Stephen Grote Photography

Artist's Statement 

Pain. Struggle. Power. Savagery. Raw Emotion. These are the things that strum my memory of the island. But Parris Island is about both internal and external transformation. It is about accepting people for who they are and what they can do instead of harboring prejudices and stereotypes; strengthening the mind when physical exercises are building the body; and being human, while at the same time being able to tap into the machine, the part of us devoid of emotion that allows us to get things done under constant pressure.

The process starts by stripping individual personality. The Corps issues each recruit what he will need during his stay on Parris Island. On the first night, not thirty minutes after the recruits step off the bus their heads are shaved and they are handed the clothes and hygiene products they will need during their boot camp stay. When civilian attire is packaged and placed in storage the desensitization process begins. There is endless yelling, drill instructor spittle splattering across recruit faces, finger pointing and sheer torture for any mistake. Recruits walk a fine line between insanity and blind obedience. Then, when all seems lost, recruits instantaneously respond to the commands, act, and react with a purpose. 
    
The day I stepped off the bus onto Parris Island I grew up. I learned to accept responsibility, put aside prejudices and work under mental and physical stress. The three months I spent on the island were collectively the best and worst three months of my life. I learned self-discipline, determination and confidence in my abilities by being broken down, pushed to my self-imposed mental and physical limits then, having to keep going, I learned to trust and rely on those around me.  By spurring each other on we became a team. There was no "I" or "me", there was "this recruit requests" and "platoon 1012 reports". We never left our buddies behind or in need. If somebody fell down, the person beside him picked him up and helped him finish the task at hand.

It would have been impossible to take pictures while going through the training process, but I wanted a visual record of both the personal and platoon struggle; the agony, anguish, exuberance and exhilaration that each recruit and the platoon experienced. Fourteen years have passed since I graduated Parris Island as a Marine. I have no regrets.  

Stephen Grote
LaGrange, GA

Show Introduction

MARINE  BOOT CAMP is a 12-week long movie that all Marines have in common, whether they went through Parris Island in 1917 or 1997. It is a major reason that the Marine Corps remains a band of brothers.

Yes, basic training might change in some ways. Many old salts think it is too soft nowadays. But the essence remains the same at Parris Island. Boot camp is about a group of young people being pushed harder than they have ever been pushed before, being tested in new ways, and emerging changed at the end of their struggle. The Marine Corps does something at Parris Island that doesn’t seem to happen in American high schools much anymore: It challenges youth, changes them, teaches them to think about others before they think about themselves, teaches them to always try to do their best, no matter how trivial the task.

Nearly every recruit cries at one point in boot camp. The cause is sometimes physical, such as a sprained ankle or twisted knee. But I think it is usually mental or emotional, the result of intense exhilaration and frustration during the transformative experience. The intensity of those emotions is ably captured in many of these photographs.

There are deep paradoxes about Marine boot camp.

First of all, though it is about joining a military service, the Parris Island experience really isn’t about military training. It is about cultural indoctrination, about becoming a member of the Marine Corps family. The real military training comes later.

Second, and more importantly, is the way boot camp deals with the individual. Recruits are told to submerge their individualism, to become team members of the group. They learn to walk alike, eat alike, talk alike, and even to think alike B regardless of their race, religion, or family background. Yet every day recruits are tested as individuals: Can you shoot straight? Can you swing a pugil stick? Can you do anything right, recruit? Can you do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done? Ultimately, are you somebody your comrades would want to have in the next foxhole?

That paradox carries through even to the last day of the boot camp experience: graduation, when the recruit is finally told he or she is a Marine. And there is the biggest paradox of all: Having submerged that individualism, having learned to think about the group before thinking about one’s self, these young people emerge with a stronger sense of self, with improved self-esteem. Look at these photographs, and you will see men caught at crucial moments in their lives, when they are undergoing the pain and joy of intense and rapid change. They are becoming different people. They are becoming Marines.


Thomas E. Ricks
Wall Street Journal Pentagon Correspondent
Author of the book “Making the Corps”