(RETRO POSTED - 25 Nov 2008)
“Here I speak of passion in the Medieval Latin sense of the word: to suffer for love. The passion of a commander is equal parts love, zeal, and a quiet wrath: love for the men, zeal for the lifelong study of profession of arms…and quiet wrath to make the nightmares of our enemies come true.”
-Colonel B.P. McCoy ~ The Passion of Command
I just finished reading this book that I have quoted above. In this particular quote is the reality of what I am doing currently: suffering for love. In my last email I quoted General John A. Lejuene who said “officers must have a strong sense of the great responsibility of our office; the resources we expend in war are human lives.” It is for those young human lives that I find myself spending late nights studying operational terms and graphics. It is for those young men and women that I find myself running 3 miles at the end of a long day with 75 pounds of gear on my back. It is for those Marines that I will lead that I find myself clinging to every word of advice uttered by my SPC (staff platoon commander). I have yet to meet these Marines that I will lead, but my Passion has already begun.
I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with friends and family. Since I last wrote I have had three more weeks of training. Three weeks ago I was spending a lot of time in the classroom and in discussion groups. We are laying a foundation of basics to allow us to progress in our training. Most of our classes have covered basic military skills and officership topics. These officership topics in particular are followed up by discussion groups with our SPCs. Most of our discussions have centered on ethics and the moral imperative of leadership. I have found it interesting to discuss these subjects. It is amazing that we have this concept of right and wrong without even bringing God into the equation. The Marine Corps definitely sees a connection between moral courage and effective leadership. When a standard is compromised in the interest of selfish ambition then a new standard has been set.
The past two weeks have been spent mostly outside the classroom. We have been going to the pistol and rifle ranges daily to qualify on the Marine Corps standard course of fire. The pistol range consists of single action and double action shots on a target at 25 yards, 15 yards, and 7 yards. Most of these are quick reaction drills with one magazine exchange drill. A magazine exchange drill is where three shots are fired then you have to exchange magazines and fire three more shots all on target within 20 seconds. The rifle range consists of shooting at targets from 200 yards, 300 yards, and 500 yards in slow action and rapid fire. Four different positions are used at different portions: sitting, kneeling, standing, and prone. Basically we spent a whole week practicing and going through the course of fire. This was followed up by actually taking the qualification tests for rifle and pistol. There are four categories of scores: expert, sharpshooter, marksman, and unqualified. I was able to successfully shoot expert on both the pistol and rifle.
That schedule might not sound all that demanding. However, the rifle range is located 3 miles from our barracks, so we hiked out and ran back everyday. The only exception is that they bused us out on qualification day in the interest of us doing better. Our load got progressively heavier as the two weeks went by. We started with about 35 pounds of basic gear and the final couple days we were going out there with full gear (about 75 pounds). I have included a picture of me in my full gear in the last post. The pics below are of my room which I share with 5 others. Their names are Austin, Justin, Daniel, Chris, and Frank.
Upcoming: this week is entirely devoted to learning about the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program and qualifying for our tan belts. It’s gonna be a lot of punches, kicks, ground fighting, and throws. That means lots of bruises to look forward to.
Embracing the Passion,
J
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