Week 7: Grass Week, rifle work

“Every Marine a rifleman,”

Recruits are introduced to the four shooting positions during Grass Week.

A Combat Marksmanship Instructor, or CMI, teaches recruits the fundamentals of weapons safety and marksmanship with their M-16A2 service rifle.

During this week, recruits become familiar with the following shooting positions: Sitting, Prone, Kneeling, Standing. They learn how to fire, how to adjust their sights and how to take into account the effects of wind and weather. They spend hours in the four positions, preparing their bodies to remain steady while they shoot. Recruits will also “zero” their service rifle and fire a grouping exercise to verify how their individual rifle shoots. The results will tell the recruit the initial sight settings. By the time Recruit fires that first actual shot during Firing Week, he or she will have dry-fired his or her rifle from each of the four positions thousands of times.

U.S. Marine Rifle Creed

This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.

My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will...

My rifle and myself know that what counts in this war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit...

My rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel. I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage as I will ever guard my legs, my arms, my eyes and my heart against damage. I will keep my rifle clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will...

Before God, I swear this creed. My rifle and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life.

So be it, until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but peace!

"The man fires a rifle for many years, and he goes to war, and afterward he turns his rifle in at the armory and believes he's finished with the rifle. But no matter what else he might do with his hands - love a woman, build a house, change his son's diaper - his hands remember the rifle and the power the rifle proffered. The cold weight, the buttstock in the shoulder, the sexy slope and fall of the trigger guard."
Jarhead - A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles