Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego -- Service members and students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology visited and toured the depot as part of their Security Studies Program, March 24.
According to the MIT website, the SSP is a graduate-level research and educational program based at the Center for International Studies at MIT. The senior research and teaching staff includes social scientists and policy analysts. A special feature of the program is the integration of technical and political analysis of national and international security problems. Security Studies is a recognized field of study in the MIT Political Science Department. Courses emphasize grand strategy, the causes and prevention of conflict, military operations and technology, and defense policy.
“The purpose of the trip was to bring real world experience to their (MIT students) studies,” said Lt. Col. Phillip M. Bragg, national security fellow, Security Studies Program, MIT. “All our Doctor of Philosophy candidates have a technical military focus in national security. When they graduate they are going to work for the Department of Defense in the think tanks, the field or come back as a professor so this helps their development.”
The annual trips to various Department of Defense installations around the country have critical and invaluable training behind them.
“They are the future decision makers,” said Bragg, a Fresno, Calif., native. “The issues they deal with will have an effect at the highest levels. They have to have some context of what goes on with polices they will be making.”
The MIT members started their depot tour with a brief of various statistical data and basic information that goes into creating a basically trained Marine. Then, they visited the famous spot where it all begins, the yellow footprints. The MIT members were walked through the basic routine that goes into a recruits’ introduction to the Marine Corps including the ‘amnesty room’, gear pickup and the phone call home.
The tour then continued to the various recruit training areas around the depot including the Confidence Course and the swim tank where they were able to see actual training take place. For some, seeing it in person was an experience they didn’t expect.
“I was really impressed,” said Cullen G. Nutt, a first year MIT Ph. D student. “You see it in the movies but in person it’s so much more realistic; the training I see them go through is extremely remarkable.”
As with the purpose of the tour, the students were able to get a better understanding on why the training is executed the way it is.
“At first you think there is no purpose for some of the things they do,” said Nutt, a Cambridge, Mass., native. “After this tour I got the impression that there is a reason for everything they do, in fact, it’s really down to a science.”
The tour was concluded after a visit to the Sports Medicine Injury Prevention building and the depot Command Museum where the MIT members were able to see the Corps’ history on display.
After the SSP San Diego area tour came to an end, the students of MIT were still talking about their experience while at the depot.
“They found the depot to be the most interesting of the entire trip,” said Bragg. “They were fascinated on how we turn a person into a Marine. They gave back a lot of good feedback including their appreciation for how direct and forthright the Marines are and were overwhelmed and amazed by the enormous responsibility that a young Marine handles. They all thought that seeing it in person was an incredible and unforgettable experience.”