Reporter Shawn Skager spent a week observing the U.S. Marine Corps during recruit basic training in San Diego. To read more from his time in San Diego, click here.

They call it The Crucible.

For a Marine Corps recruit, it is the final test, the last chance to prove he has the physical and mental toughness to become a United States Marine.

For 54 hours, recruits make their way through The Crucible. Operating on just four hours of sleep a night and three meals, they will march more than 40 miles to confront physical and mental tasks conceived to simulate the rigors of combat.

At issue —  whether the recruit has absorbed the extensive training he has received in the past 11 weeks.

“This is it, this is everything they have learned, and they are tested on it,” said Col. Robert W. Gates, Chief of Staff for Marine Corps Recruit Training San Diego. “It all goes toward determining if the recruit has the mental toughness to become a Marine.”

The final task of The Crucible is a nine-mile hike with 80-pound pack and 8-pound M16A4 service rifle. At the end The Reaper awaits, a 700-feet peak in Camp Pendleton, a Marine base 49 miles north of San Diego.

At the top waits the ultimate prize —  the Marine Corps emblem, the Eagle, Globe and Anchor. It is bestowed in a ceremony that marks the completion of The Crucible and the first time the recruit is officially called a Marine.

“When I reached the very top my senior drill instructor told me to control my emotions,” said David Gubarik, a Marine from Auburn. “I kept a straight face but inside I had tears of joy in my heart. It was an incredible feeling like nothing I’ve ever felt before.”

The Journey Begins

Although every male Marine recruit west of the Mississippi begins his training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) San Diego – females and males from the east go to MCRD Parris Island in South Carolina – the actual journey begins when they sign their enlistment papers at the local recruiting office.

Because of the small size of the Corps, just over 200,000 active duty Marines currently serving, that means most join on a deferred basis.

For Shane Rogers, a recruit from Enumclaw, that meant several months between his enlistment and his actual reporting day in January to prepare for the mental and physical requirements of Marine training.

Led by recruiters from the Marine Corps recruiting office in Covington, Rogers used his time wisely.

“They got me pretty physically fit and taught me all my general orders and rank structure before I left,” Rogers said. “They prepared me pretty well. They tell you what is going to happen pretty much. I think I was pretty well prepared mentally.”

In January, Rogers caught a plane from SeaTac Airport bound for MCRD San Diego.

“I got into the airport at 10 at night,” Rogers said. “I remember they gave us this coupon for a meal, but I didn’t get to use it. One of the instructors saw us and lined us up in the middle of the night in the cold air for two hours waiting for everybody else to land. The buses were there and we waited out in the cold standing at attention.”

Soon the new recruits were on the road, heading for MCRD and the yellow footprints, the starting place for every Marine who joins the Corps.

“We got on the bus and had to sit with our heads between our legs,” Rogers said. “Then we got there, got yelled at and got lined up on the yellow footprints. Then we took off our regular clothes, put on camo bottoms and PT tops. We got our heads shaved and started all looking the same and split up into different platoons. It was a lot of ‘hurry, hurry up we’re late.’ Then we’d get there and wait.”

Making a Marine

Soon the shock of being a recruit wears off and the real business of training begins.

By the time recruits become Marines after 13 weeks of boot camp, they are honed to fine edge physically, able to sprint 880 yards wearing boots in less than 3 minutes and 48 seconds. They are able to lift a 30-pound ammo can from the chest over the head 45 times in 2 minutes. They can perform the maneuver-under-fire event – a 300-yard shuttle run where recruits carry two 30-pound ammo cans for more than 100 yards and simulate a rescue of a wounded comrade all while zig-zagging and crawling through a marked course – in under 3:29.

They will have spent hours training in the Marine Martial Arts Program and become proficient in unarmed combat.

Hours will be spent on a rifle range, learning how to fire the M16A4 service rifle accurately out to 500 yards.

More importantly, however, they will learn how to think like a Marine and gained a self-confidence cultured by his drill instructors over the past 10 weeks.

“I don’t wake up thinking I want to go home,” Rogers said. “I just wake up thinking about what’s next. I was really excited for boot camp because it’s the next phase of my life. There was never a point where I wanted to go home or didn’t’ want to be here.”

After The Crucible, the newly minted Marines will graduate with the rest of their recruit company. They will march at the central parade grounds in dress uniform for the first time. After retiring the platoon guidons, the flags they have carried for the past 13 weeks, the Marines will be dismissed.

After a 10-day leave to return to home and visit family and friends, it’s off to Marine Combat Training at Camp Pendleton where they become a combat ready infantryman.

Then they will attend a school to learn their job in the military (Military Occupational Speciality or MOS) and be assigned a duty station where they will serve as an active-duty Marine for the next four years. After that, it’s four years as a reservist.

For many, the Marines are an opportunity to serve their country while bettering themselves.

That holds true for Stormy Starkey, a recruit from Kent.

“I’m grateful for the opportunity,” Starkey said. “I don’t regret it at all. You don’t really see any kids here who do. It’s a life-changing experience. I can already feel myself changing for the better as far as growing and becoming disciplined. I’m definitely changing as a person.”