For nine innings this summer, The Denver Post will share stories that capture our state’s love of baseball. We spend the ninth inning with families who share how much the game has meant to them through text message, instant message on Gmail and even the handwritten letter.
At boot camp, they take recruits into a gas chamber. And they send them through “the crucible,” a 54-hour ruthless regimen in which you’re lucky to sleep eight total hours. This boot camp isn’t spray-tanned trainers motivating moms to do one more burpee. This is a soul-sucking, will-confronting, actual boot camp, where they forge young men into Marines they can trust for war.