“The Climb,” which was conceived in the spring of 2001 and debuted early in 2002, a man in
fatigues scales a sheer rock face with his bare hands. As he struggles up the mountain, images
flash over the rock, including Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima. At the top, a Marine officer
reaches down to help the climber up. Lightening strikes, the climber is transformed into a
Marine in dress uniform, and he is backed by a row of Marines, including one woman. “For
Country,” from March 2003, includes combat footage shot by Marines in Afghanistan during
“Operation Enduring Freedom” (McCarthy and Haralson, 2003). The minute-long ad follows
Marines in training and in action, interspersed with titles that flash on screen; they read “For
Country,” “For Courage,” and “For Honor,” before the familiar “The Few. The Proud” appears.
One brief shot, about halfway through the commercial, shows women jumping hurdles on an
obstacle course. The scores of other Marines pictured are all men. Men are the central players in
all of these television ads, though in recent years women have become a token presence.
In the 1994 House Armed Services Committee Hearing on the Assignment of Army and
Marine Corp Women under the New Definition of Ground Combat, the Marine Corps stated its
intent to devote resources to recruiting women. According to the written testimony of Lt. Gen.
George R. Christmas:
An additional investment will be made in our advertising program to inform women of
expanding opportunities; by FY 1997, we will spend $1.8 million more than we did in
FY 1994, with additional funds channeled to print and television advertisements that
target high-quality women candidates. We also will begin a direct mailout program to
potential female applicants.
The Marines claimed they would spend money on print and TV ads aimed at women (though
with a very small budget)
, and they may have done so, though I saw no evidence of this in my
ad sample. The Marine Corps may have tried to reach women through direct mail and may have
developed recruiting materials aimed at women, but its public face, in terms of major magazine
advertising and the dramatic television and movie theater commercials, has remained exclusively
male.
CONCLUSIONS
Overall, in the print ad sample and television commercials, women are a peripheral
presence for each of the services, rather than an integral part of the military’s image. However,
my analysis of recruiting materials reveals some real institutional differences among the services.
10
For comparison, the television commercial “The Climb” cost $23 million to make in 2001 (Minogue, 2002).
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Convention