"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem." \n-- Ronald Reagan
Marines don't have a problem showing they have a sense of humor, either. Ten IU recruits and officers gathered for their semester dinner at Tortilla Flat to relax and swap stories.\nThere are currently 17 IU students in the program, and interest peaked in the month following Sept. 11. People requesting information on the Marines went from three to five a day to more than 30 a day. \nCaptain Reginald Jackson said even though interest has increased, their standards haven't decreased.\n"We're looking for people with leadership potential. We're looking for the cream of the crop," Jackson said. "It's one thing to be patriotic and wave a flag. It's another to raise your right hand and swear in." \nSenior Nathan Dagley said he has no reservations about joining the Marines, even though there's now an increased chance for combat.\n"I think that I, like the majority of the country before 9/11, believed that the U.S. was unable to be touched by hostile forces," Dagley said. "After the attacks, my sense of security was hurt, and that made me angry. I have always had the desire to serve my country. The terrorist attacks just reinforced my decision to serve in the Marine Corps." \nAll of the students at the table said they felt ready for battle because they had either been through the six-week training at the Marine Corps' Officer Candidate School (OCS) or they were planning on attending this summer. \nThe hot topic of discussion for the evening was what they had to endure at OCS. \nThe objective of OCS is to root out the people who can't handle the pressure of being an officer in the Marines. The whole program is one big obstacle course -- verbally, mentally and physically.\nOnly 30 percent of participants make it through the rigorous six-week training. All cadets are required to stay four weeks before they can leave. \nThe cadets' new world order consisted of five-second showers, three- and-a-half to four hours of sleep, 10-mile hikes, a limit of two squares of toilet paper, holding their bladder for extended periods of time and then having to make an ambulance noise all the way to the bathroom when they couldn't hold it anymore. \nStaff Sergeant David Barnette pointed out the irony that all of the cadets hated OCS while they were there, but now they talk and laugh about it like they had a blast. \nCadets admitted they had fun, even though from the stories they told it sounded like the officers were actually the ones having fun with them.\nWhenever a cadet would slip up, officers would sometimes punish them by making them write an essay on "why I'm so stupid" or "why I shouldn't try and go up for seconds at dinner." When one of the cadets accidentally squirted an officer with a hose, he had to write an essay on water conservation.\nGetting stuck writing an essay was not as amusing it sounds, the cadets said. They had to write it during their only free time, which was, unfortunately, their sleep time. The fact that cadets got such little sleep made the task that much worse.\nBeing punished and chewed out multiple times a day was inevitable, because the whole point of the program is to see how well cadets cope with stress.\n"They set you up for failure and see how you react to tasks you can't possibly do," Captain Asbridge said. "It's their way of seeing your leadership and ability to prioritize."\nAfter having to jump through hoops and endure mental abuse, one would think the end result would be a severe lack of self-esteem. But everyone at the table said by the time OCS was over, they were more confident than before because they knew they could survive something like that.\nThey summed up their experience with a quote they heard at OCS: "The first two weeks I was afraid I was going to die. The second two weeks I was afraid I wasn't going to die. The last two weeks I knew I was too hard to die."\nWhen asked if the pictures and tales being passed around at dinner at all deterred him from wanting to join the Marine Corps, junior Brad Davies said no. The physical aspects of training didn't bother him so much as the mental aspects.\nIt was at this point Captain Asbridge said, "It takes a person of a certain disposition to want to be a Marine."\nSo how are the Marines different from the Army? As a collective distinction made by the officers, the Marines are the ones who make it safe for the Army to come in. Marines are the first ones on the scene and clear everything out so the Army can set up camp for the long haul. \nCaptain Jackson said there are many perks to joining the Marine Corps and going through OCS while still in college. Among them are a guaranteed career right out of college, a higher starting salary than most jobs and tuition reimbursement.\nThe Marine Corps differs from other military programs in that a cadet can go through the whole program and still not be obligated to join. They are only locked in if they accept their commission after graduation.\nCaptain Asbridge put up a challenge to all students: "It's time for young Americans to decide whether they want to sit at home and watch history being made or actually be a part of history"
