Naval Academy midshipmen recently returned from Marine Corps Base, Quantico, Va., where they spent four weeks of their first block of summer training participating in the Leatherneck Program.
The program is designed to train, evaluate, advise and mentor senior midshipmen considering a career in the U.S. Marine Corps.
“It's a little less than four weeks,” said Marine Corps Col. John C. Kennedy, director of the Humanities and Social Sciences Division. “We give them a taste of the Marine Corps in general and some of the things they will experience at the Basic School. It's an introduction to some of things that we in the Marine Corps like, such as physical fitness and discipline.”
During their four weeks at Quantico, the midshipmen underwent a series of training exercises designed to enhance their military, physical and leadership skills. They were evaluated based on the same criteria used for selecting newly commissioned Marine Corps officers.
“They've been teaching us a lot about what will be expected of us when we become leaders of our troops,” said Midshipman 1st Class Jaskirat Legha.
Exercises included day and night land navigation, military skills tests, obstacle and endurance courses, physical fitness tests, and confidence and leadership reaction courses at the Officer Candidate School.
“It's a chance for them to look at us and see if the Marine Corps is something that is for them,” Kennedy said. “It's also a chance for us to look at them to see if they have the qualities and characteristics needed to become a Marine Corps officer.”
“To see the passion that Marine Corps officers have now to lead Marines – not just the everyday activities of pursuing the enemy, but understanding the men and women you work with – I really love that passion that the Marine officers hold,” said Midshipman 1st Class Marilyn Pendlyshok. “I want to embody that passion.”
The culminating event was a two-day squad field exercise that required the midshipmen to combine and use all the elements of what they learned over the course of four weeks. The midshipmen were graded on their ability to lead a squad of their peers through the Quantico-area terrain in an assault on a defined objective. The exercise ended with a nine-mile night hike back to the barracks.
