Main discussions of the Marines on a changing body: NPR

So why did Bob Neller join the Marines?

"I needed a job," said the senior officer nonchalantly.

Last summer, he studied at the school of candidate officers before finishing his final year at the University of Virginia, intending to pursue his law degree.

"Law school did not work," he recalls, "and I wanted to get married and my parents were getting divorced and I did not have any money. Marines said: "Hey, do this for two – and a year and a half – and I said," Sure. ""

He's stretched up to 44 years old.

"There are things going on," says Neller, who could be a Corps poster, with his scowl and compact frame. We sit in the Pentagon's Marine Dining Room, decorated with showcases filled with swords, epaulets and an occasional medal.

Over the last four years, Neller has been Commander of the Marine Corps, an officer in charge of equipment, training and maintenance of a ready-to-use service, in addition to being a member of the Marine Corps. be a member of the Joint Staff. He will step down this fall after a career that has brought him from Somalia and Panama to Belgium, to Iraq and finally to the Pentagon.

During his tenure, the Marines – and the Army – accepted the women in ground combat roles. The army is more than two and a half times larger than the Marine Corps, but the numbers are still out of balance.

The Army has 400 officers and troops enlisted in the infantry, as well as 28 graduates of the Army Ranger School.

The Marines say they have 31 graduates in infantry training and fewer than a handful of infantry officers.

"The numbers are the numbers," says Neller. "Congress has asked us to adopt non-sexist norms for all [military] professional specialties [the military’s term for a specific job]. If you want to compete for a MOS, man or woman, you compete and if you meet the criteria, you win the MOS. "

But is Neller surprised by the low numbers?

"No, I'm not," he says. "We knew it, we testified, we told everyone we knew the numbers would be low, because we did not think many women were interested in doing so."

In 2015, as the Pentagon planned to open ground combat jobs – armor, artillery and infantry – to women, NPR visited the Navy's ground-based air combat center at Twentynine Palms, California.

There, in the Mojave Desert, an experimental battalion of men and women were training together to help the Marines better understand the behavior of women.

Men and women had to do the same things: carrying a pack of over 100 pounds, crossing gates, patrolling, throwing and firing at targets.

But after the first week, nearly half of women in the infantry unit dropped out of school – a dropout rate well above that of their male counterparts. A dozen women stayed.

Only one of the women abandoned in the Mojave Desert; the others gave up because of injuries – mainly hip and leg fractures – they suffered at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina as they prepared for fire in the desert.

These stories do not surprise Neller.

Listen: "Biology and genetics are what they are"

"We know that the human being can support about 60% of his weight," he says. "It does not matter if you're a man or a woman, being physically tall gives you an advantage when you have to carry a heavy load, biology and genetics are what they are, and there will always be people who are outliers who, by their determination or whatever, will be able to do these things. "

Neller quickly points out that there are many more women in other ground combat jobs: artillery, engineers, light armored reconnaissance, air defense, tanks.

"The biggest statistic is currently in the Marine Corps divisions, in the three active duty divisions, there are more than 800 women in these divisions in various MOS," says Neller. "This was not the case several years ago."

The largest number of women – at least 211 at last count – are in artillery units, says Neller.

The navies, in addition to occupying positions of ground combat, are more and more victims of sexual assaults. Last month, a Pentagon report indicated a 20% increase in the number of reports of anonymous sexual assaults in the Marine Corps compared to the last report in 2016. This was the largest increase among All the services.

Listen: "The fact is … the numbers go up"

Neller then said in a statement: "We can not be truly loyal to our nation without first being loyal to each other.All Marines must be involved in the prevention and control of treatment of sexual assault and harassment There is no place in the Marine Corps for these behaviors ".

I asked Neller about the increase in the number in the Pentagon report.

"The fact is that based on our reports, and I believe it's under-reported, the numbers are increasing," he said. "I would have thought, after talking about it for the last five or six years, that we would have noticed a decline in behavior."

Listen: "I'm interested in getting rid of it"

The report also indicated that units – in all services – where prevalence of sexual harassment, sex discrimination or hostility in the workplace are more likely to be sexual assault.

"I know where [the allegations] just as I know where the ideas of suicide and suicide attempts come from. I know where there may be security problems and other things. So we go through the chain of command and say, "Hey, you have to pay attention to these people and find out what's going on. Why this unit and not this unit, which seem to be in a similar geographical location, why do they have problems and the other not? & # 39; "

And what do you learn?

"They're all different, it could be the command climate, sometimes it's something else, people dig in, they try, what I have to remember every day is that There are 186,000 Marines there, and the great, the vast majority of them do their job, they treat each other with dignity and respect, they are operationally competent, they are in good physical shape. they watch each other, with all that they struggle with, so we must make sure to pay attention to them.All commanders will tell you that they spend the vast majority of their time with a small percentage of the force. knowing that all those who have earned the title of Navy will defend our values.If this does not make us better, I am interested in getting rid of them. "

Neller is asked if it is a suicide or a sexual assault. Can he or another officer speak to the head of a unit and say, "I will give you six months to treat, especially a sexual assault, or I will find someone who anyone else who can take care of it. "

"Can I do that? No. It's undue influence of the command because there could be a violation."

Meaning Neller, as a senior officer of the Marines, and perhaps even who ultimately decides the fate of someone, can not invest in a disciplinary or criminal case and seems to be influencing the result.

Neller adds, "I have confidence in the commanders … they are aware of what I know.They see the same data as me.If they are concerned, if there is a peak behavior that worries us, that they go there and find out what's going on. "

In retrospect, Neller is proud of the Marines and their families and the young men and women who are still young who "want a challenge and want to work hard to earn the title of Marine".

"Recruitment is difficult, recruitment has always been difficult because we have high standards," he says. The Marines set their annual recruitment target for last year – unlike the Army, which had about 6,000 recruits.

"It's not going to get any easier.The number of qualified young men and women in the country is about 30% or less." In fact, about seven out of ten young people can not meet military qualifications because of physical problems, lack of education or criminal record.

What is the future of the Marine Corps?

"Our environment has changed, so we have to adapt and anticipate the future," he says. "I think we have come back to a period of great competition."

Listen: "We have to adapt"

Which means the great powers of Russia and China, a concern expressed last year in the National Defense Strategy, in what it termed "long-term strategic competition" with these countries.

"In the last 10 or 15 years, we have not talked about Russians or Chinese," Neller said. "Now, we talk about it all the time."

According to Neller, threats from these countries include long-range missiles and other weapons, drones and cyberattacks.

"I think anyone who can maintain his network and deny his interlocutor theirs can win everything without having to fight," he says.

Listen: Strengthen cyber-force

The Marines thus reinforce their cyber-strength by taking part in great exercises including tanks, airplanes and artillery, the type of weapons needed to wage a large-scale war with another state.

What's worrying Neller?

Listen: "You try to anticipate what you think is going to happen"

"Do you worry, can we change fast enough, will we have reliable and consistent funding to increase the readiness and capacity of the force, and will we still be able to recruit?"

From here in the fall, these issues will have to be addressed by the next commander.

Producer Marisa Peñaloza contributed to this report.