LESSONS FROM BOOT CAMP

There Appears To Be A Whiff Of Hypocrisy About The Us Government's New
Anti-Drugs Message, If The Selection Requirements For The Marines Are
Anything To Go By, Says Duncan Campbell

"Marine boot camp" has a mystical aura attached to it. It features in ad
campaigns and in reality programmes, is described as a rite of passage and a
test of manhood and is seen as a cure for everything from a sulky teenager
to a flabby gut. So it was interesting to be invited, as part of a group of
28 other foreign journalists, to see inside one such boot camp in San Diego
last week. Marines regard themselves as something of a cut above the
soldiers and sailors in the military, not least because their training is
longer - 12 weeks compared to, say, six weeks for the navy. They quote their
history and their slogan - "once a marine, always a marine" - and explain
that when it comes to war, as it soon may, they are "first in". (A friend
who was in the US Rangers disputes this, saying it is not marines but
Rangers or Navy Seals who go in first, but we'll let that pass.)

What was fascinating was looking at the raw recruits - young men with baggy
trousers, basketball shirts and long hair - and realising that within 12
weeks they would have lost their puppy fat and their haircuts and become one
of the shaven-headed young men we saw being yelled at around the parade
ground.

What was also interesting was to find out how speedy the turnover of marines
was. Most - 70% - enter only for four years after which they can leave, pick
up $36,000 (UKP22,000) in college fees or parlay themselves a job on civvie
street with their newly acquired skills as a jeep repairman or radio
operator. Foreigners can join and some do so, as a swift way to qualify for
citizenship; among the foreign intake, we were told, was the son of a
Somalian warlord.

We watched a bunch of would-be recruits going off for blood tests for drugs
and HIV and here the marines seem to have a more forgiving policy than that
of the US government. If a would-be recruit has marijuana in his
bloodstream, he can come back after 45 days and have another go. If he still
has traces, he can try again in a year's time; for cocaine, there had to be
a gap of a year before the recruit could try again and then two years, if
there were still traces.

Now the US government has been running commercials over the last few months
in which people who use drugs are accused of aiding terrorism, on the
grounds that money from drugs supposedly ends up with terrorists.

These ads last month prompted an entertaining series of satires in which
drivers of SUVs (sport utility vehicles) were accused of aiding terrorists
because they consumed so much gas. Either the government is unwittingly
recruiting people who have assisted terrorists or it is engaged in a very
cynical and hypocritical ad campaign.

One of the journalists said the whole boot camp process reminded her of a
feature she had done on young men becoming monks: shaved heads, abstinence,
early mornings, vows and chants, albeit ones like "Up in the morning with
the California sun! We're going to run all day till the running's done!"

Certainly there was something monastic about it all, with 50 sleeping in a
room, reminding me of the old John Prine song, Donald and Lydia, in which he
sings of a barracks as "a warehouse of strangers with 60-watt lights".

We were issued with a handy fact sheet about the average recruit, who is 160
pounds in weight, mainly Protestant (53%), or Catholic (30%) with 13 per
cent "no preference". It was also good to know that by the end of training
they would have consumed 336,000 calories. The whole facility is dotted with
bracing signs such as "every job is a self-portrait of those who do it.
Autograph your work with quality."

Iraq, of course, hovered over the proceedings like one of those buzzards
that cruise so casually along the cliffs of the southern Californian coast.
Most of the young men - 5% of the recruits are women but they were trained
elsewhere - we spoke to had little knowledge of the latest situation since
they are allowed no radio or television and were too tired to read a paper
on the one day, Sunday, when that was permitted.

We saw the finished products, too, as they passed out at the end of their 12
weeks. What was striking was how young they all looked and one could not
help but think of other shaven-headed young teenagers who presumably right
now are being shouted at by the Iraqi equivalent of a drill instructor but
who, one feels, will not be singing "Up in the morning with the Baghdad
sun!"