mike] And for the kids and parents or anybody that sees the commercial, they see a process over time an individual goes through a series of challenges and then eventually is transformed into this Marine.

- [Advert] The proud Marines.

- [Mike] And it's an iconic view or a metaphor of bootcamp, but kids get it.

- Right now we're at Leatherneck Square.

This is where recruits come to get their Marine core martial arts training and they get to run various obstacles.

The objective is to bring a level of confidence out in the recruits that they themselves didn't know that they had.

They hesitate and second guess themselves, but once they're put to it and they have no choice but to do it, they surprise themselves.

With the slide for life, the water alone is intimidating for the recruits 'cause nobody wants to get wet and go for a swing.

But also the heights play a big role too.

As long as they rely on their training and the technique that was instructed to them, they'll have no problem doing it.

We simply do not let them quit.

When they want to quit or they think that they cannot go any longer, we let them know and we show them that they can push past those boundaries and come out on top with the mission accomplished.

Take your left leg down.

No, take your left leg down to get momentum to get on top of the rope.

- [Narrator] Marine Corps bootcamp is longer and more demanding than basic training of other services.

The Marines have resisted a trend towards softening basic training as a way of attracting recruits, sticking instead to an approach it feels has worked for decades.

The Marine Corps has made efforts to control excesses and brutal training methods that are a legendary aspect of bootcamp.

In the mid 1970s, hundreds of drill instructors were punished for abusing recruits.

Changes were made, including monitoring DI's training methods.

But most changes were subtle enough not to diminish the fundamental toughness of Marine Corps bootcamp.

- [Officer] Where are you going?

- [Narrator] There is a debate among Marines with some holding on to the idea that the harsher practices of the past made better Marines.

The challenge for the Marine Corps is finding the balance between abusive methods and the need to train an elite fighting force, disciplined to fight and die on command.

(commander instructing) - Hey, are we going to maybe wall, body weapon Anfield Turkey peak.

I don't know.

Sound about right?

- Yes sir.

- Now you (indistinct) - The drill instructors are the central figures here at Paris Island and the principle influence on the lives of the recruits.

There is a drill instructor with the recruits seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

The drill instructors are truly icons.

They embody the very best of our core.

- You're not talking to freedom (indistinct).

(scary music) - They teach, they train, they mentor and they lead with a passion that is almost an obsession.

- Our mission is to train these crews.

The only way to train them is to instruct them in different aspects dealing with the Marine Corps and becoming a basic Marine.

- Whoa, you're going to hurt yourself.

Grab here, grab here, hit it, come across.

- So without thorough instruction and remediation, there would be no Marine.

It would just be somebody stressed out all the time not knowing what's going on.

- [Narrator] Bootcamp is full of details about becoming a Marine.

But mostly, it brings into focus for recruits the warrior ethos of the Marine Corps.

(loud instructions) - We start off with, every Marine's a rifleman.

(gun shots firing) - I don't care if it's a female Marine, a male Marine, a cook, baker, candlestick maker, whatever, everybody is a basic rifleman in the Marine Corps.

Everyone must qualify with a service rifle.

- Because every Marine is a rifleman, the rifle range is the most important training that we give the recruits while at bootcamp.

This is an outdoor classroom.

We're teaching them the art of marksmanship.

Our philosophy out here is no stress with the recruits.

- (indistinct) Can get it?

Same thing with you recruit.

Then stay extended all the way out.

- Every one of these recruits, when they're down here, are going to have lots of individual instruction taught by the coaches.

- Morning extended all the way out.

- We find that it produces a better result than if we have that one on one time.

It's all about teaching and getting that young person to be able to operate the weapon in the way that we want them to and also hit the target.

(gun shots firing) And that shows how much emphasis we put on marksmanship.

- [Narrator] The teaching at the rifle range also has a larger meaning.

It sets a tone reinforced throughout bootcamp, that Marines pass on knowledge and that they're connected to their history and to those who came before them.

- We teach them history and traditions of the Marine Corps.

So they understand what it's like to be a Marine.

They understand what it was like to be a Marine a hundred years ago.

(slow music) - I don't think you can teach it didactically.

It doesn't happen at a chalkboard.

It's the culture again and the transmission of their culture's values from one generation to the next.

- They understand that they cannot allow those who have gone before to be let down.

They know they can never let that legacy die.

That's why history is so important.

It's part of our ethos, it's part of who we are.

- [Narrator] The official birth date of the Marine Corps is November 10th, 1775.

When the second continental Congress authorized two battalions of continental Marines as landing forces with the fleet.

(soft piano beats) - Marines come from the sea.

We have fought as a component with the Navy since 1775.

Marines were never great in number.

A small Corp, volunteers, adventurous soldiers of the sea if you would.

They were equally at home or on the ships of the fleet and serving with the army.

- [Narrator] The Marines distinguished themselves in an array of regional conflicts during their first 150 years, from the hall of Montezuma to the shores of triple E. It was the first World War that earned the Marines the reputation as the First to Fight.

- They charged through the wheat fields and into the woods of a place called Bellow Woods in France in 1918 to thwart to major German offensive against the capital of France, Paris.

Bellow Wood was a great turning point for the Marines.

They lost more men in that first day than it had in casualties total for the 167 years that preceded it.

- [Narrator] Bellow Wood is one of three touchstone battles in Marine Corps history.

The others are Iwo Jima in 1945, and the chosen reservoir in Korea in 1950.

- Iwo Jima probably dominates even the other two.

This was 1945, the fourth year of the war, the Navy, Army, Marines and the Army Air Force were advancing steadily it towards Japan.

There had been victory on every front, but the closer we got to Japan, the bloodier it was getting.

Iwo Jima was going to be the biggest and bloodiest.

(suspense music) This was a 36 day battle.

It cost 26,000 Marines.

The symbol of it of course was a raising of the American flag on top of Mount Hibachi.

And every Japanese soldier on that ally could see that flag going up on the fourth day of the battle.

