They have killed more people, I think, alot of them have died too. So they could kill more people...

As my grandfather told me "in the military, they break you down and build you back up their way.Not a man I knew that went into the Marines came out again as a normal person."He served during Veitnam.They mess with your mind until you are the perfect ruthless warrior, ready to die for your orders at any time.You don't get tougher than The Core.

Lisa, I am a former Marine, and so perhaps this is biased. Having disclaimed that, I do believe that in general the Marines are, and are considered the "toughest" branch of service, due to both the amount of training we are subjected too as well as the incredible esprit de corps shared by all generations of Marines. When it comes down to a do or die situation, many Marines have chosen their country and brothers in arms over their own lives. However you may feel about this, the freedom we enjoy and the lives we are able to live are directly enable by mostly young unselfish men willing to give their lives for a cause other than their own. I could not disagree more strongly with the some of the other posts in this thread. Having said that, I willingly put my life on the line many times to guarantee my fellow Americans the right to wholeheartedly disagree with what it was I was ordered to do, and what it is I believe. If history proves them right, the World is a much better place than I have found it to be, and perhaps my fellow servicemen and women had some part in that. Personally, as much as would like to believe in the benevolence of man, history demands to I at least consider the possibility that we all will not be able to get along. So, I proudly call myself a Marine.

The training is similar to the Navy Seals and Army Rangers (from their own website/training)

My son was in the Navy. He said the Marines have that kind of reputation because they are the ones who are most on the front line, along with the Army. The Air Force has their own job to do as well. All the military forces train very hard, because it is a very hard job they have to do. Even the Coast Guard has a hard training program. The main difference is that the Marines get the most publicity.

former Marine here as well...; its hard to answer...but the brotherhood of the Marine Corps is extraordinary....

Why? Because all of our current and former enemies (Japs) fear them. Brotherhood is their greatest strength. "Marines don't die, they just go to Hell and regroup"

Look, around...Of course we are. Think about most of the people you come across during a regular day. What's precious or valuable about them? Humans consume, destroy, abuse and neglect most everything they come in contact with. We are a scourge, not some precious life form barely hanging on to existence.

the marines have the toughest reputation because they go to boot camp! not basic training or any other BS. And nobody I dont care who you are can argue that. The armys basic is weak and so is the Navys. Marines get lit up by drill instructors and they are the only branch that does not train with females. They learn to shoot from a greater distance and have tougher challenges and endure greater hardships. Also marines are the First to fight, americas 911. Now elite special forces are more highly trained and skilled than your basic marine, like Navy Seals and Green Berets. But the Marines also have Force Reconnasaince which is their elite group whos training is similiar.

Because they are trained to kick ass and take names later. The Marines boot camp is more like going through Infantry training at Benning than Basic training in the Army. I've had the honor of working with some jarheads and am proud to have served with them. There is also a baseline of pride that Marines take on that most of the people in other services don't generally take on.

well its simple....it all started when ex pres Abraham Lincoln drank a bottle of whiskey one day...He decided to make a force of brave stupid young souls...These souls would soon be called the marines..Train in ridiculous climates and stand over 40 foot whales only holding a pocket knife screaming freedom is something very hard to look past...Navy seals train with penguins and the army usually makes the blankets for the marines who do all the smoking and shitting on the baby bunkers

Because they are the toughest. There isn't a single branch of the military that has a tougher training program and that do the most work when the going gets tough than the marines. The marines are shock troops; when there is a situation that needs to be taken care of, the marines are the first ones in to take care of it because they are the toughest and the most highly trained. Then they move on to the next hotspot while the army and other branches of the military keep the peace in the spots they just left. As for the the special forces units like the rangers, delta force etc., you can't compare them to the marines because they are made up of people that have already served in the marines or army--THEY ARE FORMER MARINES AND THE TOUGHEST PEOPLE AMONG THE PEOPLE THAT HAVE ALREADY SERVED SO YOU CAN'T EVEN TRY TO COMPARE THEM TO THE MARINES. The toughest place to enter the military from is the marines, once you have served as a marine or in he army or another branch of the military then you can become part of an elite force, so all the people in the special forces that people try to say are so much tougher and bader than the marines came from the marines and are very experienced and have been doing what they do for a long ass time thats why they can endure the tough programs and situations that various special forces require them to go through...it's pretty damn ignorant to try an compare the two...the special forces deal with high profile missions they are not really involved with going to war and dealing with everyday fire fights...they all started with those situations and so then can move onto to do the even tougher and elite shit

you must be talking about the american military,cause it is'nt in the world.

the marines boot camp is 13 weeks which is the longest out of all the military branches and it is very intense

The Marines are a specialised assault force. Their primary function is assault. The other, and much larger, services have a much wider variety of tasks. It is therefore nor really fair to compare a single-function force with a multi-purpose service. The would be better compared, as others have said, with the Rangers and Seals, with whom they should be considered broadly equivalent. They do not include, for example, the airlift capability of the airforce, the occupation and intelligence capability of the Army or the long-distance deployment capability of the Navy.

