This cinéma vérité style documentary follows a Marine Corps drill instructor and his crew of fresh recruits in San Diego during the 13-week training program known as boot camp.
From Wikipedia:
In Helmet for My Pillow, his World War II memoir, journalist Robert Leckie wrote of Marine Corps Recruit Training that, "It is a process of surrender. At every turn, at every hour, it seemed, a habit or a preference had to be given up, an adjustment had to be made. Even in the mess hall we learned that nothing mattered so little as a man's own likes or dislikes … Worst in this process of surrender was the ruthless refusal to permit a man the slightest privacy."
