Marine infantrymen are certified badasses capable of destroying enemy positions and forces with high levels of violence. But wait, Marines aren’t born out of forges in the ground like Uruk-hai. So how does the Marine Corps take soft, pliable high school graduates barely able to work a condom and turn them into infantrymen capable of thrusting bayonets through enemy fighters like it ain’t no thang?
Here are 17 photos that show how high schoolers are turned into badass Marine infantrymen
1. All Marines go through Marine Corps recruit training, starting off at the famous yellow footprints.
2. During recruit training, the recruits learn to accomplish basic military tasks and to cede their personal interests to the needs of the team.
3. The 12 weeks of recruit training are, to say the least, uncomfortable. Lots of time crawling through sand and mud, ruck marching, and building muscle through repetitive stress.
4. But the future infantrymen get their first taste of combat training here, learning to stab with their bayonets and shoot with their rifles.
5. And of course, they get to work with the famously kind drill instructors.
6. At the end of all of this, they earn the right to call themselves Marines and march in the graduation ceremony right before…
7. …they’re sent to the Infantry Training Battalion for 59-days of learning, patrolling, and physical hardship.
8. The Marines learn a large number of new basic infantry skills and a few advanced infantry skills.
9. Some of the most important skills are the less flashy ones, like land navigation …
10. …and long hikes.
11. But of course, there are plenty of awesome trips to the range.
12. Marines learn to fire everything from machine guns and rifles to grenades and rockets.
13. Even those big, beautiful mortars will make an appearance.
14. But the mother of all machine guns is probably the most beloved weapon in the arsenal: the M-2 .50-caliber machine gun.
15. Besides navigation and weapons skills, the Marines have to learn skills like how to administer first aid in combat.
16. But the crux of a Marine infantryman’s job is combat as a member of a rifle team.
17. The culmination of all this training is the 24-hour Basic Skills Readiness Exercise where they’re assessed on everything they learned in training, ensuring that they are ready to perform as expeditionary warfighters around the world.
