Just before the dawn of the Global War on Terror, Kieran Michael Lalor left his career as a high school social studies teacher, endeavoring to fulfill his lifelong dream. Lalor followed his father and brother’s footsteps into the United States Marine Corps. This Recruit presents Lalor’s nightly journal entries, beginning with the uneasy trip to the recruiter’s office and the eerily quiet midnight bus ride to Parris Island. Lalor describes the wicked combination of fatigue, nerves, disorientation, misery, loneliness, and homesickness that conspire to keep him from his goal-along with the hours of close order drill, push-ups, hand-to-hand combat training, the pit, and the unrelenting mind games.

Witness the nasty recruit-on-recruit infighting that results when young men struggle to survive while being pushed past their limits physically, mentally, and emotionally. Gaze at the target from the five hundred yard line on Qualification Day, when failure means at least an extra two weeks on the island and the added humiliation of failing the quintessential test of a Marine. Experience the rappel tower, night firing, the infiltration courses, and long, back-crushing humps. Struggle with Lalor and his platoon as they try to overcome the Crucible, the final obstacle before claiming the title of United States Marine.