You know, there is a variation of an old Marine Corps quote that speaks to what it is like to be in the Corps.  It goes something like this:

Every day a holiday

Every meal a feast

Every paycheck a fortune

Every formation a parade

 I think Jamie Foxx did a good version of this in the film Jarhead.

I was thinking about this recently, and the epsrit de corps one finds, in the Corps.  I remember when I was out-processed, at the end of my 6-year tour.  It is a time when they attempt to prepare outgoing Marines for what it is like to re-join the civilian world.  One instructor stated that we’d never in our lives find the camaraderie and epsrit de corps that we had come to know inside the Corps.  No job, no group, no association.  They warned us it would be hard to get used to.

All these years later, I can say those words were true.  I have felt tremendous passion on various teams, and with various small groups of managers whom I’ve worked with on the job.  But the instructor was correct, I’ve never fully found anything that matched what I had come to know in the Corps.  As a human resource professional, out in the world of business, I sure wish I could find a way to do just that.