When asked about sign-up bonuses, the Marine Corps assistant commandant declared: “Your bonus is that you get to call yourself a Marine.”
Ah, United States Marines, stewards of a martial tradition dating back 248 years and the undefeated world champs when it comes to one-upping someone by having it worse. More than expeditionary warfare, excellence in the basic, esprit de corps, and small unit leadership, it’s the ability of individual Marines to take pride in their suffering — no matter how needless — that defines the service.
Recently, this was put on display when the Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Eric Smith spoke about enlistment bonuses in the context of the U.S. military’s ongoing struggle recruitment.
“Your bonus is that you get to call yourself a Marine,” Smith said at the 2023 West naval conference in San Diego, according to Military Times. “That’s your bonus … there’s no dollar amount that goes with that.”
The reply was so pitch-perfect and on brand for the Corps that it sounds like it was ghost-written by the spirit of R. Lee Ermey’s drill instructor from Full Metal Jacket, then edited by the ghost of Chesty Puller, with a final review by the phantom of two-time Medal of Honor recipient Smedley Butler, before being read aloud to an auditorium packed with the souls of countless lance corporals. It’s also not the first time a Marine Corps leader has suggested that pay is inversely proportionate to morale among Marines. In 2014, then-Sgt. Maj. of the Marine Corps Micheal Barrett testified before Congress that pay cuts “will raise discipline.”
But is it true? Is being a Marine all the bonus Marines need? Maybe not for the lance corporals and below across the globe living in barracks that may or may not be moldy, making between $2,150 and $2,500 a month depending on rank and years of service, and especially not when they find out fellow junior enlisted in the Navy are eligible for up to $50,000 to enlist, to say nothing of the Army and Air Force which are both offering tens of thousands in signing bonuses.
Let’s break this down and look at all the ways that serving in the Marine Corps may (or may not) be as much of a bonus as getting a wad of cash in your hand upon enlisting.
Okay, well there is that. Getting cash up front to take on a job that’s inherently dangerous, whether you’re at home or abroad, has a value of its own. If your first duty station ends up being in a high-cost area where the basic housing allowance has yet to catch up with the rising housing costs, a few extra grand in a savings account might be more useful than that EGA tattoo you got one night at an Oceanside tattoo parlor while over at Camp Pendleton.
