Story by Lance Cpl. David Bessey

MARINE CORPS RECRUIT DEPOT PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. – It’s as old as warfare itself. Experienced warriors imbue the next generation with their well-earned skill and knowledge.

Marines like Sgt. Paul Greenfield, 29, assistant Basic Warrior Training chief, Weapons and Field Training Battalion, and an Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom combat veteran, train tomorrow’s warfighters here on basic field skills. These skills lay the groundwork for every future field training exercise and deployment.

Recruits on Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island learn the fundamentals of being in the field during a week of Basic Warrior Training, which introduces recruits to the field protective mask, land navigation, improvised explosive device detection, combat formations and movement under direct fire. However, there were once simpler times.

Technology and enemy tactics have changed how Marines fight and train

Prior to the 1950s, there was no standardized infantry training in the Marine Corps. All Marines received basic combat-related training on the depot, said Eric Junger, depot training officer and member of the Parris Island Living History Detachment, which preserves military history.

Military commanders quickly learned that the depot could not continue to sustain combat training due to an increased demand on the base’s infrastructure, so they created training regiments in Camp Lejeune, N.C., and Camp Pendleton, Calif., said Junger. The field-related skills taught on Parris Island after the move became rudimentary at best.

The next few decades saw a constant back and forth motion of combat training that would be instituted and later taken out of recruit training on Parris Island.  Through the late 1980s and early 1990s female recruit training began to see more of the combat and endurance courses added to their curriculum and began to mirror the same training male recruits were already receiving.

Basic Warrior Training wasn’t officially established until 1988

The addition of the Crucible in 1996 played the largest role in the way training is conducted on the depot today. At the time, some elements of BWT were shifted to Marine Combat Training, and noninfantry Marines–male and female–reported to MCT to learn additional firearms and tactics while all infantry Marines report to the School of Infantry where they learn advanced skills and weaponry.

Today, Basic Warrior Training teaches skills that are essential to every Marine regardless of gender or occupational field. The training includes a variety of courses such as land navigation, where recruits learn to read a map and use a compass. Further along, they practice issuing commands using verbal and nonverbal communication during practical application courses to identify enemy threats and fire team tactics.

BWT is constantly changing

“We try to keep our training as up to date as possible based on current operations,” said Sgt. Jason Boggess, 26, a BWT instructor with Weapons and Field Training Battalion. “The biggest changes we’ve made have been the placement of (simulated) IEDs and how they are changing.”

Marine Corps Training and Education Command requires course content review boards to be hosted on Parris Island or Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego every three years to discuss everything taught in the recruit training curriculum, said Andrew Cooper, the formal school manager on Parris Island.

The boards are attended by high-ranking officials, training instructors, advisors, subject matter experts and eyewitnesses to discuss training methods, enemy tactics and operational hazards to keep the training curriculum modern, said Cooper.  At the end of the weeklong summit, any changes to the training curriculum are integrated into a program of instruction, which is then signed by the Depot’s Commanding General.

The program is sent to the training command within 120 days for final approval. The new curriculum is then implemented into training as unobtrusively as possible in order to train instructors on the new courses, said Cooper. However, training can start even sooner, if a change is mandated immediately by Headquarters Marine Corps. This ensures that recruits are taught and familiarized with the latest equipment and field tactics.

Instructors like Boggess and Greenfield use their experience to teach recruits basic rifleman tactics and what kind of enemy tactics they may soon see overseas.
Yet, the training recruits receive is simply an introduction to perpetual Marine lifestyle of preparing for combat.  At the end of the day, Marines continue to pass on their knowledge and experiences to the next generation of the Marine Corps. It is a tradition that has continued since the Corps’ founding and will continue as long as Americans want a Marine Corps.