ABSTRACT
I begin by suggesting that masculinity was an important motivating factor that inspired my recruits to join Royal Marines training and to take their first step into this new and rugged culture. Many of them had come from working-class and lower-middle-class backgrounds and recognised violence and masculinity as a means to obtain status and social respect, unlike their upper-middle-class counterparts, whose ambitions for status might be more closely linked to economic attainment (Bourdieu, quoted in Brown, 1973:76). The desire for a new masculine identity not only brought the potential recruits into the Marines arena but continued to motivate them throughout their training. As Jenkins puts it, ‘individuals seek to be, or seek to be seen to be somebody or something’ (Jenkins 1996:22).