And it was kind of like their death now that was coming.

- [Narrator] The photograph of the flag raising on Iwo Jima became more than a symbol of the bloodiest battle in Marine Corps history.

That one iconic image captured the ethos of the Marines.

- You see six troops, five of them are U.S. Marines and one of them is a Navy corpsman.

Working together, struggling together, lifting this flag in a very stiff wind on very dangerous and exposed battlefield.

Here was the icon of the whole war, the teamwork and the victory.

If you walk around the Marine Memorial, the great carved statue at Arlington Cemetery, you'll see carved into the granite the themes of so many battles that go back to the 1770s and the revolutionary war.

There's some blank spaces, there's room for other battles to come.

(bell rings) - Good morning series 4,016.

(recruits respond indistinctly) Today, we are training day 43.

We have the actual obstacle course and a three mile individual effort run.

So everything comes from within, does it not?

- [Ladies Recruits] Yes ma'am.

- So dig it deep and gets up.

It is the exact same course, same events, same obstacles that the males run.

You got to want to have to do it 'cause no one else is going to do it for you.

- [Narrator] One aspect of bootcamp that remains unchanged is how the Marine Corps trains women.

Alone, among all branches of the U.S Military, the Marine Corps trains male and female recruits separately.

- The 4th Battalion, one of our four training battalions here at Paris Island, is the only gender segregated battalion within the department of defense.

There is the age, old, attraction that exists between boys and girls, men and women, that by keeping them separate, we eliminate that.

- [Instructor] Almost there Clark, you could do this girls.

- But as far as training is concerned, we're along the same lines as our male counterparts, which has not always been the case.

(slow music) You talk to a female Marine 20 years ago when we were still learning how to properly apply our makeup, making sure that everything matched properly, assuring that a female could wear the high heels and walk across the stage in a lady like manner.

So, the strides that we have made for me to be able to say our training is align with the males is a huge success for the Marine Corps and for the department of defense at large.

- They have to meet all the same graduation requirements.

In other words, there's no difference in the Marine Corps between what a female recruit and a male recruit gets here at Paris Island.

- That integration, the idea that we train as we fight, is the next step in the training process.

The young Marines leave here and then they get integrated and we're training together at that point.

- Tell me what you've been working for every night if you can't get on this bar.

- [Narrator] About 6% of the Marine Corps are women.

They serve in nearly all military occupations, but department of defense regulations prohibit women from serving in direct combat roles.

(gunshots firing) Increasingly, those distinctions are blurred on the battlefield.

- I think that that's a great debate.

I think that clearly everyone is seeing those lines blurred and I think that we are fairly integrated in those combat zones.

And that is the great debate, the great issue that's at hand right now.

- There are certainly certain elements of our Marine Corps today that permit technology to level the playing field.

Fixed wing, aircraft, helicopters and the like.

The policy in the department of defense right now of course is that, we will not allow women to be assigned in combat arms.

As a hypothetical in the future, anytime that we can leverage technology and equalize the battlefield, then it will provide us with an opportunity to capitalize on women in combat.

- [Narrator] But for many, both outside and especially inside the Marine Corps, the question is whether women can attain the warrior status of their male counterparts.

- It's two different biologies.

I don't think anybody would argue with that.

One of the big problems women have physically is that they can't handle the physical stress of carrying loads over rough terrain for long periods of time.

Are there women individuals who can be competent warriors?

I think so.

Relatively few.

Are there large groups of women who can be warriors?

No.

Never has happened, I don't think it ever will happen.

- One more time (indistinct).

Watch it, now say it.

- I think it starts with when you ask a young female recruit why they joined the Marine Corps.

90% of them will say, I joined to defend my country.

And if that isn't saying the warrior ethos is there for female recruit, I don't know what else we could say.

It's as much a part of the female psyche as it is of the male psyche.

That's why they joined.

And that warrior ethos is all over everything that we do on and off the battlefield.

- [Narrator] All recruits must meet a series of graduation requirements.

Each recruit, male and female, must also pass a final test before earning the title of Marine.

- Let's go, we don't have all day.

- The crucible is often defined as a culminating event at Paris Island.

It occurs during the 10th week of training.

It is a 54-hour training exercise that is comprised of six major events during the daytime and two events at night.

The emphasis during a crucible is teamwork.

- Let's go.

- They're going to be tested mentally, they're going to be tested physically and then they're going to be tested in the sense of their commitment to one another in order to be able to succeed.

- Run.

Hurry up, pick your knees up and run.

- No individual Marine can complete the crucible by him or herself.

The only way you can complete the crucible is as a team.

(calm music) (people singing indistinctly) - [Narrator] The culmination of the a crucible is the dawn march back to the barracks.

♪ We're going for the young marines so far, far away ♪ - [Narrator] Most are exhausted, some struggling and in need of help from fellow recruits to make it.

But with the end of bootcamp, both literally and figuratively in site, these recruits overcome the pain.

They are not yet Marines.

That title is awarded at a series of ceremonies in the days to come.

But on this day, they know they've passed the test.

- You just spent 54 hours working together as a team.

- [Recruits] Yes sir.

- You've done well.

Make your family proud on that day of graduation.

- [Recruits] All right sir.

- These recruits come from all walks of America and they're entrusted to us by their parents, their loved ones, their guardians, to take care of them, to make sure that they're being taken care of.

They're very valuable to us.

First of all, 'cause there's not many like them out in the civilian world that even have the courage to stand up and raise the right hand and take the oath.

- Let's go.

- [Recruits] All right sir.

- So once they come to us, we know we have to train them, we know we have to train them hard and we have to train them right and we'll get them turned into Marines by any means necessary.

(calm piano beats) (plane engine roaring) - [Narrator] About 500 miles north of Paris Island, a different group of Marines are trained.

At bootcamp, raw recruits are shaped into Marines.

Here, officer candidates are given the opportunity to prove they can lead Marines in combat.

