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Recruiting video pulled after Marines complain

The Marine Corps moved fast to silence an Air Force military training instructor who boasted in a service-sponsored video that airmen are in better shape than Marines.

In a video broadcast on the Air Force’s Web site, the unidentified instructor bragged that airmen who graduate basic military training are “in better shape than most Marines.”

The video, forwarded around the Marine Corps via e-mail, reached Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Carlton Kent, who asked Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force James Roy on Thursday to have it removed. Roy ordered his staff to take it off the site immediately after reading Kent’s e-mail and reviewing the video.

“Needless to say, I was shocked when I checked my e-mail this morning,” Kent said in a statement released to Marine Corps Times on Thursday. “I had numerous e-mails from privates first class through senior staff [non-commissioned officers] questioning the intent of this video. You have to understand, Marines are very proud, and they view statements like the ones in the video as an attack and will defend the honor of our Corps at all costs.”

Roy agreed with Kent’s assessment.

“Once [Roy] saw the video, he felt the only right thing to do was to have it taken down," said Master Sgt. Adam Stump, an Air Force spokesman.

The 60-second video was posted on the Air Force’s recruiting site in a section designed to explain what it takes to join the service. It shows recruits sweating through an early morning physical training session at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, where basic military training for the service is conducted.

“The recruits wake up at 0445, and they start exercising around 0500,” an Air Force military training instructor says during the video. “The biggest misconception is that the Air Force is the easier of the four services, when actually, we are the hardest when it comes to PT standards. Our standards are higher, and we don’t have the 12 to 16 weeks to get them there like the Army and Marines do.”

Christa L. D’Andrea, an Air Force Recruiting Service spokeswoman, said the video was removed “until the validity of the fitness standards comment can be verified.” It also will be edited to remove the military training instructor’s comment about physical fitness, which is “a personal opinion of the basic military training instructor and was in no way intended to disparage Marines.”

All airmen should be proud of what they do for their country, but the video goes too far, Kent said.

“Each service is entitled to present itself to the public in its own way,” Kent said. “But the video in question features a pretty bold claim, one that Marines — and many others who are aware of what it takes to be a Marine — will take offense to.”

Asked for comment Maj. Chris Devine, a spokesman for Marine Corps Recruiting Command, offered a brief analysis.

“Imitation is the best form of flattery," he said. "We are proud that the Air Force referred to the Marine Corps as the model of physical fitness [that] its men and women can aspire to emulate.”

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DISCUSS: The video