With all due respect to Arthur Miller and his fine work, the term “The Crucible” has an entirely different meaning when it comes to the making of a United States Marine. It’s the last test that they face after the nightmare that is known as boot camp. Any recruits who fail to pass the challenge will most likely be “recycled” to another phase in basic training or failing that, be dropped all together.

The “test” takes place over fifty-four hours and during that time you can expect to be starved, deprived of sleep and physically challenged like you’ve never been physically challenged before. Here’s the skinny on what will be expected of you:

Over the three days, you’ll be walking approximately forty two miles. This isn’t any casual stroll up and down Main Street either. Besides full packs, water, food and weapons, at times you’ll be humping extra fifty pound cans of ammunition and dummies that weigh up to another one hundred pounds. Don’t worry about the food though, during the entire fifty four hours, you’ll only get to eat three times.

You and your fellow prospective jarheads will be expected to act as a team during the entire exercise to overcome and persevere in some pretty extreme conditions. Don’t worry about the weather either, it goes on rain or shine

Ooh fuckin’ rah! What do I have do?

Well, first of all, make it to the last week of boot camp. All of the “events” in the Crucible are designed as such to display your physical abilities as well as to make sure that such things as map reading and survival skills have taken hold in that thing you call a brain.

Day One

”REVEILLE! REVEILLE! REVEILLE! “Drop your cocks and grab your socks!”

If you’re a male, that’s the wake up call you’ll mostly hear from your Drill Instructor. Unfortunately it’ll be 0200 hundred hours. That’s 2:00 AM for those of you who don’t comprehend military time. Once you’re up, you’ll have exactly one hour to pack your shit and be ready to traipse off into the wilderness at precisely 0300.

You have three hours to make the six mile trek to the actual cite of the Crucible.

Day One - Event One

Starting at 0600 you’ll be split into teams in order to resupply your buddies with food, water and ammo and no, a trip to the local Wal-Mart just doesn’t cut it. You’ll have to negotiate trenches, wire fences, walls and logs suspended in the air and supported by cables. You should be done in about one hour.

After that, you can expect to negotiate an obstacle course and then engage of some good old fashioned hand to hand combat and then engage in some case study time about war time situations.

Day One – Event Two

For this little event, you have three hours in which your team will be expected to handle any unusual situation or problem that is thrown their way. A random sample includes the teams use of three wooden boards to make it across a field of stumps with out a team member touching the ground and using what little resources available, try getting a huge container over a wall to your buddies trapped on the other side.

After that’s all said and done, have some fun and games in the form of bashing each others heads in with some good old fashioned pugil sticks.

Day One –Event Three

For this one, you have one hour for your team to rescue a “downed” pilot and one of your other platoon members who has been “shot” and carry them back to safety through about a mile of wooded terrain.

After that, you have to transport a dummy playing the role of a wounded soldier on stretcher through a standard Marine Corps obstacle course. No short cuts either, you have to negotiate each and every obstacle.

Next, expect to climb a 500 meter hill that gradually rises in grade and once you get to the top, you’ll have five minutes to call in co-ordinates on a map to initiate an air strike.

After that, it’s lecture time and one of your DI’s will rant on about a “Marine Corp core value” or other some such thing.

Finally, at about 1800 hours, you’ll strap your packs to your backs and hump five miles to the next site. You have three hours to finish and if you do, you can hit the sack.

Day Two – Event Four

Well, you won’t get that much sleep because at 0400, it’s time to try something called the “Combat Assault Resupply”. You’ll have one hour to negotiate the course that includes crossing a “contaminated” area by swinging on ropes, scaling a ten-foot wall and climbing down the other side using knotted ropes and then demonstrating your ability to read a map. After that, expect a quick lecture from your DI on another of the Marines “core values”.

Day Two – Event Five

Here, you and your buddies get to practice on something called ‘The Confidence Course”. There are four exercises that you must complete within a two hour time frame to complete the exercise.

The Sky Scraper -A wounded dummy is placed on top of an eighteen-foot tower. Your job is to retrieve him and get him down without dropping him.

Stairway to Heaven – the members of your team will move two ammunition cans weighing about 50 pounds each over the top of a thirty six foot ladder type obstacle.

Two-Line Bridge – here you’ll have to cross fifty two feet of ropes that are suspended in the air using your hands and feet. The ropes are suspended anywhere between two and ten feet off the ground. Oh yeah, you’ll be carrying those ammo cans as well as water resupply cans.

The Weaver – last but not least, you’ll have to crawl over and under twenty four logs in a distance of forty two feet and rising fourteen feet still dragging those damn cans with you.

Day Two – Event Six

If there’s one thing every Marine needs to know it’s how to shoot a rifle. In this little exercise, teams of four have seventy seconds to fire off ten rounds at targets set out at an unknown distance. The number of hits are recorded and any unused ammo is used against your total score.

To cap things off on Day Two, you’ll do a little night exercise that lasts from 1900 hours until 2300 hours. You’ll have to negotiate the Combat Assault Course in order to resupply your fellow Marines with water, food, and of course, ammunition. This time though, you won’t have the luxury of daylight.

At approximately midnight, feel free to get some sleep.

Day Three – Event One

Awake at 0300 hours, pack your trash and strap it to your backs. At 0400 hours you’ve got a nine and a half mile hump back to barracks that has to be done in under four hours.

Day Three - Event Two

For those that have made it and barring any last minute fuck ups, you’ve earned the title of United States Marine. You can expect a breakfast that consists of all the steak, eggs, and potatoes that you can eat.

Congratulations Marine!

Source(s) http://www.mcrdpi.usmc.mil/fact_sheet.htm