- I decided on the military because I was looking for something other than being behind a desk at age 21.

I studied classics in college and so, time and I read about the citizen soldier, Cincinnati, the guy who puts down the plow, picks up a sword and then when the war's over, returns to the plow.

I had this idea in my head.

And the Marine Corps, from what I could tell, from the outside had a warrior culture that the other services just didn't have.

(man shouting) - [Narrator] The start of officer candidate school is known as pickup day.

(people shouting) - June 6th, 1998.

I could describe the weather, what the sky looked like, every detail.

- Hurry up, let's go.

- At that moment, that very particular moment they know the training's begun and that life as they know it is pretty much over.

- It was the most disorienting thing I think I've ever done in my life.

It's not like the bootcamp experience of Paris Island with the yellow footprints on the ground, standing there in the dark.

But in its own way, it's every bit as disoriented.

- Okay, get up now.

- Let's go.

Why is there so much trash still on the ground?

Pick it up now.

- All of a sudden, what you did in high school and college and family and work history, none of that matters.

They shave your head and everybody's the same.

I was thinking, what am I doing here?

Why am I doing this?

I should be life guarding this summer.

- Nothing compares to seeing a Marine drill instructor in your face telling you what they're demanding of you.

- All right sir, sergeant.

- It's someone who they are absolutely intimidated by and they don't know what to do about it, so they really don't know how to react to this.

- Hurry up.

(indistinct) look at him, look at you.

You're the (censored) problem here.

Do you understand that?

Hurry up.

(indistinct chatter) - They were the most rabid, high intensity group of people I'd ever met in my life to that point.

- Go now.

Well, why are you still here?

Go.

Move, hurry up.

Get moving now.

Get moving.

- And that was it, it was on and it stayed on for the next 10 weeks.

- Let's go.

Hurry up, go.

Way to go, way to go (indistinct).

You're the last one (indistinct), you're the last one.

The platoon's going to wait on you.

You want to try to catch up.

There's trash still behind you.

- They really, I guess, start to realize this is for real.

And that to become one of us, you're going to have to go through probably the hardest thing you've ever done in your life.

- That's your trash.

See the troop is leaving already, it's leaving already.

Run.

- We're starting to put them into a period of friction and chaos.

How they deal with failure, how they deal with the stress.

- Five, four, three, two, one, go.

- [Narrator] OCS is not officer bootcamp, OCS is a selection process.

Here, the Marine Corps evaluates and decides whether officer candidates have what it takes to be a leader.

- Whereas on the recruit Depot, they're actually molding Marines, they are making Marines, our mission here is a little bit different.

We screen for the potential to lead Marines.

Eventually, a lot of these guys and women, they're going to be leading us.

That ups the ante a little bit more.

- Every Marine that comes here must first prove that they can lead Marines in a ground combat situation.

Here, we detect the leadership.

We see that they have the bias for action, the creative thinking, the aggressive personality that allow them to take charge and they want to take charge.

- [Narrator] About a third of the officer candidates don't make it through OCS.

Some for physical reasons, others receive unsatisfactory evaluations.

And a third group that again sets OCS apart from bootcamp, those who are dropped on request.

- At any time after the fourth week of training, if a candidate determines that this is not a lifestyle he can deal with, that this is too much of a commitment to them, that they don't want the responsibility of what they're learning here, then they can just quit, just give up.

- OCS has an open door policy.

At any given time, you can quit and walk out.

And that ensures that at the end you have people, only people who really truly want to be there.

- If they drop on request, they are finished.

They do not get a second chance.

There's no do over in the Marine Corps.

Quitting becomes endemic.

You quit once, you'll quit again and we can't tolerate that with our Marines.

(gun shots firing) If they're not ready for that complete dedication, then they have no place among us.

- You have to focus on the task at hand.

And the consequences for screwing up are really, really high.

- Let's go, hurry up.

- There is no magazine in this weapon.

(indistinct) Magazine.

His magazine, sir.

- Where's your magazine?

How are you going to fire the rest of the (censored) court?

How about that?

How about that?

Go, hurry up.

- This is serious business for us.

And a nation at war says, they are facing going to war, leading Marines and being responsible for 43 lives.

And quite frankly, that's a burden that some of them were not ready to take on.

(tense beats) - Put this animal on your leg.

- Okay.

- Is it secure?

- Yeah.

- Okay, let me know if it starts shaking.

- Yeah.

It's shaking, it's shaking, it's shaking.

(person struggling) - The leadership reaction course has become one of our most well known leadership models.

It's a series of stalls that are set up with seemingly impossible obstacles.

- This morning, the enemy attempted to destroy the bridge with explosive.

- Portion of the bridge structure stands in the river.

- You can see your squad leader in a stretcher... - [Mark] They'll be giving a tactical mission to move something that makes sense.

- The fire team must deliver the container of supplies to the resistance group.

- [Mark] Moving ammo across a blown bridge.

And the only thing that'll be present will be the stakes of the bridge.

- We found three planks that appear strong enough to support your weight.

- All red areas are rigged with explosives.

- We're taking all these elements, the stress and the chaos, and then we're throwing them in there for their peers that they have to actually lead.

- Okay, we have to deliver the supplies and get them to the other side.

- All we want to see is, can the candidate lead his peers.

- Red is dead, we know that.

- Anybody have any suggestions right now?

- We can use the pole- - We got that line we can lash with or (indistinct).

- Can he go out there and with some stress, some chaos and friction thrown at him, what is he made of?

Is there something in there that will make him lead?

And ultimately, that's what we're looking for.

Is that leadership potential inside him.

- Whether he completes the course or not is not really the evaluation.

- Tie this and I'm going to throw you the rope and you'll be able to pull it right up.

- It's the conduct.

The way that he motivates his team, the way he gets the team moving.

- If we could get the pipes matching over here.

- For instance if he drops something and he no longer has it, does he wait or does he adjust the plan?

