MARINE CORPS RECRUIT DEPOT SAN DIEGO -- From the minute the recruits of Company K stood on the yellow footprints to when they eventually end their service to their country, they will constantly be transitioning from easy to harder missions to become more effective as they adopt the warrior lifestyle.
One of the many stepping stones on their seemingly never-ending journey of self improvement can be found at Copeland’s Fire Team Assault Course, an obstacle of the Crucible.
The Crucible is a 54-hour training event during which recruits must overcome mentally and physically-demanding obstacles as a team while undergoing a simulated combat stress of food and sleep deprivation, and must be accomplished in order to rightfully claim the title, Marine.
“This training is getting them ready for a real life combat environment,” said Staff Sgt. Ricardo Garcia, drill instructor, Platoon 3236, Company K. “Of course they are only wearing partial combat gear and they don’t carry any ammunition, but you have to start small so you won’t break from the harsh transition.”
The assault course runs under the pretense that the recruits’ armored personnel carriers undergo attacks from an improvised explosive device, mortar and machine gun fire during a convoy.
Contained explosions occur at specific points on the course while the sound of combat screams and rattles over several loudspeakers in order to implement what is known by the field instructors their as controlled chaos.
“We use the IED ambush scenario because that is the kind of stuff we are dealing with over there (Afghanistan) right now,” said Cpl. Vince R. Curry, field instructor, Weapons and Field Training Battalion. “The objective is to close in, tactically, to the enemy’s pill box where the fire is coming from, and destroy it.”
Recruits begin to buddy rush once their drill instructor gives the order. Buddy rushing is a leapfrog-like movement in which two recruits, move a short distance before hitting the ground to provide cover for the rest of their fire team to follow suit.
After approximately 50 meters of this, the recruits were forced to hold barbed wire up for one another as they take turns low crawling on their backs through the dirt and sand.
Once their fire team had squeezed passed the barbed wire, they rushed across more dirt and gravel until they encountered a plethora of hindrances and obstacles to include low barbed wire, a brick wall, fighting holes, more barbed wire, and tunnels.
These obstacles were followed closely by a final fire team rush to the end of the course. The combination of the obstacles, objective and the controlled chaos seemed to be too overwhelming for some groups of recruits as they began to fail to maintain fire team integrity and lose track of one another.
“You can’t simulate combat perfectly, but you can get pretty close,” Garcia said. “It may seem chaotic for them now, but it will only get crazier to prepare them for the actual fog and chaos of combat.”
Though destroying the simulated enemy by reaching the end of the course is the mission, Curry says the lesson recruits learn is more subtle than simply how to run and scream with weapons.
“The chaos and fast tempo of the course really tests their communication and mental toughness.” Curry said. “Every event they do here during the Crucible, or any training they do in the Corps for that matter, is meant to improve at least one aspect of the well-rounded warriors we are trying to make them into.”
There is one other aspect Curry says is especially important which Copeland’s Fire Team Assault Course emphasizes.
“Never leaving one of your bros behind is extremely important in the Corps,” he said. “If we don’t do that, than we obviously don’t have honor, courage, or commitment; all of which are needed to ensure that.”