Crude Sexual Comments During Boot Camp Get Attention

The Marine Corps commissioned a report from the University of Pittsburgh. This report was over 700 pages long. It was commissioned for the gender integration project for boot camp in the spring of 2021. The report revealed stunning numbers revealing crude sexual comments that were made to recruits. This report was read by Lt. Gen. Kevin Iiams, the Commander of the Marine Corps Training and Education Command.

Inside the University of Pittsburgh report ― which ultimately would stretch to more than 700 pages and cover topics ranging from recruits’ injury rates to boot camp staffing challenges ― one annex grabbed Iiams’ attention. It detailed all the “sexually demeaning and gender-based language” described by drill instructors and recruits in focus groups the university had run.

Within days, Iiams made back-to-back trips to Marine Corps Recruit Depots Parris Island, South Carolina, and San Diego to address staff and drill instructors directly.

“My assessment at that point was, this is not something that could actually wait,” Iiams told Marine Corps Times in an end of September interview. “There was no way that we could have let this go on, if this was actually still festering.”

The independent study was commissioned in 2020 as the Marine Corps faced a directive from Congress to make boot camp training fully coed at both Marine Corps recruit depots within eight years.

Paul Crespo