(tense piano) It's a very good way in about 10 minutes to get an assessment of fog friction and can they make a decision on an area they're totally unfamiliar with.

- Crack would be.

- Time's up.

Time is done.

When your initial plan didn't work, you froze, you stopped.

You'll get people killed.

(people speaking indistinctly) - There'll be an evaluation sheet for the evaluator and he will rate him across all of these leadership traits and come up with a final score.

And of course, this goes into his leadership evaluation.

(Recruit speaks indistinctly) - Hard watch your team member, brought him back up, kept on moving.

That's the one thing I see good that you did do.

You did show that you was a team player.

(people speaking indistinctly) - The first part of training at OCS is done mostly in athletic shoes and physical training gear sweats or shorts.

But as we evolve into the fifth or sixth week, the physical training also evolves into more combat related skills.

- Go, go, go, go, go, go.

Go, go!

- We put them on more and trails.

So they're carrying more of their gear, to include their rifle and light marching packs.

- Getting close, getting close.

- Let's go.

Hurry up.

- I swear, God invented a Juano to train Marine officers with the humidity, the heat and the hills.

- Quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly.

- [Narrator] Among all of Quantico's misery, one stands out in the memories of officer candidates.

- Head's going to be down here, head down there.

- [Narrator] The Quigley is one component of a timed physical training exercise that all candidates must endure and conquer.

- [Nathaniel] The Quigley is a muddy trench.

- Go, what are you waiting for?

- You crawl through in this neck, deep, muddy water on your hands and knees.

You go under and you end up with a mouth full of mud like peanut butter and you can't see.

The gist of it, all of the training is to teach people to think under pressure, think when they're uncomfortable and not panic.

- Muzzle on your head, pull the muzzle in.

Now go.

- They're fatigued, they're breathing hard, they're exhausted, but they must control their emotions.

We've put them in situations that are totally unfamiliar and have a tendency to cause a phobia.

- Come on son.

- Head down, head down, weapon on the body, weapon on the body.

- [Nathaniel] Putting them through that culvert where they are submerging underwater with a large amount of gear in an area they think is confined in the dark, it's just something that you'll never forget.

- [Narrator] For some, the Quigley is just another test they must pass at OCS.

For others, it is the obstacle that could end their quest to become a Marine officer.

- You're looking weak son.

You're looking weak.

- [Announcer] Candidates are constantly monitored.

Academic and physical requirements comprise half the evaluation, leadership makes up the other half.

- In one particular candidate's case, I wanted him to know that this is a team effort, that him and I were going to make it through, that he could do this.

We stayed with each other and I told him we're going to finish this together.

And he made it.

For some of them, that's what they needed.

I will also tell you, if he had quit, if he'd given up, started to walk, he was done.

- I doubted whether I'd even make it.

It was the only thing, the first thing I'd done in my life where I thought effort might not matter.

I may give 110% here and I'm still not going to make it.

- Why are you wasting my time son?

- I'd never done anything like that before.

This was an environment where hard work wasn't enough.

So I had doubts every day about whether I'd be there when the sun came up the next morning.

- [Narrator] Getting through OCS is only the first step in becoming a Marine officer.

Candidates next attend TBS, The Basic School, for six months where they learn the nuance and detail of being an officer.

Then they attend a specialty school such as artillery, communications, aviation or infantry.

- OCS is really just the absolute baseline of the continuum of education that a Marine officer is responsible for in his career.

Three things we tell them, know yourself, know your job and know your people.

And that all constitutes that warrior ethos.

It begins here.

They learn it here at OCS, it's embedded at TBS and then it's validated by the young Marine lead.

(slow music) My job is to screen and evaluate potential candidates for being officers in the Marine Corps.

I made a promise to every Marine that I've served with over 33 years, that no one will walk across that grinder, graduate, that I would not want to lead my son or my daughter.

As simple as that.

If I would not trust them with my own child, I will not trust them with yours.

- [Narrator] The framework of leadership taught in the Marine Corps is built on a belief that Marines have a unique culture, a warrior ethos that sets them apart.

Marines are very connected to their traditions and history.

Near the Quantico, Virginia base, the Marines have constructed the National Museum of the Marine Corps as a lasting memorial to their sacrifices.

- It will be the Corps' Mecca, the place that all understand that it's theirs, every Marine that has gone before in the families of Marines.

70% of the people who come to the national museum will clearly not be Marines, most will not even have served in one form or another.

They're going to be able to find out a little bit more about what it is to be a Marine, they're going to be able to walk the history of the nation and see it as Marines saw it throughout that history.

(piano upbeat music) - There's no group quite so enthusiastic about their own history than Marines.

They're proud of where they've come from, proud of their culture.

So, you will walk alongside, run alongside, crawl alongside Marines in a lot of different places to make you feel like you're there with the Marine.

- It's a museum that's all interactive, totally immersing the visitor in the experience of the major campaigns and the history.

It's just another step in preserving that legacy.

- I think it's part of indoctrinating people into the culture.

It's about respect really.

We remember the Marines at the battles of World War I and we remember the Pacific Island hopping campaign, we remember the urban fights and jungle fights in Vietnam, we remember the Gulf War and you merge into that stream of history.

You merge into that stream and you know that you won't be forgotten.

Not only that you won't be physically left behind, but you and the exploits of your Marines will live on in the history of the Corp.

It's important and it's reassuring and it's comforting, I think for Marines who are in harm's way.

(calm piano beats) - Turn around.

(suspenseful music) - [Narrator] In 1999, the Marine Corps integrated a new component into its training for all officers and enlisted personnel.

- Don't, 'cause you get used to this right here.

If you do this... - [Narrator] The Marine Corps martial arts program is designed to improve individual war fighting skills and train all Marines to be one-on-one warriors.

The idea for MCMA can be race to the end of the Vietnam war and a concern the Marines had gotten away from individual combat skills and training.

- Get back sir, get back.

