MCRD San Diego -- Teamwork is the act of working together to complete a common goal. Throughout recruit training, drill instructors stress the importance of working together as a platoon in order to make it to graduation and earn their Eagle, Globe and Anchor.
Company G, 2nd Recruit Training Battalion, endured multiple training events during the Crucible July 10 at Weapons and Field Training Battalion aboard Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif.
The Crucible is an exhausting, 54-hour simulated field-training exercise that tests skills recruits have learned throughout training by forcing them to hike to different team-building obstacles with very little sleep and food.
The obstacles and missions consist of real-life combat situations, such as evacuating casualties, re-supplying ammunition, movement under fire, an improvised explosive device detecting simulation and hand-to-hand combat.
“Each event applies to a citation and coincides with what that Marine did in order to receive that award,” explained Cpl. Mathew Klopp, field instructor, Field Company, WFTBn. “Through this they can learn to work together and overcome the obstacles.”
Staff Sgt. Theodore Holder’s Silver Star citation is read to the recruits before the “Two-Line Bridge” event. Holder was awarded the Silver Star for his actions in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in November 2004.
According to the citation, Holder exposed himself to enemy fire to protect his fellow Marines and continued to man a machine gun despite being severely injured. Holder was killed-in-action that day.
The “Two-Line Bridge” event is a simulated re-supply across a broken bridge to causalities on the other side while under fire.
“The object of this event is to get the supplies across the broken bridge to the wounded Marines on the other side,” said Klopp. “It’s a team-building exercise that has the recruits work together to overcome the task; if they fail the first time, they keep going back until it gets done.”
The bridge consists of two ropes, one to walk across and one they can hold at head level. Recruits must balance themselves while carrying an ammunition can to the other side. The ammunition can has ropes tied to it so that two recruits can carry it across.
“You can’t do anything by yourself during the Crucible,” said Lance Cpl. Alex Kehoe, Platoon 2150, Co. G. “Everything that we’ve learned is all coming together now.”
Recruits struggle to balance as they attempt to walk across the tightrope, one hand on the ammunition can and the other holding themselves up.
“If the event was real and we really were under fire, it’d be pretty hard to go back and forth by yourself numerous times to get the supplies across,” explained Kehoe, a Muskego, Wisc. native. “It all comes down to teamwork and getting the mission done.”
Recruit training has always stressed the meaning of what it actually means to be a platoon, explained Kehoe, 20.
“From the beginning, there was no ‘I’ or ‘me’, it was “this recruit, those recruits”,” said Kehoe. “We were taught that you’re as strong as your weakest link, so in order to complete the mission we all have to work as a team.”
The recruits pushed through to the culminating event, the Reaper Hike, a 10-mile hike in the hills of Edson Range on the last day of the Crucible. In those early morning hours, once the hike was complete, the recruits of Co. G have earned their Eagle, Globe and Anchor and the title United States Marine.