 My name is Jack Allen Davis, retired Major General of the United States Marine Corps. I served in Parris Island in 1971 as a Soviet commander and a company commander, and then came back in 1999 as the acting depot of CG for a few months. The nation was going through a lot of turmoil over the Vietnam War, and for the troops it was irrelevant. We fought the fight. Parris Island was like a little isolated gem in more than one way because you weren't exposed to that. I think the way it is today, I think it's a little more physical. The recruits we had, many of them were going to Vietnam. So it was a different training scenario. I think we turned out good Marines in the Eastern Marine Corps here. This is a sacred place. I think the quality drill instructors seem to me to be as high as it ever was. They're good people, and they're screened well, and they work very hard. They're the hardest-working people in the world, I think. It's about building the team. It's about the mission first, people always. It's to make Marines and win battles. And if you follow that philosophy, you can't go wrong. My greatest hope is that they'll still be able to win the nation's battles, and that they'll do it. With the Honor Accursion Commitment, the Marines do. And we must not ever lower our standards for those who want to join. The Marine Corps used to have a recruiting slogan, that if everybody could be a Marine, it wouldn't be the Marines. It's critical to maintain the standards and the traditions. I think we can never lose those, because you can't have a lead organization if you don't have standards.