Marine Recruit

The transition from civilian to that of a Marine is a process unlike any other in any branch of the military. As any potential recruit can imagine, Marine recruit training is difficult and challenging. Its purpose is to mold a Marine from the inside out. Nick “Gunny Pop” Popaditch is best known as the “Cigar Marine” and author of Once a Marine, a candid memoir about his service as a tank commander in Iraq, his horrific wounding in the first battle of Fallujah (where he was hit in the head by a rocket-propelled grenade), and his long and difficult recovery. Gunny Pop has experienced the Marine recruit training process from both perspectives: as a new recruit and as a drill instructor. This new book brings together his nearly 16 years of Marine Corps expertise. The Ultimate Marine Recruit Training Guidebook is a comprehensive, practical, and easy-to-follow guide written specifically for every new or prospective recruit about to enter basic training. Gunny Pop offers step-by-step instructions and solutions, including helpful charts and graphics, for how to prepare both physically and mentally for boot camp. Written by a Marine who experienced it firsthand many times over, Gunny Pop explores what recruits will be asked to do (and in many cases, explain why) and the motivating forces behind drill instructor lessons and behavior. The Ultimate Marine Recruit Training Guidebook was written by a Marine and former drill instructor for young men and women who want to become one of the few and the proud. No one should undertake Marine recruit training without having read this book. About the Author: From East Chicago, Indiana, Nick Popaditch enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1986. He was wounded while commanding a tank in Fallujah (Iraq) in 2004 and medically retired from the Marines in 2005 at the rank of Gunnery Sergeant. “Gunny” and his wife April have two children, Richard and Nicholas. They reside in Chula Vista, California.

Desperate to escape a life of poverty on his desolate home planet, Ryck Lysander enlists in the United Federation Marine Corps, hoping to make a better future for himself. However, Ryck soon discovers that the Corps is more than a means of escaping his former life as he is pushed beyond the very limits of his strength and willpower. From bootcamp brawls to skirmishes with galactic pirates, Ryck's new life presents him with unimaginable adventures and forces him to prove his mettle as he forges his new identity and fights to earn his place as one of the Brotherhood of Marines.

Marine Recruit: Tears in the Sand is an epic novel of a Marine Corps boot camp (San Diego); a compelling, unabridged account of recruit training as told by the drill instructor. Author of chronicles of a marine rifleman, retired first sergeant, Herb Brewer, USMC, now brings to life this outstanding, all-encompassing, witty, honest, caringly brutal, human, and timeless narrative. Combining two stories into one, he takes you all the way from the grueling view of the recruit to the panoramic mission and perspective of the Drill Instructor. At MCRD, you can count on two things: the recruit is green, the marine drill instructor is legendary. First Sergeant Brewer captures the essence and awareness of what it means to be both. Marine Recruit is a rare and unparalleled look into MCRD. Enter now the revered birthplace of the Marines where every drill instructor was once a recruit.

Just before the dawn of the Global War on Terror, Kieran Michael Lalor left his career as a high school social studies teacher, endeavoring to fulfill his lifelong dream. Lalor followed his father and brothers footsteps into the United States Marine Corps. This Recruit presents Lalors nightly journal entries, beginning with the uneasy trip to the recruiters office and the eerily quiet midnight bus ride to Parris Island. Lalor describes the wicked combination of fatigue, nerves, disorientation, misery, loneliness, and homesickness that conspire to keep him from his goalalong with the hours of close order drill, push-ups, hand-to-hand combat training, the pit, and the unrelenting mind games. Witness the nasty recruit-on-recruit infighting that results when young men struggle to survive while being pushed past their limits physically, mentally, and emotionally. Gaze at the target from the five hundred yard line on Qualification Day, when failure means at least an extra two weeks on the island and the added humiliation of failing the quintessential test of a Marine. Experience the rappel tower, night firing, the infiltration courses, and long, back-crushing humps. Struggle with Lalor and his platoon as they try to overcome the Crucible, the final obstacle before claiming the title of United States Marine.