Drop it, drop it.

We teach the entire spectrum of violence.

Anything could be a weapon of opportunity.

On a battlefield, it could be a helmet.

If you're going to go to the battle with this skill, it's usually going to be to kill someone.

Grab my other hand here and choke them out by just pulling up real hard.

- The physical disciplines within the martial arts are different than what most people perceive of civilian martial arts.

A lot of the perception is what they see in modern media, movies and TV.

Most of that is myth and special effects.

- [Narrator] MCMA combines the most effective martial arts techniques from around the world into a single program.

Some of the training techniques were developed at the international hoplologist society.

A group that studies why and how, different cultures engage in combat.

- We're setting up a program of training that teaches them to use the weapons they have at hand in a very simple set of patterns.

- The primary emphasis is behavior, combative behavior.

Can you function in a lethal environment?

The stress is part and parcel of that.

That's why these are live blades.

- Risk has to be involved in the training.

It has to be as close to reality on the battlefield as possible.

If you've dealt with it in a training situation, you are better prepared to deal with it on the battlefield situation.

- What we're looking for is, can you stay cool, calm, professional, do your job, which in this case is closing with, dominating, or killing the enemy?

While you're under tremendous pressure.

- Training and technique is not nearly as important as training in behavior.

The ability to move in on somebody who's trying to thrust a sharp pointy object into your body is a behavioral thing far more than it is a technical thing.

- He begins to retreat, he surrenders and he retreats.

- And dealing with people in combat, you're primarily talking about nervous systems.

You can change the technology all you want, the human nervous system is still the same.

It's still going to react the same way to the high stress levels of lethal combat.

- [Narrator] To deal with the stress of the battlefield, the Marine Corps tempers physical demands of martial arts training with character building lessons.

- You want every person that you train to be as good as you.

- I do believe it is the heart and soul of our core ethos.

Good job.

Nice finishing touch.

Our program I believe is unlike other because we have three disciplines.

We have the physical discipline, which is probably the sexiest.

Guys just love going out there and rolling around throwing punches and fighting and stuff like that.

That's why we joined the Marine Corps.

- Stay down.

- [Joseph] There's 182 techniques in five different belt levels.

- Turn around, give me your money.

- Don't shoot, don't shoot.

- We also have the mental piece, which is studying the other cultures that are warriors, the Spartans, the Zulus, the Apaches, and all the other cultures that have warrior mindset.

And then the part that I think I enjoy the most about this program is the character piece.

It's about teaching Marines the difference between right and wrong, about doing the right thing 24/7.

- Marine Corps has been making a concerted effort at developing character.

Even to the point in training those close combat skills, they do not separate those two things.

Integrity is part of close combat skills.

It is an aspect of the warrior culture.

Part of your identity as a warrior is being a man of integrity, a man of ethics.

- The Spartans had a saying that the purposes of drills and exercises is less to strengthen the back than it is to toughen the mind.

The physical training and the hard discipline allows them to be harder mentally and allows them to have that confidence.

So they go hand in hand.

Marine warrior ethos has been around since the very beginning.

It grows even stronger because we rely on our history and the deeds done by Marine's past to have an influence on what we do in the future.

- Martial arts is not something that's new, its been around for years.

The first real martial artist in the Marine Corps were the Raiders of World War II.

There's a lot of similarities between what the Raiders did and what we're doing today.

- [Narrator] That connection to the past is never far from the martial arts program.

MCMAP is headquartered in Raider Hall, home to a collection of Marine Raider memorabilia.

- We're so proud that they have named this Raider Hall.

We take great pride and we're very humbled by the fact that Marine Corps still feels that we've got us place.

- [Narrator] The Marine Raiders were formed in early 1942 at a time when America was on the defensive in the Pacific war.

They were the nation's first gorilla warfare troops and are frequently referred to as America's first special forces.

(calm piano beats) - They were the first ones to do amphibious operations from rubber boats.

They were launching from submarines, they were coming off of destroyers.

They were landing in places that were unexpected by the enemy, by the Japanese in World War II.

- They made us keenly aware that the Raiders were a special group.

We were cocky as could be, now, burying your first dead takes care of the cockiness.

But we were still as confident as anybody could be.

- [Narrator] The Raider's job was to take the fight to the Japanese in the Pacific.

To move, as Marines have done throughout their history, toward the sound of the guns.

- It was the first move back, to roll them back up the string of islands that they had taken.

It was the first really step on the way to Tokyo.

- The Raiders went into Tologi and they fought at Guo canal.

One of the great fights in Marine Corps history was Raiders Ridge, Ridge in September of 42 against a whole brigade of Japanese who were pretty good jungle fighters.

It was a hell of a fight, went on for two nights.

The Raiders held.

And so they were legendary.

- [Narrator] By 1944, the tide in the Pacific war had turned and the Marine Raiders were no longer needed.

They rejoined regular units, ending a brief but glorious chapter in Marine Corps history.

- We realized, even though that we were 17 and 18 year olds, that if this thing wasn't won, the world was going to be a very, very different place.

It was really to preserve our way of life.

And that sounds a little corny, but it sure wasn't.

We figured that any day we ever lived, the rest of our lives was a bonus.

Because anybody that got in and out of the Raiders and made it, really was a lucky man.

(soft trumpet music) - The Raiders legacy is indelible with the Marine Corps.

It goes back to the warrior ethos and the Marine Corps culture.

We always take care of our own, we never leave someone behind The Raiders went before us, so we're not going to leave them behind and their memory will definitely live on much longer than they will.

(tense music) (people speaking indistinctly) (gunshots) - Hey, (indistinct) one, pick up your damn radio.

(gunshots) - [Bill] This is our training facility out here for units to come to before they deploy out to racks.

- Stay condition one, stay in place.

- And to immerse them into what they're going to be fighting against over there.

We try to make it realistic for them here before they go over.

That way they get a taste of it, they can learn from their mistakes here.

