Making the Corps

Ricks was granted access to the receiving, forming, training, graduation, recruit evaluation files, and permission to conduct recruit and staff interviews of Platoon 3086 on Parris Island for an article for the Wall Street Journal, which was published in 1995. Ricks later expanded his research into a book, Making the Corps, which was published by Scribner two years later.

Aside from providing an insider's view of recruit training, it explores the divergent worldviews of U.S.M.C. values and that of contemporary American society.

Making the Corps is included in the Commadants Professional Reading List as issued by the United States Marines Corps.

Making the Corps has remained in print since the time of its release. It was reissued in a 10th-anniversary edition in 2007.

• Da Cruz, Daniel. Boot. St. Martin Press, 1987.

• Promotional article by Ricks, published by The Atlantic and printed at the time of the book's release
• Book review by The New York Times
• Book review by Publishers Weekly
• Book review by Foreign Affairs
• Making the Corps's entry in the Military Law Review (Vol. 159)
• C-SPAN book discussion of Making the Corps