Inside the Corps' Latest Vision for Its Marines and Their Futures

When you open a Marine Corps tactical publication, you might expect to find the following: lessons on how to fight and win battles, a recap of the service's heritage, and a profusion of spirit unique to the Corps.

"Sustaining the Transformation," the service's latest tactical publication issued Wednesday, is no different in those ways, and its chief concepts are familiar to the service. In fact, Gen. Eric Smith, the commandant of the Marine Corps, essentially says in the foreword that the publication's principles have "endured for nearly 250 years."

But to say it's like most other Marine Corps literature would be a mistake. Inside the 130-odd pages is an uncharacteristically reflective guide for Marines to follow as they embark on their careers, as well as concepts that break with the public perception of Marines -- that is, if you're learning about them only from movies and TV.

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Can a junior Marine question whether their training is best preparing them to fight? Are there times for individuality in an organization known for its strict adherence to conformity? Is there a life after the Corps, according to the Corps itself?

In "Sustaining the Transformation," the answer to those questions is "yes."

"I know it's difficult for someone who may read this; they may be thinking the only focus is to make sure your only mission is to ensure that the Marine is ready to fight," Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Carlos Ruiz told Military.com in a recent interview. "Yes, agreed. But these are not pieces of furniture. These are people."

The publication is broken down into 10 chapters, including its foreword and conclusion. The bulk focuses on each level of Marine, from junior enlisted Devil Dog to field-grade officer. Writers offer guidance on how to succeed through critical and often difficult career moments, complete with parables and reflections supported by anthropologists, writers and psychologists.

"Regardless of rank, and in the absence of any other Marines, all Marines are at least leaders of themselves," the publication says, for example. Its message is succinct: "Know your Marines and look out for their welfare."

When a Marine joins a new unit, they may have a hard time fitting in and finding friends. When a junior Marine reaches the rank of noncommissioned officer, they may lose those same friends. When a new lieutenant takes command of a platoon, they should be humble -- seeking mentorship -- but confident in their own lived experience. Senior noncommissioned officers and field grade officers are not above mentorship themselves, the publication says.

"Even a senior staff noncommissioned officer who has been in 15-something years, there are still things they need to think about in leading Marines at new levels of responsibilities," retired Marine Maj. Ian Brown, who co-hosts War on the Rocks' "Marine Pulse" podcast and recently interviewed Ruiz about the publication, told Military.com on Friday. "And, oh, by the way, they deserve mentorship too; they deserve somebody guiding and helping them."

Empathy, spiritual health, investing "sacrificially" -- all concepts within "Sustaining the Transformation" that make it more of a mirror to the institution and its people, rather than a straightforward edict. It also charges leaders with removing obstacles that block subordinates from achieving those ideals.

"I want to leave behind the stigma that, if you ask for help, that you're not good, that we're just going to shove you away and you're broken, so there's no recovery for you because you sought mental help, you were having a hard time for a short period of time." Ruiz said. "I want to leave that behind."

He also wants to do away with the leader who "hides behind" their chevrons and uses fear and intimidation. He wants to examine oddities in the Marine Corps, ones that have fallen under the guise of standards for decades but may no longer be appropriate in a 21st-century service.

"There are some things that maybe we should take a look at and say, 'Those no longer apply,'" Ruiz said. "It doesn't mean we're less disciplined. It just means that we need to let go of some baggage in order to move forward."

Ruiz told Military.com that the publication was made for Marines by Marines -- junior and senior. The writing group convened in the summer of 2021 aboard Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, and has spent the last three years curating the publication. It was published Wednesday in tandem with "Leading Marines," a slightly shorter volume that supports the core concepts expressed in "Sustaining the Transformation," but through a lens of leadership.

In an information age in which good and bad actors seek to influence the force, the senior enlisted leader wanted a new -- but rooted -- way for Marines to understand their service, straight from the institution itself.

It is a revision of a same-titled publication from 1999, which was published under the leadership of Gen. Charles Krulak, the 31st commandant of the Marine Corps. It was updated in 2014. That publication served as the foundation for the new guidance, but it generally stopped at the early career stages of the Marine Corps. This one goes further.

Ruiz said that the first 30 days at a unit should be just as important as the last, when Marines are often seen by their peers and superiors as having a foot out the door. He said that it's important to see that Marine through to the next chapter of civilian life, because the experience they had in the Corps may influence the next generation of Marines looking to don the Eagle, Globe and Anchor themselves.

"I speculate that part of why the new version shifts away from this is a larger recognition of changing demographics, challenges in recruiting and retention," Brown said. "[It's] a realization that we can't just fill the gaps in the force by just recruiting our way out of it. We need to retain, and if we're going to retain, that means you need to take a look at what keeps you in, what sustains you to stay in the Marine Corps."

Brown said he wouldn't be surprised if some veterans of the service might be wary of the new publication. For Ruiz, it's just a part of the conversation -- one tied to ideas and values that have always been.

"When one hesitates, the other one will not and then the other one will follow. When one stumbles, the other one picks them up. It's always existed," Ruiz said. "So to that veteran who may think this is soft, I think the reason why they still are connected and would care about that is because of the people that they spent their time with in service."

At the same time, the publication also doesn't shy away from the service's failures. Between recent examples of Marine triumph, such as a junior logistics officer leading her convoy through 50-plus hours of heavy fighting, lie warnings about complacency.

It references attacks on Marines in Beirut, Lebanon, in the early 1980s in which "Marine senior leaders assumed force protection and security procedures were adequate and being handled by forces outside their command. Their failure to assess the capabilities and limitations of both friendly and enemy forces resulted in a deadly enemy attack."

Other examples include a 2013 incident in which a Marine was killed during a training event, and troops being killed by negligent weapon discharges.

"At the very least, complacency creates low morale and missed opportunity," it says. "At worst, it costs lives."

Between the original guidance in 1999, published on the eve of the Global War on Terror, and the recent iteration, the literature represents a book end to that conflict in some ways, with an eye forward.

While Ruiz said that Marines are ready to take on the Middle East if called upon to do so again, that past experience does not guarantee success for the future.

"It is what matters to us, especially as a senior enlisted leader, is that the morale, the proficiency, the discipline, the training of the Marine, continues to evolve to meet the needs of the next fight," he said. If Marines are training based on past experiences, "we're gonna get our ass kicked, and we need to evolve quickly to make sure that we're ready for the next fight."

"You might have done really good 20 years ago," he said. "It ain't gonna be good enough in 10 years."

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