- [Narrator] The Marine Corps Combat Center occupies nearly a thousand acres in the Mojave Desert, making it the largest Marine Corp base in the world.

Each year, roughly one third of all Marines come here for training to increase their combat readiness.

- Why are you walking?

- [Narrator] This is where Marines take part in live fire, combined arms training.

(bomb explodes) - How do you think you range once today?

What does he need to be doing?

He needs to be looking down the range to see where his rounds are impacting, right?

The purpose of it is to get the infantry guys used to calling in their fires and moving under those fires when the fire is going down range.

Couple of times today it was not happening.

If you look down range, you see trenches one or two.

There are two objectives on the Western side and off to the east, they got what we call the center objective and they got the company maneuvering down range, medium machine guns, they got 81 millimeter motors, they got the heavy guns supporting their (indistinct).

Just kind of like their last stop shop.

Every year before they deploy, they'd come out here and get the training.

Even if you do not have ammo left, deceive the enemy, make him think that you've got ammo left.

- This is money right here for the Marine Corps.

It's actually putting into play a lot of the things that are going on in Iraq right now.

This is real good training that's going to help all the Marines and it's going to bring more of them back.

- That's all I got for you gentlemen.

Thank you very much.

- [Narrator] Marines also get training at 29 Palms in Urban Warfare.

- This is range 200, also known as Wadi Alara.

- [Narrator] The Marine Corp has reproduced in a rocky village in the California Desert.

- We try to put as much realism as we can into it.

You'll see burned out vehicles, concertina wire, rubble all over the place.

- [Narrator] A unit training at 29 Palms will likely deploy to combat within months or even weeks.

A unit training here is typically a mix of Marines on their first combat assignment and combat veterans.

- You can tell them all the stories, but just being there is going to be a totally different experience and something you'd have to experience for yourself to know what it's like.

We got a lot of new Marines that just came to us, so I want to make sure they get the best possible training before we do head back.

(singing in foreign language) - [Narrator] To make the training realistic, role players are used in the exercise.

(speaking in foreign language) Some play friendly villagers, others play insurgents.

- It's not a regular war that we're fighting.

You don't know who the enemy is and you don't want to stereotype people just because of who they are.

So it does make it a lot more difficult.

(speaking in foreign language) - Is what's the college you going to do since you got destroyed the whole country.

Now you destroyed my house.

- Let him know, our chain of command we'll pay for anything broken in his house.

- There's a lot of situations that come up where you're not going to be able to engage and you don't want to engage because we don't want to harm innocent people.

And what we're focusing on here is skills that the Marines need to be effective on the urban battlefield.

- [Narrator] Urban combat is not new for the Marine Corps.

- Urban warfare in my judgment is the dirtiest of all warfare.

I was a company command as an example in the battle away city and Ted of 1968 turned to Vietnam war.

It's dirty because it's all very close and personal.

It's not just the environment, which is closed in, great noise, dirt debris, shrapnel, et cetera, but it's also a very close, personal contact with the enemy.

And then the carnage that's there.

Urban warfare is difficult.

- It is a grizzly business.

I think especially of the two battles of Falluja in 2004.

First Fallujah was a tough fight.

Second Fallujah in November, 2004 was probably the toughest combat that U.S. forces have seen since the Vietnam war.

Almost certainly the toughest combat since things like Way City and the Vietnam war.

It was really ugly, it was brutal, it was nasty.

It was the essence of the greediness of war.

- The battlefield is emptying out rather than a constricted battlefield with large numbers of troops inside of it, which is the essence of mass infantry warfare.

We now have a battlefield dispersed over deserts, third world, slum cities and jungles.

(man whistles) Where there are very few combatants inside it and its small numbers of men hunting down other small numbers of men.

(siren wailing) - We no longer have an enemy that wears uniforms, we don't have an enemy that has a state capital, we don't even have an enemy that has a state.

That makes it very difficult to determine who the enemy is sometimes.

- Stop right here.

(gunshot) - Right now, young Marines have to deal with insurgents who are essentially doing warfare without any rules at all.

And that young Marine has to deal with an insurgent on the street and at the same time he's going to have to deal with somebody's grandmother on the other side of the street.

- Do you want someone to look at this?

- Yes, yes.

- It's much more demanding I would say on the battlefield today.

It takes a much more intelligent, sophisticated individual to be successful on the battlefield today.

- We must go.

- [Narrator] The Marine Corps pushes battlefield authority down to the lowest levels.

More than others services, the Marine Corps places is a premium on decentralized decision making.

Nearly half of all Marines are in the three lowest ranks.

- I think we've always done at the Marine Corps.

We call it a strategic go.

You have to push down the leadership to the lowest level.

We stress leadership, we teach them leadership, we show them leadership, we show them what it's like to be a leader.

And then really, you give them some guidance and you turn them loose.

And it works for us.

- Marines today, even down to the Lance corporal level are making decisions that affect the nation when they're out there gardening street quarter in Baghdad or delivering supplies to humanitarian relief in the Philippines.

Their actions will have a huge impact on the way America is perceived around the world.

- [Announcer] The Marine Corps has a generally positive image and reputation, both in this country and around the world.

Marines are fond of one of their own general's description, that there is no better friend, no worse enemy than a United States Marine.

But on occasion, the image has been tarnished often because of the Marine's aggressive tradition and tactics.

Marines bring their own warrior ethos of uncompromising toughness to the battlefield, often producing brutal confrontations and severe results.

- You are asking people for a level of perfection inside a male stream of confusion that has to be experienced to be believed.

The Marines do a great job, but they need to be better at it even.

99% is not good enough.

- Marine Corps is saying, you have an ideal, there is a code and a level of potential that all Marine should reach.

By far, most of them don't get to the ideal, but they get closer to their potential I think than most people give them credit for.

- Order is about monopolizing the use of force.

You can't have freedom, democracy, et cetera, until somebody monopolizes the use of force and stems a region from anarchy.

