Military

Marines Weigh Closing Parris Island and San Diego to Open New Coed Boot Camp

September 28, 2020Gina Harkins, Military.com
Sgt. Jonathan B. Reeves currently serves as a Marine Corps drill instructor with Platoon 1085, Charlie Company, 1st Recruit Training Battalion, at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, S.C. Reeves joined the Marine Corps in September 2009 and became a drill instructor in January 2015. Reeves is a native of Augusta, Ga. About 600 Marine Corps drill instructors shape the approximately 20,000 recruits who come to Parris Island annually into basic United States Marines. Parris Island is home to entry-level enlisted training for 50 percent of males and 100 percent of females in the Marine Corps. (Photo by Pfc Aaron Bolser)

Sgt. Jonathan B. Reeves currently serves as a Marine Corps drill instructor with Platoon 1085, Charlie Company, 1st Recruit Training Battalion, at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, S.C. Reeves joined the Marine Corps in September 2009 and became a drill instructor in January 2015. Reeves is a native of Augusta, Ga. About 600 Marine Corps drill instructors shape the approximately 20,000 recruits who come to Parris Island annually into basic United States Marines. Parris Island is home to entry-level enlisted training for 50 percent of males and 100 percent of females in the Marine Corps. (Photo by Pfc Aaron Bolser)

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The Marine Corps is considering a plan in which it could close its two existing boot camp locations and funnel all recruits to a new base where men and women would train together.


Marine entry-level training is a long way off from being able to meet a congressional mandate to make its East and West coast training bases both able to support gender-integrated training in the coming years, the Corps’ top general said on Thursday.


That is leading the service to study the option of opening a third training base in a new location to which all new recruits would ship, rather than spending cash on construction projects at aging training bases.


“Nothing, the way we’re organized right now, lends itself to integrated recruit training,” Commandant Gen. David Berger said on Thursday. “If that’s our start point — and it is — we have to get to a place on both coasts, or at third location or whatever we end up with, that … there are male and female recruits around.”


Recruits with India Company, 3rd Recruit Training Battalion, prepare and practice for their initial drill evaluation on Peatross Parade Deck Sept. 14, 2018 on Parris Island, S.C. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Dana Beesley

Both the Marine Corps’ recruit training depots have storied pasts — particularly Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in South Carolina, which was first used by Marines in the 1890s. Hundreds of thousands of Marines have stood on the famous yellow footprints on each base at the start of their careers before earning the coveted eagle, globe and anchor and title of Marine.


But with a new law bearing down on the service to make both locations support coed training — within five years at Parris Island and eight at San Diego — the Marine Corps is exploring different options, Maj. Eric Flanagan, Berger’s spokesman told Military.com.


“The question becomes, ‘Are we better off just using [military construction] dollars to create a new third site, or put that money into our existing sites?'” he said. “No decisions have been made. We’re not investing any money anywhere else. It’s just an option we’re talking about.”


The Marine Corps hasn’t yet identified a state where the new boot camp location might be located, Flanagan said. In assessing the possible change though, he said they’re considering a lot more than just the need for coed squad bays and other facility changes to support gender-integrated boot camp.


Recruits of Kilo Company, 3rd Recruit Training Battalion, change positions above a small pond on the Confidence Course Nov. 7, 2013, on Parris Island, S.C. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Caitlin Brink

Parris Island sits on South Carolina’s coast, just north of Hilton Head, leaving it susceptible to hurricanes. And in California, recruits leave the recruit depot, which butts up against San Diego International Airport, to complete some of their needed training at nearby Camp Pendleton.


Having two boot camp sites also creates redundancies, Flanagan said. Historically, all female recruits and men who live east of the Mississippi River train at Parris Island. Male recruits west of the Mississippi ship to San Diego.


“If you have to update a lot anyway, do you save manpower, resources and personnel by just combining the two into one?” Flanagan said.


If the Marine Corps were to move boot camp away from its fabled training bases, Kate Germano, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel who led Parris Island’s female 4th Recruit Training Battalion, said leaders must explain their reasoning in full. Otherwise, she said she worries male Marines would blame women for the loss of tradition.


“There would be so much animus there, as if there isn’t already enough,” Germano said.


Sgt. Angela Arounerangsy, drill instructor, Platoon 4003, November Company, 4th Recruit Training Battalion, motivates recruits as they prepare for the rappel tower aboard Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, S.C., Nov. 27, 2012.
U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Rodion Zabolotniy

Women first began training at Parris Island in the 1940s, but it wasn’t until last year that the training base saw the first-ever coed company graduate. The Marine Corps continues to fight to keep its platoons segregated by gender, though it has trained several more coed companies.


Germano said she’s concerned plans to create an all-new training base would slow boot camp gender-integration efforts.


“The way the Marine Corps has kicked this can down the road consistently, it’s a delay tactic in my view,” Germano said. She was relieved of command in 2015 for what she says was an effort to push for better, more equitable training for women. Marine officials contended at the time she was relieved because she was a toxic leader.


Recruits of Lima Company, 3rd Recruit Training Battalion, make their way up the last obstacle, the 20-foot rope climb, during the Obstacle Course II event aboard Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Benjamin E. Woodle

There can be a years-long lag between a planned military construction project, Germano said, and “shovels in the dirt.”


“The big question that I have is, where is this on the Marine Corps’ list of priorities, and why isn’t it at the top?” she said.


A Marine Corps memo on the service’s plans to make boot camp gender-neutral released last month referred to it as such.


“Gender integration at Marine Corps Recruit Training remains a top priority,” the plan submitted to the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services states. “The outcome the Marine Corps desires for gender integration is for every male recruit to train alongside a female recruit within the same company.”


But for a service that has struggled to embrace coed training, Richard Kohn, a history professor who studies the U.S. military at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said a new training site could serve as a fresh start.


New Marines run under the iconic “We Make Marines” sign during a traditional motivational run through the streets of Parris Island, S.C. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Aaron Bolser

“If they build something from the ground up, they’ll be able to make it exactly as they want to facilitate integrated training,” Kohn added. “And second of all, if they get rid of Parris Island, it might dilute the traditionalist emotions.”


Kohn said the move is likely to face pushback from members of Congress interested in keeping the bases — along with their associated workforces — in their states.


Flanagan said it’s too early to say whether a new boot camp site would mean the Marine Corps would get rid of its two coastal-area bases. Closing military bases can take years, but the real estate in California and South Carolina could prove valuable.


Ultimately, Kohn said, the decision could come down to cost.


“The bean counters usually [decide] these things,” he said.



Gina Harkins, Military.com
Gina Harkins, Military.com

Gina Harkins previously covered the Marine Corps, Navy and Coast Guard for Military.com.

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