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The McClure case indicates that the Marines have been forced to lower their standards to sign up the 50,000 recruits needed annually to maintain the corps' authorized strength of 196,000 officers and enlisted personnel. Recruiting slogans proclaim: "We want a few good men," but D.I.s have been encountering more than a few "problem recruits."
The situation is reflected in statistics. The 1975 Marine Corps AWOL rate of 300 per 1,000 personnel was greater than that of the other services combined. The desertion rate of 105 per 1,000 enlisted men was twice that of the other services combined. Bad-conduct discharges were given to 2.3% of the Marines in 1975, compared with .5% for the Army. By increasing the proportion of high school graduates among 1975 recruits from 55% to 67%, the corps has improved on those figures: so far this year, the desertion rate has declined by 31%, the AWOL rate by 29%.
The corps is taking other steps. It is now subjecting prospective drill instructors to psychiatric evaluations. To supervise D.I.s more closely, the corps is assigning 84 additional officers to recruit-training depots. Training days will be reduced from a bruising 16 hours to ten, with one hour of free time each evening and Sundays off. "Motivation platoons" will be eliminated.
But still unanswered is the question posed in a recent study by the Brookings Institution: Is there even a need for a specialized, basically amphibious assault force like the Marine Corps in modern warfare? The Marines argue that a "close support" role will always be required. Rejecting that view, Brookings urges that the corps be reduced by half, or part of it assigned to Army roles.
To generations of Marines trained to disdain Army "dogfaces," that would be an inglorious outcome. It may also be an inevitable direction for the corps that fought so valiantly from Tripoli and Belleau Wood to Corregidor, Korea and Viet Nam.