And for that, you're going to need people like United States Marines who do have a very strong, moral sensibility as they use force.

- It very much comes down to the training.

And the more you train and the more you view it as a professional army that's not about just killing the enemy out of vengeance, the better you are at having an organized troop that's responsible, accountable and that carries out the mission with just conduct.

- So you have to have discipline, you have to have a young Marine that understands right and wrong, that understands that killing isn't natural.

The fact that we have a code of conduct, a western ethic that says, quite frankly, don't kill nothing that don't need killing.

Marines understand that what they do is a brutal business, but they never lose their humanity.

(gunshots) - There's a lot of extraordinary circumstances being thrown at them and they're adapting.

World War II was the greatest generation, but they were ordinary men in extraordinary times that rose up to meet the challenge.

And that's what the young Marines are facing today.

They're being put in extraordinary times and the best of them is coming out and rising to the top.

They're making those decisions and a lot of them are making the right decision at the right time.

- [Marines] Yes sir.

- Before it comes to anything physical, it's all got to be mental, right?

- [Marines] Yes sir.

- One of the things they teach you in bootcamp, is do the right thing even when nobody's looking.

And that's a very good cast of mind to have, it's very good training.

And so, it tells the Corp on the street corner, even if you think you could be abusive, even if you think nobody's looking, don't.

Do the right thing.

- We start by really focusing on our traditions and that's a tradition of success.

And that builds on a tradition that goes all the way back to the founding of this nation.

And that does in fact give you some strength on a battlefield.

You don't want to embarrass the institution and you certainly don't want to let down your fellow Marines.

That's a close, knit relationship that you have on a battlefield and your life may very well depend on the guy that's standing to your left and right.

And it's very important that you have that bond with them.

And that allows us to be very, very successful in some very, very difficult situations.

- I don't think any media can truly capture the impact and experience of war, of combat, close combat (slow music) where you can see the enemy and you can see where your bullets are striking the enemy and you can see your men falling either side of you.

I don't think you can sense or convey the smells, the sickly, sweet smell of decomposing flesh if somebody's buried under a pile of rubble or a bomb crater.

I don't think you can deal or convey the misery of people caught in this mess.

- War is nasty.

Seeing young men and women blown away is nasty.

If we never had to go to war, boy, would it be wonderful and wouldn't we have served our purposes as warriors in waiting, but didn't have to go?

But the fact is, it's not the way the world is.

- Anyone who's been on the battlefield does not want to go to war.

It's not glamorous at all.

It's very dangerous, it's very difficult, it's very dirty, it's not a good place to be.

- There was absolutely no glamor of any sort in combat.

None.

(gunshots) No, I can't see anything glamorous or anything that would make anyone want to engage in combat.

It's sure hell on earth.

We never train our people that they're going to enjoy combat or that it's glamorous.

- So much of the Marine Corps training doesn't necessarily play well in the public eye because people don't really like to know what the Marine Corps is training to do, what the Marine Corps' job is.

(slow music) (gunshots) - We do teach them to quickly locate, close with and destroy the enemy.

- The Marine generals are the only generals who actually talk about killing.

They will say it, this organization is about killing, that's what we do.

- Here's the dilemma.

A liberal society still needs to be defended and it needs to be defended violently at times.

And the people who are going to do this have to like what they do or else they're not going to be very good at it.

They may morally, abstractly not like to kill, but the actual training in doing is not something that they can be afraid of.

- The fact of the matter is throughout history, at times killing is necessary.

It's not a matter of good or bad.

There are situations in which this hard thing has to be done.

I think one of the problems a military organization has is it tends to follow the social whims of society around it.

Killing is bad, it's unnatural to kill, you shouldn't kill.

And then you're saying, okay, go be a Marine, go kill somebody and then come back.

It's bad to kill.

- And frequently, when people see the unvarnished truth, they don't like it.

I ran into this all the time when I got out of the Marines and people would ask about my experience.

They didn't really want to know what we did.

In some ways, Marines on the battlefield have more in common with their enemy than they do with their family and friends at home.

- There's a sense that, letting down your armor a little bit is an admission of weakness.

So, the culture is also a culture of enormous toughness.

We can do things better and we have a kind of, if not invincibility, a kind of durability and resilience.

- That killing carries a cost to the person who carries it out.

That combat changes people, the combat, I think, diminishes the soul permanently.

It alters people.

The sacrifices the Marines make are not just physical, they're mental and spiritual as well and they're carried for the rest of one's life.

- I think anyone who served in air forces, overseas in combat comes back with something that he would rather not talk about.

I'll never forget a World War II terror veteran who told me that he was proud he served his country, but he wasn't proud of what he had to do to serve his country.

- It's my personal belief that Marines more than anyone else in society absolutely hate warfare.

We hate combat.

No one likes it.

And thank God some of us survived it.

- [Narrator] In the two and a third century history of the Marine Corps, more than 40,000 Marines have been killed in combat and over 200,000 have been wounded.

- I was in Falluja Iraq, I was in an LAV, which is light armored vehicle, and ID went off and I was injured.

- It was during the battle for way, could never forget it, I turned and I looked and this NBA soldier came out from behind it and fired a RPG.

- I was injured just south of Fallujah in the Ambar province.

I was struck by a rock propel grenade.

- I was only in one operation, that's the only time I ever left my base.

And I got hurt by an ID on the last day of the last house, finish.

It just kind of random.

Everything just happens by chance.

It's just, some people are lucky, some people aren't.

- It actually struck the weapon that I was firing, so it took both my hands off and severely damaged my left leg.

- I had a second and third degree burns on my face, I had third degree burns in my hands, scar skin grafts and lost a finger.

I broke my leg, I had ripped all my arteries and tendons in my right leg.

I suffer from nerve damage now, my hands sweat constantly from the burns.

