precision drill & mathematics

The Marine Corps Silent Drill Team

​Marine Barracks 8th & I is the one post and job that I really wanted but I could not because I was an officer. I wanted to be in the drill team. I often show this and other videos to my students in the common core math classroom for real world connections to mathematics.  The class uses an interactive application with Google Docs to observe the movements and record the connections to math that they had learned throughout the school year. They notice the timing and the counts, parallel rifle buts to the deck, parallel lines, and rectangle alignments.  They realize at the end of the year that military commands are linear functions.

I was the leader of the drill team at CBC  in 1972.  At graduation I performed as part of a five member silent drill team culminating with myself spinning a Company Guidon flag with four rifles being tossed above my head. That took more than 30 hours of practice and 17 busted M-1 rifles to make the moves perfect. I had never heard of or seen the Marine Silent Drill Team in 1968 when I started the drill team.  Drill and marching was an art form that I loved.  If you have ever seen the movie "Major Payne" then this is what I was like after Annapolis.  

​~Annapolis Creed