Photo By Sgt. Aaron Diamant | A female member of Marine Corps Recruiting Station Richmond’s delayed entry program...... read more read more
RICHMOND, Va. - For 24 female Marine poolees, May 16 was a taste of what was to come, as they participated in Marine Corps Recruiting Station Richmond’s annual statewide pool function.
The event was held to provide proper training and information to the young women in the recruiting station’s delayed entry program, in an effort to enhance their understanding of the challenges they will encounter as a recruit aboard Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island.
While the Corps maintains there is no such thing as Female Marines, they’re just Marines, Recruiting Station Richmond wanted to take an opportunity to prepare female poolees for the specific challenges they will face at recruit training, since females make up a small percentage of the Corps.
This goal was accomplished by having all of the female Marines in the command, as well as a female drill instructor, come to inform and work with the poolees on what to expect aboard the Corps’ second oldest post, and the place where all female Marines earn the title.
The poolees completed an initial strength test, went over vital documents, and received fitness and other classes, as well as, had the opportunity to ask questions to a drill instructor.
“There’s no specific way to prepare for boot camp. There’s no pre-boot camp program for them, and this is as close as they’ll get before they arrive at Parris Island. You just have to prepare the best you can, and go down there with the determination to make it every day,” said Staff Sgt. Jennifer Thiroux, a senior drill instructor with Oscar Company, Fourth Recruit Training Battalion, and native of Visalia, California.
The training was seen as a benefit by the poolees who attended, something to prepare them for the path to earning the title Marine.
“It’s a good help to start giving you a taste of what boot camp will be like, especially having a DI here,” said Frances Stover, a 25 year old native of Stuart, Virginia and a poolee from Recruiting Substation Roanoke. I think it’s great that they’re making an individualized female function, since females only make up seven percent of the Marine Corps, and it better prepares us for the rigors of recruit training.”
Women only comprise roughly seven percent of the Corps’ total manpower. But women are a crucial part of the Corps’ ability to engage with local populations in both war and peace. In some cultures, it is deemed inappropriate for women to speak to men whom they are not married to. The Corps overcame this challenge in both Iraq and Afghanistan by creating Female Engagement Teams, who were able to communicate with the local female populace, gathering information their male Marine counterparts would have not been able to acquire without creating animosity from the indigenous population, and illustrating the Corps age-old adage of improvising, adapting and overcoming.
The women of Recruiting Station Richmond’s delayed entry program left with more first-hand knowledge of boot camp and Marine Corps life, and motivated for the challenge of earning the title Marine.
| Date Taken: | 05.16.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 08.13.2015 08:49 |
| Story ID: | 173030 |
| Location: | US |
| Hometown: | STUART, VIRGINIA, US |
| Hometown: | VISALIA, CALIFORNIA, US |
| Web Views: | 142 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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