The journey to become a member of the United States Marine Corps begins on the yellow footprints, an outline on the ground where thousands of marines have stood.
The Marine Corps Recruiting Depot in San Diego, California is where new recruits west of the Mississippi go for boot camp. The first thing they learn is how to take direction and stand in formation.
“Be humble, expect changes, be ready to work, it’s going to be challenging,” drill instructor GySgt. Thiago Mocarzel said.
From the yellow footprints recruits are rushed to the contraband room where the last reminders of their old lives are stripped away. It’s a night Plainview recruit, Javier Ceballos, experienced a few weeks ago.
“It’s weird, the transition, pretty much they’re making us marines and feeling like you’re no longer a civilian,” Ceballos said.
The recruits then make a final call home, read from a script, before they get their heads shaved. The first few hours set the tone for what life will be like for the next three months.
“I wasn’t used to it, now it’s just in one ear out the other, but then it was like, wow this is crazy,” Ceballos said.
The yellow footprints are a longstanding tradition that marines rarely forget.
“They’ll remember their pick up day, the very first day when they stood on the yellow footprints for the rest of their lives,” GySgt. Thiago Mocarzel said.
