"And To Keep Our Honor Clean"

By WALTER SHAPIRO

It's been nearly 40 years since John Wayne, portraying Marine Sergeant John M. Stryker, was cut down by a sniper's bullet atop Mount Suribachi in Sands of Iwo Jima. But the Leatherneck values of courage, loyalty and discipline that Wayne came to personify still survive in recruiting offices around the country. Just last week in Atlanta, even as the Marines reeled from the Moscow spy scandal, Michael Dunn, 20, was ready to sign up. Like generations before him, Dunn says he wants to be a Marine "because I need the discipline." Dunn, a sophomore at Morris Brown College, explains, "I've looked at the other services, talked to my friends, and I'd rather be with the best."

The best. That has been the Marines' coda from Tripoli to Belleau Wood, from Guadalcanal to Inchon. But in the past few years, these gleaming images have dissolved into others: blood-spattered rubble in Beirut, interservice turf battles in Grenada, a can-do lieutenant colonel wearing a medal-bedecked uniform while invoking the Fifth Amendment, furtive Moscow nights of sex for secrets. Says former California Congressman Pete McCloskey, a twice-wounded Marine veteran of Korea: "When I saw 200-plus Marines in Beirut bunched up in violation of every standard precept, I winced a lot. When I saw Ollie North, I winced a lot. And Moscow. It just killed us."

The 1983 Marine-barracks bombing in Beirut, in which 241 servicemen died, was a tragedy of a new order for a Corps that had long ago grown inured to more than its share of casualties on the battlefield. Afterward the investigation by the Long commission faulted the Marine command for its lack of defensive preparations and for its ill-fated decision to house the men in a single barracks. The invasion of Grenada did little to burnish the Corps's fabled reputation as the "first to fight." Owing to the demands of interservice glory sharing, only 36 minutes after the Marines landed at Pearls airport, the rival Army Rangers parachuted onto the airstrip at the other end of the island at Point Salines. It was a successful operation, and the Marines did themselves proud, but it raised questions about their unique role as the nation's elite amphibious strike force. And fairly or not, the Iranian arms fiasco has been partly associated with the gung-ho "Marine mind-set" of Oliver North and the command-and-control system of former Marines Robert McFarlane and Donald Regan.

Since their formation in 1775, the Marines have evolved into an arm of American foreign policy based on rapier-sharp discipline, a powerful code of integrity and a lustrous reputation as the nation's truest warriors. With just 196,000 members, the Marine Corps regards itself as the elite military service, though it is technically an arm of the Navy. But what most distinguishes the Marine Corps, forging the powerful esprit and the ideal of Semper Fidelis, is the basic training.

Gone from the modern training lexicon are the physical brutality and psychological abuse that once made camps like Parris Island, S.C., seem the American counterpart of Devil's Island. Boot camp is still rigorous, and some drills involve live ammunition; 37 enlistees have died during training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego since 1970. But Marine regulations adopted in 1976 forbid drill instructors from touching recruits except to correct their position during instruction or to prevent injury. Punitive push- ups are now limited to just five minutes, with a 30-second break midway. Mental harassment is frowned upon. "We don't use negative reinforcement anymore," says Lieut. John Coonradt at the M.C.R.D.

Marine recruits are supposed to run no farther than five miles, and jogging routes are lined with emergency telephones and water hoses. Regulations require that ambulances be present during all activities involving "heights or fights." As three platoons of recruits in San Diego waited to begin close- combat training last week, a drill instructor complained, "We can't start without an ambulance present."

But make no mistake, there is still a big difference between Marine boot camp and Outward Bound. In one platoon at the M.C.R.D., half the recruits admitted they were afraid of heights. Now they are about to endure what the Marines call the "slide for life," clambering up a 35-ft.-high wooden tower and then descending headfirst down wires that stretch across a muddy ditch. A recruit clings like a frightened tree sloth to the wire. Then, slowly, his grip loosens and he plunges into the muddy water. "You just let go. You didn't even try," snaps the angry instructor. "Back to the squad bay, Private."

