Making the corps

Making the Corps is a 1997 non-fiction book written by Thomas E. Ricks.

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 Simon & Schuster 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.