I think the Navy Seals are toughest.

Is the training tougher? You bet! Is the discipline tougher? You bet! The difference is in the esprit de corps! I've fought with the best in the jungles of Vietnam. When assigned to SOG I worked with a conglomerate of Army Special Forces (the majority), SEALs (I had one on my Recon Team as a Corpsman), Air Commandos and even Australian SAS. If the sh*t hit the fan (and it often did), there was no one in the world I'd rather have come to my aid than fellow Marines. Semper Fi!

yes they have the hardest bootcamp

They're the cruelest, meanest and most inhumane killers of the bunch

WEll I AM IN THE CURRENTLY IN THE AIR FORCE. IM IN THE TACTICAL AIR COMMAND PARTY (TACP). I WOULD HAVE TO SAY THE ARMY AND MARINES HAVE THE HARDEST BASIC TRAINING BUT THERE ARE CAREER FIELDS IN DIFFERENT BRANCHES WHO`S TRAINING FAR EXCEEDS THE MARINES. SUCH AS ARMY RANGERS, AND AIR FORCE PARARESCUE AND COMBAT CONTROLLERS. YOU SHOULD LOOK INTO THOSE CAREER FIELDS.

The Corps, which has never lost sight that its primary mission is to fight, remains superbly trained and disciplined -- true to its time-honored slogan "We don't promise a rose garden." When, under Clinton, the Army lowered its standards to Boy Scout summer-camp level in order to increase enlistment, the Corps responded by making boot training longer and tougher -Col David Hackworth, US Army-

In the Navy, I went to the Marine boot before shipping to a combat zone. They have a reputation for altering your mind and then counting on you to alter others minds with an agenda that is not really yours. If you can live through this kind of thing and keep your essential sanity intact, you will indeed be a man - or woman. If you can see through the brainwashing they do and how they are exactly the Praetorian Guard, then you have just become the enemy because you know far too much.

I have trained with Marines and I think the best thing about them is their attitude. That being said I have served in the Army and seen all branches have great people and Dirt Bags. The Marines train the most but I would still have to say the reason they have the toughest reputation is because of their pride in being a Marine and the Marine history. Screw all that tough guy stuff tho after 5 years I can tell you I wish I went into the Air Force cause all that tough Hooah stuff gets old and the Air Force live Nice

They are legends in their own minds. The Marines are excellent at selling their image, they use that to thier advantage. They brainwash there own people. Is USMC training harder then the Navy or Air Force? You bet it is. But the average Marine is not better then an Army Ranger or Special Forces soldier, or a Navy SEAL, or even an Air Force PJ. However, the Force Recon Marines are up there with the Rangers.

Semper Fi is short for Semper Fidelis. In Latin it means "Always Faithful". It is the motto of the Marine Corps.

The admission standards used to be more selective than the other branches. I don't know if it is still like that or not.

Marines are NOT the toughest. Like "military minded" said so well, "there are career fields in different branches who's training far exceeds the marines". Just like everything else in life, one of the branches is better known because of publicity, etc, not because they are touhger than any other military branch though. My brother is an Army Ranger, and during his graduation ceremony there were marines asking how they could join. The problem is that some of the other branches of the military aren't as well known, that's all. And maybe that's good. They don't need to broadcast how special they are. They just do their thing, and let other divisions squabble over who's tougher.

It started in WW1, when the press wasn't allowed to identify specific units, so they mentioned that the Marines were involved in some battle or other. In WW2, they accepted only (motivated) volunteers for awhile, and had some very famous, tough battles. It's a lot easier to have an elite force of 6 divisions than the Army's 90 divisions plus many unattached battle units. . After WW2, they maintained their standards while the Army betrayed its soldiers and got a lot of them killed in Korea (especially at the beginning) by letting training go to pot. In modern times, their boot camp is tougher than Army basic training, and doesn't have to accomodate both sexes in one unit. Their small-unit tactics are very similar, so any differences between front-line units are probably minimal and mostly psychological.

Back atcha Highlander. It's a good day today.

The Gauntlet. http://www.okinawa.usmc.mil/public%20affairs%20info/Archive%20News%20Pages/2009/090220-young.html

Their basic training is harder. But the toughest Marines go to Army schools.