\"You don't want the truth..

...because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline."

Ritual and Tradition

There is a tradition in the Marines that I would categorize as "voluntary hazing".  It's called "The Gauntlet".

When a Marine is promoted, they have to traverse The gauntlet. 

Marines are typically promoted in front of a Platoon, Company, or Battalion formation.  Once the formation has been dismissed, is when the gauntlet is formed.  It is what it sounds like.

Chillin' in Formation

Marines form up 2 lines facing each other.  The gauntlet could be only formed by Marines the same rank, or higher rank than the promoted Marine.  PFCs were not allowed to be in gauntlets for newly promoted LCpls.

The promoted Marine then has to travel to one end of the gauntlet, and back to the beginning. 

It's what happens in the gauntlet is what can be pretty nasty.  When Non-NCOs are promoted (Private First Class, Lance Corporal), they take off their Cammie blouse and roll up their T-shirt sleeves.  Then they start their walk.  Marines on each side of the Marine then proceed to punch the promoted Marine once on his upper arm, typically at the same time as the Marine on the other side of the gauntlet.  They also tend to punch pretty damn hard.

This continues all the way down to the end of the gauntlet, where the promoted Marine then does an about face, and makes his way back to the beginning.  Again, getting punched on the arms on both sides all the way down.  Once at the end, the Marine then has the option to kick out 20 push-ups if he thinks he can.

You can imagine how sore and bruised some people could get.  Luckily, when I was promoted to PFC and LCpl, my units were small, so my gauntlets were small.  Only problem, was that we had a lot of weight lifters in my unit, so they punched pretty damn hard.

We had one Marine who was was bruised so much from his gauntlet, he could barely move his arms for a week.

Now, when a Marine was promoted from non-NCO to NCO, the gauntlet got even nastier.

In the Marines, NCOs and Officers wear a "blood stripe" on their pants when wearing their dress blues.  This stripe commemorates the Battle of Chapultepec during the Mexican War in 1846.  NCOs and Officers paid a high price during this battle, so as such, they are the only ones authorized to wear the blood stripe.

So, when promoted, the gauntlet changes for a NCO.  Instead of being punched in the arms, he instead receives knees to his upper legs.  This gauntlet for me sucked.  I had a high number of NCOs in my unit when I was promoted to Corporal, and they all participated in the gauntlet.  I was bruised and sore for days, and had trouble walking, let alone running.

In a twist from the promotion ceremony, the Re-enlistment Ceremony for Senior NCOs could be somewhat twisted. 

We had a Gunnery Sgt. re-enlist for the 4 year period that would take him to 20 years.  Since this was a somewhat special ceremony, and our unit loved our Gunny, he held the formation outside, in the rain.

Gunny Nelson, being the fun loving man he is, decided that he would lead our platoon in a little exercise at the completion of his ceremony...  in the rain.

We did some push-ups, and then went for a little run around the base.  Proceeding to run through every puddle and mudhole on the base.

Unfortunately, a couple of Marines got sick from this run, but it was still quite fun.

Its no wonder people think Marines are crazy.