THERE'S AN OLD CORPS ALRIGHT

THERE'S AN OLD CORPS ALRIGHT

By Andy Weddington

Thursday, 12 August 2021

Failure is not an option. - Gene Kranz

A challenging year 1980.

U. S. Marine Corps Officer Candidate School (10 weeks) followed by The Basic School (26 weeks) and the Infantry Officer Course (8 weeks); with weekend between each. 

After nearly a year of non-stop tough physical training and intense schooling - classroom and more so field - I was deemed a second lieutenant fit to lead, by example, a Marine rifle platoon. 

That privilege (an honor of a lifetime) came with assignment to the Second Marine Division (1st Platoon, Golf Company, 2nd Battalion 6th Marines).

Time in Second Marine Division is another story.

I think about that year (leading up to joining the Fleet Marine Force) a lot. Conquering things - physical and mental - not before imagined possible forever changed my life.

Much life has happened since 1980.

That training got me through some difficult times; to this day.

A couple days ago I read an article titled 'USMC Lowers Standards for Race and Gender Equity' by Lee Crockett published in The Patriot Post.

Mr. Crockett reported that OCS physical training events required to be commissioned were no more. Same for TBS and IOC.

To point, for graduating OCS - to be commissioned a second lieutenant and continue training to eventually lead Marines - mastery of the Obstacle Course is no longer required. Neither is completing hikes and the exhausting (timed in my day) Endurance Run. And so has followed lessening physical fitness criteria for graduating TBS and IOC. 

Mulling over Mr. Crockett's not classified but kept quiet disclosures (that align with gender neutral "standards" and DEI objectives), I keep coming back to the bottom line: Failure rewarded.

Yes, completing the Obstacle Course, strenuous hikes, and the Endurance Run is physically demanding. 

Equally, and arguably more so, those challenges are mentally demanding going to raw guts and intestinal fortitude; courage.  

Not everyone can do them. Not everyone is cut out to be a Marine. Not everyone is cut out to lead Marines. 

As recruiting ads decades ago stressed, the demanding physical and  mentally taxing challenges complement in forging and tempering raw steel; toughening body, mind, and spirit - confidence.  

To not be able to complete those basic tasks is failure.

To remove those basic tasks from the regimen is, too, failure. 

As success breeds success, failure breeds failure.

Some will argue failure eventually breeds success.

But that is not how 'in front, by example' leadership works with Marines. 

Consider in context to fighting for your life. And leading Marines fighting for their lives and one another. 

So, is it reality ... 

The United States Marine Corps is not demanding officer candidates and new officers face and conquer difficult obstacles during entry-level training?

If that's true what's being required of recruits?

Is now the path to being called Marine - officer or enlisted - that the officer candidate or recruit tried their best but just couldn't do it?

And other questions nag.

After the Second Marine Division came assignment to Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island. Three years in a recruit training battalion including command of a training company. The standards to graduate and be called Marine were tough; appropriately different for males and females. Among other core requirements to be awarded our coveted emblem and called "Marine," recruits had to negotiate the Obstacle Course (multiple times) and complete hikes and runs. If not, sent home. 

Just because someone wants something does not mean there is entitlement to that want.

Activists and politicians, and generals, shaped today's Corps. 

America's old Corps, and not all that old, did not reward and promote failure; the stakes too high.

Battles, some monumental, won! Streamers proof.

Consequences. 

There's always consequences. 

And the stakes are still too high. 

Battles, some monumental, coming.  

--

Lee Crockett: https://patriotpost.us/articles/81747-usmc-lowers-standards-for-race-and-gender-equity-2021-08-06