Making a Marine: 'The day I became a Marine'
Tony Gist and Beth Ford from KVAL News spent the first week of boot camp with new Marine recruits. Watch their report Making a Marine on KVAL News @ 6 p.m. through Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2012.
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - Graduation may not be the most important moment for a recruit going through Marine boot camp: A ceremony after a grueling test titled "The Crucible" is the first moment when drill instructors refer to their recruits as "Marines."
"The Crucible" is a 54-hour long struggle with little sleep or food for the recruits, miles of hiking, and team-oriented tasks.
"It put me out of my comfort zone," said recruit Nelson Henriquez Vargas, a recruit from Coos Bay.
"That was the hardest thing but it was the most fulfilling thing," said Damian Moye, a UO graduate and recruit from Portland. "When you go through the entire boot camp process, everyone is from different ways of life, different backgrounds, different families, different cultures, and you get a lot of conflicts."
"When we started doing team exercises, the attitude of the group changed completely," said Moye.
At the finale, recruits walked onto a parade deck at Camp Pendleton, dirty, tired and emotionally drained. After a ceremony, drill instructors walk among the recruits, placing the Marine Corps emblem into their hands.
KVAL News spoke with newly minted Marines right after the ceremony.
"It meant the whole world to me. I think it was a bigger day for me than graduation is going to be," said Henriquez Vargas. "It's the day I became a Marine."
"The only word I could describe is pride," said Kenneth Sandoval, a recruit from West Covina, Calif. "I'm just so proud to have it."
On graduation day, that pride was in the faces of the families. After much pomp and circumstance, drill instructors give a final order, signaling the end of boot camp.
Graduates embrace family and friends they haven't seen in 13 weeks. Pictures are taken, hands are shaken. For now, the battle to become Marines is over, but for each life as a Marine is just beginning.
