Interestingly, no one would accuse Marines of a lack of self-confidence. Yet from the moment a brand new recruit steps off the bus at Parris Island his sense of self is under full-scale assault. A good DI doesn't waste time building up a recruit's self-esteem. In fact, it's quite the opposite: everything that happens at boot camp convinces a recruit that there's nothing particularly special about him. He may come in there thinking he's pretty hot stuff, but they shave his head, take away his fancy sneakers and stylish jeans and issue him a funny-looking uniform that looks just like everyone else's. If he screws up, no one makes excuses for him. He gets yelled at as though he were a little kid. It can be humiliating at times. It's designed to be that way. But if he persists, if he keeps coming, if he hangs in there and he works with the team, he will eventually earn their respect and perhaps even the coveted approval of the drill instructor. And at the end of the line, there is The Crucible. Not some touchy-feely pajama party, where sensitive New Age metrosexuals sip Chardonnay and wallow in their insecurities as they affirm their dependence on each other, but an all-out, balls-to-the-wall ordeal where if he can hang in there, he just might earn the right to be called 'Marine'.

And that's something no amount psychotherapy can deliver. Self-reliance. You can see it in the way they walk: I can usually spot a Marine (even a retired one) a mile away. The carry themselves differently. There's a self-awareness, a calm, not-quite-cockiness in their bearing. At my son's police graduation I picked out the gentleman next to him in the lineup, for no particular reason, as a Marine. There was that indefinable something in his eyes. It stays with them all their lives, what they learned in Marine training. The discovery that in many ways, life is like an obstacle course. Many of these young men and women come from less than ideal circumstances. But no matter where they came from, they came to the Marine Corps because they were looking for something. And in recruit training, through challenge and adversity, they find the answer to a question, not outside, but deep within themselves. They find hidden reserves of strength and character they never knew they possessed. And they also find the enormous power that comes from voluntarily disciplining yourself, from working as part of a team. From not making excuses, or whining, or complaining, but simply adapting and moving on when life doesn't turn out the way you hoped it would. Many of them find God for the first time. No, no one would describe Marines as lacking in self-esteem. But it wasn't given to them. They earned it themselves. And perhaps that is the essential difference: what they earned for themselves, they know can never be taken away by life, or by other people.