The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1918-11-28
MARINE-A FIGHTING DEMON
Esprit de Corps and Unceasing Training Give Power
To the Soldiers of the Sea
Selected

| Id OTlSdO0 U0 udIluOSg LILO du-
swer comes in two things esprit de
corps and the marine training.
There's never an idle second in
the life of a marine. His training
never ceases-and, more than that,
there never is time when the be-
lief is not constantly inculcated in
the mind Of a marine that he must
do superhuman things simply be-
cause he is a marine, and that his
own conscience will call him a
criminal against himself and his
corps if he doesn't.
The first thing marine appli-
cant gets when he reaches the east
ern training camp at Paris island,
is. c., or the western camp at
Mare Island, CAL, is heart-to-
heart talk. And it's talk that 8
a work of art-a speech that tells
of the history of the corps, from
the beginning of the continental
marines in 174O to the present
day, the great things the marine
corps has done and the great things
it has stood for. A talk that tells
of honesty and straightforward
ness and decency and cleanliness.
And then, when the time of
probation is over and the enlist.
ment completed, the marine learns:
II am soldier, though not an
army soldier. | 60 to sea. yet am
not sailor. / am older than the
soldier of the army or the sailor of
the navy. l fight my. country's
battles everywhere and anywhere,
in the trenches in France, on SHIPS
at sea. or in airplanes above. It's
all the same.
Il raised the first American flag
on foreign soil, more than a cen
tury ago. I carried Old Glory in
to action in Tripoli, Egypt, West
Africa, the Fiji islands, Sumatra,
Hawaii. Mexico. China, Uruguay,
Paraguay, Alaska, Panama, For
mosa, Korea, Nicaragua, Cuba,
Santo Domingo, Hayti, and now I
am with General Pershing in
France. 1 carry a punch in either
hand. I'm a hard fisted, three way
fighting man. I'm a soldier of the
navy, U. S. marine"
That's the beginning. That's
the thing that sends the real flush
of pride into the new marines
heart. And when he walks out
upon the training ground and the
physical director barks out an or.
der to seize the horizontal bar and
chin ten times, that new marine
does it! He may never have chin
ned himself before. His muscles
may ache and twitch and do strange
things afterwards-but he raises
and lowers himself those ten times
because he's a United States
marine!
There's something inside him,
urging him on. telling him that he
must be better, better, better ev-
cry hour, every minute. every Sec
ond of his life. And when the
long hours of drilling start, that
marine is not only willing to go the
limit. but eager! He's marine
he's simply got to know every
thing and do everything!
i Facing him everywhere are
signs: Ii you don't know you get
killed" And the marine knows.
He trains with the naked bayonet.
| He goes out upon the rifle range,
and if he doesn't qualify as an ex-
pert, marksman or a sharpshooter
he kicks himself all the way back
to camp. and sits up nights to
dream out way of making it up
in some other way.
i Exercises. Training. Work.
] Play. They follow one after an
other in rushing sequence. Men
box, because the movements of
boxing are similar to those of
bayonet fighting. They have ''pull-
n inp up'' exercises. because that