The few, the proud . . . the writer?

Journal-Standard reporter to spend a week with Marine recruits

By Cara Spoto
cspoto@journalstandard.com

FREEPORT — We’ve all seen the dramatic commercials: knights in gleaming armor fencing upon a giant chess board, the stoic gaze of a soldier as he stares into the distance, the ubiquitous sword extending towards the sky.
But what does it really mean to be a Marine?
That’s something the United States Marines Corps has been working to educate young Americans about for decades.
Rather than rely solely on pamphlets, recruiter visits or commercials to get their message out, the Marines have gone another step. For more than 25 years the branch has sponsored the Educators Workshop Program, a five day visit to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego where high school and community college educators and administrators can see first hand what life is like for a new recruit.
“Mainly it is looking at people who have an influence on a high school student’s life,” Staff Sgt. Roman Yurek, Marketing/Public Affairs Representative for the USMC in Milwaukee explained. “By taking a guidance counselor or teacher out there and showing them about what we do, when they encounter one of their students that expresses an interest in the military they can actually speak from experience.”
In addition to teachers, the branch also invites reporters to join the workshop, so they can educate their listeners, viewers, or readers about the Marine experience. I am one of those reporters.
Starting Monday morning at 7 a.m. I will board a plane to San Diego to learn about a branch of the military I know very little about—much of it gleaned from war movies like “Born on the Fourth July” and “Jarhead.”
But that, says Yurek, is the whole point.
“Roughly 1 percent of Americans have actually served in the armed forces, so really not that many people know specifically about what we do,” Yurek said. “What we do in really about five days is try and show someone what a four year enlistment [is like], from boot camp on.”
Getting Dirty
Over the five day workshop educators will get to witness new recruits being welcomed to the depot, observe modified bayonet assault training, watch a flight line display, see the parade deck, and even take part in the 12-stall, a portion of the Crucible training course at Camp Pendleton.
For the most part, we will observe male recruits The Marines operate two recruiting regions, western and eastern. All females go to Paris Island, South Carolina, which is the eastern recruiting region.
Readers will be able to track my experiences at http://marineforaweek.blogspot.com/ where I will post videos, photos and written accounts. That blog will be linked to The Journal-Standard Website at www.journalstandard.com.
Not Just War
With the military stretched thin, fighting two wars in two countries, Yurek admitted that a “fair amount” of the roughly 200,000 active duty Marines are currently deployed overseas.
He added that there is a chance some new recruits will be deployed to either Afghanistan or Iraq.
“A lot of the reason for the increase in personnel that the Army and the Marine Corps is shooting for us to get the Marines and the soldiers that are deploying a little bit more of a break when they come home,” Yurek said.
Yet the point of the workshop isn’t merely to get more deployable soldiers, Yurek said.
The hope is that with the knowledge the educators gain they will able to pair young graduates with a career that is truly cut out for them.
“It’s really just trying to give teachers as many facts as we can about what we have to offer,” Yurek said. “There is a million different options, but what we try to show them is that the Marine Corps is totally different from what a lot of them heard about, and that’s probably focused a lot around the Vietnam Era. We’ve changed a lot.”