By Delayna Earley
The Island News
PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. – The last all-female training battalion has been deactivated in a ceremony on Thursday, June 15, 2023, at the Marine Corp Recruit Depot Parris Island.
Parris Island has been the sole entrance point for women to enter the Marine Corps since 1949, according to a press release, and the Fourth Recruit Training Battalion has been the battalion training female recruits since 1986.
“This is a moment to celebrate the legacy of so many of our Marines who made the transformation through Fourth Recruit Training Battalion,” Gen. David H. Berger, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, said in the press release. “It’s also a moment to celebrate progress. I’m proud to see our male and female recruits benefit from having access to the quality of all our leaders – at Parris Island and San Diego – through an unchanging, tough, and realistic recruit training curriculum.”
Male recruits began training with Fourth Battalion in 2020 and all recruits have been training in gender-integrated companies since 2022.
The successful recruit training standardization has made an all-female training battalion unnecessary, according to the U.S. Marine Corps.
The deactivation ceremony drew active and retired female Marines from all over the United States who hoped to honor the legacy of the Fourth Battalion and the impact that it had on the history of the Marine Corps.
“We are now a chapter in a history book,” said Master Gunnery Sgt. Denise Shepherd through tears following Thursday’s ceremony.
Master Sgt. Katherine Miller said that it’s the ending of an era.
“I’m proud of the integration, but the Fourth Battalion always made Marines,” Master Sgt. Miller said, “and that’s all we ever did. It’s bittersweet to see it close, but now it’s time to move on.”
Samantha Swords, a medically retired Marine who served from 2004-2016 who currently lives in Quantico, Va., said that she has a lot of pride being a female Marine and is grateful for the training that she received with the Fourth Recruit Training Battalion while at MCRD Parris Island.
“I was molded and shaped on this island,” Swords said about her time training in the Fourth Battalion. “They made me a woman.”
A portion of the personnel structure who previously served with the Fourth Recruit Training Battalion will be moving from Parris Island to San Diego to create a more similar organization at both depots while the Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego works to increase their integrated training companies to match MCRD Parris Island.
MCRD San Diego is on schedule to train approximately half of female Marines by the 2024 fiscal year.
Delayna Earley lives in Beaufort with her husband, two children and Jack Russell. She spent six years as a videographer and photographer for The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette before leaving the Lowcountry in 2018. After freelancing in Myrtle Beach and Virginia, she joined The Island News when she moved back to Beaufort in 2022. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