At Quantico, Va., a number of Marines are enduring the rigors of a very different course that seems closer to Miss Manners than the halls of Montezuma: training to be diplomatic guards at a mock-up of an embassy called Marshall Hall. Social etiquette is the topic as a gunnery sergeant combines a lecture with a slide show. A photograph of a diplomatic reception is projected. "What kind of dress do we say they're wearing there?" asks the sergeant. "That's right. That's black tie." Laughter greets the next slide, showing a Marine presenting flowers to a young woman in a low-cut gown. "Yeah, sometimes Marines get assigned to some real good duty," the sergeant concedes. The lesson continues with Marines asking seriously how to - give a toast and whether floral centerpieces are customary at diplomatic dinners.

This emphasis on protocol seems strange for a program designed to safeguard the security of embassies. The six-week course is given five times a year to unmarried volunteers who have served for at least two years in the Marines with an unblemished record. The flunk-out rate at Marshall Hall is 27%, including those who don't survive a final joint Marine-State Department screening board. Oddly enough, freshly minted Marine guards are generally sent to hardship posts like Moscow. The theory is that congenial embassies like Paris should be reserved for Marines who have completed an initial 15-month tour of duty. The problem is that Marines who face the most serious security threats tend to be the least experienced.

Colonel Carmine Delgrosso, a 24-year Marine veteran, has commanded the embassy guard battalion since May 1986. In an interview last week, he defended the record of the Marshall Hall training program and the overall record of Marine guards. Occasionally, Delgrosso was nearly overcome with emotion as he talked of his loyalty to the Corps, his eyes filling with tears. "In a security system, the last thin, red line is the human factor," Delgrosso said. "In the end, everything centers on integrity. How do we guarantee integrity? We look for maturity, judgment. It's clear that Lonetree and Bracy had a problem with integrity."

Former Marines like McCloskey point out that Marine guards held back a brick-throwing mob when the embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, was burned in 1979. But some say embassy guard duty, which the Marines shouldered in 1949, is unsuited for a group that is supposed to be a well-honed fighting force. Indeed, perhaps the most fundamental problem faced by the Marines, one that affects both their morale and their effectiveness, is that their mission has become murky.

Aside from Grenada, the last time the Marines launched an amphibious assault under combat conditions was during the Korean War, when General Douglas MacArthur chose them for the Inchon landing. Marine strategists insist that the Corps retains a vital role in modern warfare. Lieut. General Alfred Gray, who commands the Fleet Marine Force (Atlantic), admits, "You'll never see staged assaults like Iwo Jima or Tarawa again." But Gray, who is thought to be one of the leading candidates to succeed Marine Commandant P.X. Kelley, adds, "Our mission is sustained power projection. For power to be sustained, it must come from the sea."

Other branches of the service are trying to mimic or duplicate the role of the Marine Corps by imitating its fast-and-flexible style; the Army, for example, is developing lightly equipped divisions for quick deployment. Even more disturbing are signs that the Marines have begun to imitate some of the top-heavy characteristics of the other services: 30 years ago there was one enlisted Marine officer for every two grunts; now the ratio is 1 to 1. Less than one-third of the troops in each Marine division now have combat jobs, and the ratio of desk jobs to field jobs for lieutenant colonels is 9 to 1. Because of this shift from "tooth" to "tail," what is supposed to be a streamlined strike force resembles the rest of the military bureaucracy.

Critics of the Corps say it suffers from a lack of leadership at the top. The Marine commandant sets the tone, and Kelley, who was once perceived as a possible innovator, has been aloof and reclusive, almost solely interested in pursuing bigger budgets. Military Critic Edward Luttwak says the Corps is "wallowing in complacency." Some officers serving under Kelley at the Pentagon claim that the prevalent attitude is bureaucratic defensiveness. "Semper fi," grouses an officer at Marine headquarters, "means don't say anything critical because it's going to reflect on Kelley." Self-criticism is precisely what the Corps needs, say some experts. What they have instead, says one of Kelley's subordinates, is a "lot of bumper-sticker bravado."

Marine officers frequently describe the Corps in terms of almost religious intensity. A retired colonel, who likened the Corps to priesthood, summed it up best: "You're a Marine because you believe, because you keep the faith." That faith was grievously betrayed at the Moscow embassy. But equally damaging to the Marine spirit was Beirut and the smaller setbacks of a troubled decade. In the end, the Marines can probably survive anything, but the trench they find themselves in now will take some time and effort to escape.

With reporting by Jon Hull/San Diego and Nancy Traver/Quantico, with other bureaus