BOOT CAMP REVISITED April 6, 1998 The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript

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After a series of sex scandals rocked the military, Defense Secretary Cohen ordered some changes to basic training procedures. Following a background report, Phil Ponce and guests discuss whether male and female recruits should be trained training together.

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A RealAudio version of this segment is available. NEWSHOUR LINKS: April 6, 1998 A discussion on basic training programs. March 16, 1998 The defense secretary orders some changes to basic training programs. December 16, 1997 A special commission suggests separating military training by gender. April 30, 1997: A discussion on mixed-gender training in the military. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of military issues. OUTSIDE LINKS: U.S. Department of Defense.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: It was 2 o'clock in the morning, the end of week 11 in Marine Corps basic training at Parris Island, South Carolina. A battalion of sleep recruits had 40 seconds to drag themselves out of bed and into their fatigues. Not far away, another company of sleepy female recruits emerged from their barracks in the dead of night. Chaplain Keith Adams offered the women a prayer by the light of their glow sticks.

CHAPLAIN KEITH ADAMS: And, Lord, these women are about to set off on 54 hours, a real important part in their boot camp, but, more importantly, in their life, so we ask, Lord, that You would go with them.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: For the next two and a half days men would train with men, women with women, as they slogged through the toughest ordeal of the 12 weeks of Marine boot camp, the Crucible. The Crucible is a final test of physical fitness and a chance for recruits to bond together for a common goal. The course is spread out over 560 acres, with 32 stations. Recruits have to get through obstacle courses under warlike conditions. They march 40 miles, sometimes in full pack, including their M-16 rifle. They get only two and a half meals of field rations and are allowed only four hours of sleep a night. The man who made the Crucible part of boot camp is Marine Commandant General Charles Krulak.

GEN. CHARLES C. KRULAK, Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps: We call it a gut check. It is the ultimate gut check. It's the opportunity for individuals to all of a sudden see the power of tea work, the power of cohesion. You know, the old Chinese gung ho is a Chinese term. It means "work together."

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The Marines made the Crucible part of basic training at a time when critics were complaining that boot camp had gone soft in all the services; that the military was producing soldiers who were physically unfit and poorly trained to fight. Critics cite the gender-integrated training as one of the reasons for the slide. For a number of years the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard had been training men and women together but did not require women to meet the same physical standards as men. Only the Marine Corps kept its tradition of separate basic training, and when the sex scandals at the Army's Aberdeen training facility broke, the way the Marines do it got new attention. Last summer, the Defense Department asked two commissions to look at what was wrong with basic training. One recommended a return to sex-segregated basic training. The other recommended better gender-integrated training. After studying the reports, Defense Secretary William Cohen ordered several reforms: separate housing for men and women, more and better trained drill instructors, and tougher training for all recruits. He also ordered the services to adopt some of the Marine components of basic training.

WILLIAM COHEN, Secretary of Defense: The need to place a greater emphasis on core military values in training and the need to develop a consistent training standard between the genders.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Cohen put off the decision on the flashpoint issue, whether to train men and women together or separately in basic training. But the Marines think they already know the answer.

GEN. CHARLES C. KRULAK: No one but no one can convince me that it makes sense to mix men and women together. I think that for the first 12 weeks that we are taking one of these young men and women of character and transforming them into a United States Marine; that that socialization process, that tremendous pressure, seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, that interface with the drill instructors seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, that the last thing, the last thing you need to put into that equation is sex.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: When Krulak took over, the Marines had more sexual harassment complaints than any other branch of the service. So the twice-decorated Vietnam veteran decided to completely reorganize basic training. Krulak's theory was the corps would have fewer problems with sexual harassment if it produced better Marines. He raised enlistment standards for recruitments. He added another week to boot camp to make it the longest of any service. And he introduced 30 hours of what the Marines call "core values." Core value training is one of Secretary Cohen's recommendations. In this session recruits are schooled in how to say no to the wrong kind of group peer pressure.

MARINE INSTRUCTOR: Courage is the mental, moral, and physical strength to do what is right even if a path looks much tougher.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Other classes emphasize the importance of honor, courage, commitment, and three hours are devoted entirely to sexual harassment.

GEN. CHARLES C. KRULAK: What you must do then is give them the values you want them to have and hold them accountable. I mean, I think that's what the schools should be doing. They ought to be saying this is acceptable conduct. If you step outside of this, you will be punished. That's what we're saying. This is acceptable. These are values. You violate them, you're not going to be a Marine.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Marines have always made the job of drill instructor a prestigious one in the corps. Krulak symbolically reinforced it. For the first time female drill instructors were allowed to wear the traditional campaign hat once reserved only for male DI's, and drill instructors, both male and female, were given an additional 100 hours to just mentor young recruits.

