The few and the proud: from the sands of Iwo Jima to the deserts of Iraq: Marine Corps drill instructors in their own words

Chuck Taliano -- Iron Mike Mervosh -- Camp Pendleton -- Bill Paxton -- Ed Walls -- Camp Lejeune -- Dave Robles -- Robert Mastrion -- Eddie Adams -- Matthew C. McKeon -- Morton Janklow -- James Wheeler -- Gene Alvarez -- The yellow footprints -- Marines and the movies: R. Lee Ermey -- Mike Malachowsky -- The Crucible -- Montford Point: How blacks made it into the marines: Gene Doughty -- Herman Rhett -- Ellis Cunningham -- David Dinkins -- Women marines: the fight for equality: Denise Kreuser -- Doris Kleberger -- Mary Sue League -- Jeanne Botwright -- Christine Henning -- Women counting cadence -- The new breed: the more things change the more things stay the same: Rodolfo Rodriguez -- Clint Kreuser -- Josh Wylie -- Rob Bush -- Will Post -- Keith Burkepile -- Men counting cadence -- The known marine.;Beginning with interviews with the last surviving drill instructors of World War II, this oral history offers the voices of veterans from every major war of the last sixty years, concluding with accounts of what it takes to train marines for Iraq today. It contains revelatory details about the vicious training techniques used to prepare marines for the great battles against Japan in the Pacific; the Ribbon Creek training disaster of the 1950s; and legendary stories by the likes of Iwo Jima veteran "Iron" Mike Mervosh and R. Lee Ermey, the infamous drill instructor from Full Metal Jacket. With death-defying accounts relayed from the MCRD in San Diego and the legendary Parris Island, The Few and the Proud is both a personal history of the 230-year-old U.S. Marine Corps and a repository of heroism, leadership, and determination in the toughest division of the United States military.--From publisher description.