Hard Corps, One Marine’s Journey from Gangbanger to Leatherneck Hero
By Marco Martinez, Crown Publishing 2007
Review by Staff Sgt. Leo Salinas, Headquarters Marine Corps
Bookstores won’t put Marco Martinez’s memoir in their how-to sections, but they should. “Hard Corps, One Marine’s Journey from Gangbanger to Leatherneck Hero,” gives how-tos on several topics:
How to transcend from a tough upbringing to a tough service.
How to be a leader.
How to be a warrior.
“Hard Corps” isn’t ghostwritten. It’s tough, edgy, chaotic and beautiful. It is war, devoid of etiquette and style, told by a hard-nosed, gung ho sergeant.
Martinez said he wrote the book as if he was sitting there talking to the reader. His conversational tone keeps a relaxed reader, even when navigating the darkest points of a young man’s life.
A Marine himself, he leaves nothing out in correlating the enlisted majority and the warrior minority. Martinez wrote this book to express the bond between men during warfare as real, not just something seen in movies. He also wanted to show how young enlisted Marines interact with each other when higher-ups weren’t present.
With abrasive candor, Martinez showcases his enlisted experiences. His unpleasant times in boot camp and enlightening times in Iraq graphically detail the nuances Marines can, and sometimes cannot, identify. Many facets are comical, even if they might be disparaging. Marines have been called devil dogs and leathernecks, but Martinez is the first to call the ones in recruit training “Martha Stewarts with shaved heads.”
The ending feels as if it comes up short, but then the reader remembers that Martinez is only 24 years old. His story swirls with details, from growing up around gang violence to receiving the Navy Cross. The most prevailing details paint the exemplary battlefield courage of the fighting men in Martinez’s regiment, the 5th Marines.
Martinez attributes earning the Navy Cross to living by the high standards set in the same regiment of Marines – the most decorated in the Corps – that fought at Belleau Wood and the Chosin Reservoir.
“You don’t want to meet that standard they set; you want to exceed it,” he said.
This book exceeds the standards of a warrior’s biography. It’s important to remember that this is Martinez’s story, and not every Marine’s is the same. Non-infantry Marines might shake their heads in disbelief, while grunts all over will nod in agreement.
