Boot: The Inside Story of How a Few Good Men Became Today's Marines

Recounting his return to boot camp on Parris Island, South Carolina, the author offers an inside view of the Marine Corps through eighty-eight days of survival, rifle practice, war games, and forced marches

This is one of the few recent books available to the general public that describe U.S. Marine Corps boot (basic combat) training, covering it from day one through graduation. The approach is journalistic, with clear writing that is often repetitious. The author compares selected activities and issues with his own 40-year-old experiences in an attempt to show that the training is not as tough as it once was, or should be. This thesis, however, is beside the point, since the approach to training has changed over the years, as have personnel needs. Boot training is not designed to make a complete Marine; it merely provides the basis for further training in individual units. Public, and perhaps high school, libraries may want a copy for young men interested in joining the Marine Corps. Edward Gibson, Union Coll. Lib., Barbourville, Ky. Copyright 1987 Cahners Business Information.

---

To research this book, novelist da Cruz, himself an ex-Marine, spent three months with the recruits of Platoon 1036 at Parris Island, S.C. He shows the eased training standards at Marine boot camp and quotes many enlistees who think the regimen is not nearly tough enough. Drill instructors, for example, may not use profanity at trainees, nor touch them; the process of converting trainees into Leathernecks involves much physical instruction, close-order drill, exercises in marksmanship and simulated combat. The aim is to instill a sense of self-respect and confidence and, more importantly, esprit de corps. There is a chapter on female Marines, whose attrition rate is exceedingly high. Da Cruz's argument that training has become ``too easy'' is off-putting, as is his glorification of the Marine as ``a different breed.'' Military Book Club main selection. (March 24) Copyright 1987 Cahners Business Information.