- [Narrator] For some Marines, the transition back to duty or into civilian life is helped by a stay at the wounded warrior barracks at camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

The barracks was the idea of a wounded colonel who saw the need for a place for wounded Marines to heal physically and mentally.

- Just the comradery that we have here, the fact that we're all Marines, but we're all wounded Marines as well and we all know to some extent what the other person is going through.

- We have 36 Marines that live in the barracks right away wounded Marines.

A guy comes in that was burnt.

Like I say, hey, I was burnt too.

A couple years this is what your skin graft will look like.

Or a guy has eye injury, this guy has one too.

It's just the camaraderie that we all, 'cause we are all there, we all know what we're going through.

It's great.

- In my day when I was laying at the Philadelphia Naval hospital, there were over 550 amputees laying on the wards with no hope.

Today, our young men and women who were injured have hope.

They have support first and foremost and they have the hope of modern medicine that is doing unbelievable things with these catastrophic wounds of theirs.

- [Narrator] For wounded Marines, there is always the question of, what next?

For some, the answer amazingly is the Marine Corps.

- I was determined to remain a Marine.

There have been Marines in past conflicts with suffered amputations and gone back into active duty service and even back into theater.

Now, in retaining wounded Marines as active duty Marines, we can transfer our knowledge and our experiences and help build a stronger, better Marine Corps.

- [Narrator] Before he went to Iraq, Sergeant Wright was qualified as a martial arts instructor.

After his recovery, he was assigned to the Marine Corps martial arts program as an instructor.

- We're going to start now with the combat engagement pattern.

- Sergeant Eddie Wright really typifies a Marine.

He's got that can do spirit, he's never given up and he's still a martial arts instructor.

He never once, since I've known him, complained about, poor me, look what happened.

It was, I was out doing a mission, something happened, it's time to drive on and continue with what I'm going to do.

- All right, this next technique that I'm going to show you is the arm drag take down.

- To see him stand in front of other Marines and talk about what he went through and he has no anger or meanness to anything, that's so special about an individual who doesn't hold any grudges or he is not upset and he still puts his left foot forward on being a Marine first.

And we see that all around the Marine Corps.

And I guess that's why Marines can die for each other and will fight for each other.

'Cause when you have guys like that, that are so motivating to be around, they just inspire everybody around you.

He's a true warrior, a true Marine.

- I have not the slightest bit of regret for joining the Marine Corps.

I would do it again.

So many doors have opened up for me since I joined the Marine Corps, even after my injuries.

And as a person, where I am right now, I probably could never have the level of satisfaction with the challenges that I've met and the challenges that I've overcome if I was in the civilian world.

I have such an immense pride in me being a Marine.

I'll always treasure these years that I've spent as a Marine.

- [Narrator] After spending 12 months teaching martial arts, Sergeant James Eddie Wright resigned from the Marine Corps to return home to Texas and build a life after the Marine Corps.

(car engine roaring) - [Announcer] Today's Marine Corps emblem ceremony officially recognized that the transformation of your recruit into a United States Marine.

- They've been here almost the entire 12 weeks to accomplish graduating recruit training.

We have the family members all come in, we have the recruits out in formation, it's very symbolic.

- [Announcer] They stand before you today fully prepared to receive the coveted emblem of the Marine Corps, the Eagle, Globe and Anchor.

- The Eagle, Globe and Anchor is the cherished emblem of our Corp.

It is presented to each recruit the day before graduation by his or her drill instructor.

It is the moment and time where they transition from being a recruit to being a United States Marine.

(encouraging piano beats) (people applauding) - One of the things imported at Paris Island is an absolute trust in each other, that teamwork.

That you've got to rely on each other and to know that no matter what happens, even if you pay the ultimate sacrifice and you die, that you'll be never left behind.

(calm flute music) - We fight for our brothers, we fight for the Corps, we fight for the members of our squad in platoon.

Take care of your buddies and you better hope your buddy is taking care of you.

And he always is.

That's the way Marines are.

- The individual Marine, the individual warriors at the fire team and the squad level, they've always been the heroes, they've always been the ones to locate and close with the enemies of our country.

That's no different today than when it was 230 years ago.

(piano music) - The Marine Corps draws from the American citizenry.

And there's a tendency these days to put the military up on a shelf and say, it's not us, it's them, it's those people over there.

I would like people to realize that when they're looking at footage of a squad of Marines walking down a street in Fallujah or a body bag coming off a helicopter, that could be their son, their neighbor, it could be the kid down the street.

- We're just the kids next door that have joined the military that have a calling.

We feel that service to the nation is the highest calling a person can have.

- [Recruits] Yes sir.

- We do not promise any individual who comes into the Marine Corps anything except, maybe if you're good enough, you can become a Marine.

You can join this long line of warriors and heroes that the Marine Corps has had.

- The spirit of Semper Fidelis is something that lives in a man's heart, it never goes away.

- The brotherhood, the comradery, all of that is real.

And in our homogenized 21st century life, it's easy to forget.

- What continues to inspire me is, Marines believe in something larger than themselves.

- Sacrifice, but a willful sacrifice.

That's something that not everyone understand.

It's a hard time, some hardship, but you do with your heart.

And you have to be unselfish to go on harms way and leave loved ones behind.

- It's hard to sum it all up.

The major thing is a sense of pride, a sense of belonging.

The Marine Corps is a band of brothers.

There's nobody else out in the world that knows what it feels like to be in Marine other than Marines themselves.

It's a sense of belonging, honor, courage, commitment.

Our core values, to sum it all up.

(upbeat music) (people shouting) (dramatic music) - [Narrator] Stay tuned for more about the Marines.

But first... (somber music) To order The Marines on DVD with additional features, call PBS Home Video at 1-800-Play-PBS.

(calm flute music) Funding for The Marines is provided by the Alfiero Family Charitable Foundation, which celebrates the National Museum of the Marine Corps and Marine Corps Heritage Center, and by contributions to your PBS Station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(guitar upbeat music) We are PBS.

(upbeat music)