MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- Recruits of Company I, 3rd Recruit Training Battalion, worked in fire teams to accomplish 12 obstacles during the Crucible at Edson Range, Nov. 13.
Each exercise was within a stall which made 12 stalls all together. During each obstacle, fire teams were given a set of tools and instructions to complete each mission. The instructions gave them guidelines in which they had to abide to complete the mission correctly.
The Crucible is a 54-hour test of endurance in which recruits must conquer more than 30 different obstacles while they experience food and sleep deprivation.
“All Marines are leaders and must train to lead their fellow Marines even as a Private First Class or Lance Corpal,” said Sgt. Preston T. Brown, Platoon 3205. “The platoon breaks into small fire teams which helps develop small unit leadership within the recruits helping produce well-rounded Marines.”
Each station held a different set of rules they had to go through, but one rule that stayed the same was recruits could not touch anything painted red on the obstacle or it simulated they were dead and had to retry the event.
If a recruit did touch red, they had to run approximately 100 yards with two ammunition cans and buddy drag a fellow recruit back before returning to retry the event.
Although recruits of Co. I was only on hour five of the Crucible, you could still see the exhaustion setting in the faces of recruits as they made their way through the 12 stalls.
For exercise 12 of the course, recruits crawled through two tunnels, and used two planks to maneuver across three wooden posts that stuck out of the ground at different heights. While making their way across recruits could had to make sure everyone got across, all the gear had to go across and recruits could not touch the red on any part of the obstacle.
Without the recruits working as a team none of these obstacle would be possible to accomplish, explained Recruit Andrew B. Hernandez.
Throughout the event recruits grasp the concept of the combat scenarios and understand the importance of mission accomplishment.
“Each obstacle requires communication between the recruits to assure everyone is working together on the same page,” said 19- year-old Hernandez, a Rockwall Texas native. “Communication within your unit is the determining factor between success or failure, and failure is not an option in the Marine Corps.”
As recruits are going through the 12 stalls, Marines supervise over the recruits on a platform that over sees the entire course to make sure recruits are performing the obstacles correctly and watching for their safety.
Every recruit gets the opportunity to lead throughout the 12 stalls as they do through the Crucible within their fire teams, explained 25-year-old Brown, a New Orleans, Louisiana native.
Once recruits have completed the Crucible and earned the title Marine, they will progress their way through their Marine Corps career by going through Marine Combat Training or Infantry Training Battalion, and then complete their Military Occupation Specialty where they will then be since to the Marine Fleet Force and have the chance to deploy with their MOS.