MARINE: We're going to just go around the circle here, and everybody's going to have about a minute, a minute, two minutes, to tell who they are.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: At a time when critics complained boot camp was too easy for women, Krulak upped the ante. Women used to train to lower physical standards. Now, women have to train for the same length of time as men in all exercises. But the defining moment in Krulak's reorganization was the Crucible. This was where young recruits would find out what they're made of. Team One, Group Two, Fourth Battalion was made up of 13 women. As they started the Crucible, several of them already had injuries from the first 11 weeks of basic training, but their spirits were high.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Are you worried about making it?

RECRUITS: No, ma'am.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: You're not.

RECRUITS: No.

RECRUIT: We've made it this far, ma'am. This is seven training days so far, ma'am.

RECRUITS: yes, ma'am.

SECOND RECRUIT: We've come too far to give up--just give up everything we worked so hard for just to not make it.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The endless war exercises, the lack of sleep and food tested them in ways they had never known before. During the test called "Day Combat Resupply" the women realized their size and strength were a problem, so they had to figure out how to overcome it with teamwork. Their job was to move 50-pound boxes of ammunition over an obstacle course with simulated gunfire going on. They also had to keep their weapons out of the sand at all times, or they would jam. Recruit Dolores Villegas saw some of her teammates were in trouble, so she crawled back. (Recruits working together on obstacle course)

DOLORES VILLEGAS GARCIA: When the recruits began the course, this recruit just started on her own and she was ahead of everybody, and she realized she was not doing this for herself, it was a team effort, and she had to go back. It was--she wouldn't have felt right being ahead of everybody, and it was a mission as a team.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: For the Marines that's the whole point. Lt. Col. Angie Salinas is in charge of all basic training for women at Parris Island.

LT. COL. ANGIE SALINAS, U.S. Marine Corps: They do not quit. And a lot of this has to do with the bond that they share with each other because even when an individual might say I can't do this anymore, her fellow platoon mates will take her and say we will do this together.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Here the women must figure out how to move through a spider web without touching the sides. They talk at length about how to do that before they execute a plan.

RECRUIT: As long as we could even go through the center ones, because they could be carried over, and the weight could be distributed on both sides.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The Marines say one of the strengths of separate basic training is the way the two sexes approach a problem, analyze it, and execute a solution. When a team of male recruits approached the same web, they didn't talk much at all. Instead, they began to execute with almost no plan. Their sense of a plan emerged when they developed problems with the execution. The women of Team One thought these differences in approach are an argument for separate training.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: How do you think this deal would work if you had men in the unit?

AMBER LOWE: Chaos. We would kill each other.

SHIFALI MASIH: And it wouldn't work too well because women and men train differently, not necessarily the training, but they think different, and males--male drill instructors know how to handle the male drill instructors; the female drill instructors know how to handle the females. And it just wouldn't work because there would be too many conflicts.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Day one ended with a nine-mile march, cold field rations, and four hours of sleep. Day two and there was more of the same. There was an exhausting ropes exercise. Then they had to drag one of their colleagues through a casualty evacuation course in the mud, and there was a final night reconnaissance mission. By the time it was over three members of Team One were in the medical tent--one with a knee injury, one with a sprained ankle, and one with blisters all over her feet.

RECRUIT: I've got to make it tomorrow. That's all I can think about. Just keep on walking tomorrow no matter how bad they hurt. If I don't have courage to walk to the parade deck tomorrow, would I have courage to go on the battlefield?

BETTY ANN BOWSER: They headed back for four hours of sleep and then their final event, a nine-mile march in the morning. (Recruits chanting and marching) As dawn broke over Parris Island, a long column of chanting recruits emerged from the woods. Some were having trouble making it. Chaplain Adams walked alongside with a prayer.

CHAPLAIN ADAMS: Of Christ, Jesus, Our Lord--okay--

BETTY ANN BOWSER: At the head of the battalion Team One--they all had made it.

GEN. CHARLES C. KRULAK: What you saw at the end was those recruits coming together in 13 men or women teams. And what used to be self-discipline turns into selflessness. Take that out into the regular operating forces, and all of a sudden instead of going out to get something to drink, they had that peer pressure saying, no, we're not going to do that, you're not going to embarrass us, you're not going to do--you're not going to harass that woman. And that is what we're driving at.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But the Marine Corps is not without its critics. Susan Barnes is an attorney who represented a former Army Sgt. Major who pressed sexual harassment charges against Sgt. Gene McKinney. She says there is not a single study that shows separate training produces better soldiers.

SUSAN BARNES, Lawyer: In order to make it the most effective they need to be integrated by gender. That is what all of the studies have shown; that people who are trained together gender-wise do better on basic soldiering skills, even, believe it or not, on rifle marksmanship, the kinds of skills you wouldn't relate to gender. The studies also show that gender-integrated units have higher morale, that, indeed, they are more cohesive. And the reason that they are is because they're trained that way. If you're trained that way, then you can fight better that way.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Defense Secretary Cohen said he will give the services 30 days to come up with their own plan to improve basic training. Then he will decide if the Army, Navy, and Air Force can continue gender-integrated training at the smallest unit level or, instead, follow the Marine model.

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