MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- Just one more day," was a common phrase muttered among recruits of Company D on day two of the Crucible. The Crucible is a 54-hour training event conducted during Marine Corps Recruit Training at Edson Range, Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif. The Crucible requires Marine recruits to overcome mentally and physically-demanding obstacles as a team.
Meanwhile, in many of their heads is fear - fear of the unknown and what's to come. Their 12-week journey has brought them on the cusp of pass or fail. However, the image of the coveted eagle, globe and anchor emblem is what makes many of them drive forward - along with the simple things.
Minor things that many Americans take for granted serve as small incentives to finish and graduate recruit training.
"The hardest part is just getting through," said Recruit Burgos Santiago, platoon 1065, Co. D."Because of the lack of food and sleep, I want nothing more than a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal."
With sweetened cereal treats aside, what truly pushes them through the Crucible are each other. A skill many of them will need as they progress in their careers and possibly serve alongside others in combat.
For Recruit Emerson Dorsey, this is exactly how he imagined boot camp.
"It takes teamwork and coordination between recruits," said Dorsey, a member of Platoon 1065. "I try to encourage them as much as I can. In the end, I can look them in the eye and say, 'we made it together, buddy.'"
At this point in recruit training, it falls on them to push each other through. The drill instructors have taken a step back from disciplinarians to supervisors.
"We give them the mission and sit back and allow them to do it," explained Sgt. Phillip Davis, a drill instructor with the platoon. "It builds teamwork and allows recruits who didn't have a leadership billet during training to experience what it is like."
Today's task was the Confidence Course, a series of obstacles that assign the recruits a mission and requires them to use small unit leadership to succeed. The obstacles, combined with sleep and food deprivation and the largest barrier according to Davis, mental uncertainty, serve as a formidable foe.
"It's hard for them to focus on one thing at a time," Davis said. "I can't help them. I am forced to disengage and supervise."
Through two-and-a-half months of working towards transforming into Marines, this is a challenge that many of them are ready to take.
"I spent day and night with these recruits and they have become like brothers," said Recruit Jin Soo Park, with the platoon. "I am trying to keep them motivated because we only have one more day left."
Park serves as the platoon guide, the highest leadership billet a recruit can possess. His leadership philosophy is simple: peer motivation.
"I enjoy motivating the recruits who fall behind," said Park. "I just force them to give 110 percent and stay with me."
As the recruits work their way through the obstacles, it is evident that the trials placed before them are wearing on them slowly, said Park.
Bickering and disagreements are commonplace but are quickly terminated because in both the Crucible and in combat, failure is not an option and the mission must be accomplished.
The Confidence Course and the Crucible as a whole, both serve as the ideal classroom for teaching leadership, according to Burgos.
"It's all first hand," said Burgos. "There is no academic way to teach leadership, you have to get out and do it."
They have to get out and do it for "Just one more day…" then they will have earned the title of United States Marine.
But inside these recruits, most them roughly 19 years old, are still young men who are looking forward to the smallest of things. Things commonly associated with the American way of life.
"The first thing I am going to do when I graduate is go to In-and-Out Burger," said Burgos, a Texas native, referring the California-based fast food chain. "All the California recruits say it's good, and I just want to try it."