LogFAQs > #954797984

Its literally not as bad as it reads. As people have stated before ITT, thousands upon thousands of men and women alike have partaken in this exact exercise (me included) and have made it out alive. This isnt an issue with the training itself (as its designed to emulate real situations Marines have been through from WW2 to Iraq and Afghanistan. This is an issue of failed leadership. Either the DIs in charge of him were incredibly neglectful, or they werent properly trained well enough to watch out for the signs that he wasnt doing well.

I remember when I did it (in 2015) our squad had a specific DI who was doing literally every exercise with us and watching out for us. His job was no longer to make us absolutely miserable (as it was for the previous 3 months) but instead to help lead us and motivate us to make it to the end (with the only occasional use of negative reinforcement ). Not to mention, there are Navy Corpsmen at every corner of the event, watching over recruits to catch signs of heatstroke and other conditions. Ultimately every single one of us made it through, and at least from what I can tell, the whole thing is ultimately designed in a way where they want everyone to succeed.

In a way, the Crucible is more of a recruitment tactic than anything. Yes, it does absolutely freaking suck, and I wouldnt want to do it again any time soon. But in reality there are layers and layers of systems put in place to make sure as few people get hurt as possible.

So in my opinion, there was a critical failure somewhere in the execution of the exercise, or maybe even a systemic issue with the leadership that lead to too toxic of an environment that the recruits/Instructors could not identify or refused to identify the point in which the recruit needed medical attention. That is, unless the recruit had fallen ill before the event and never said anything about it (people do regularly get sick during Boot Camp and refuse to tell anybody).

---

Slow and steady wins the race