Meet Parris Island's newest DI -- Michelle Baerman

(Editor's note: An error in this article was corrected Sept. 28, 2009.)

It's a familiar Beaufort story. Girl meets handsome Marine, and before you know it, they're married on the beach by the Hunting Island Lighthouse.

That's the end of the normal part of Michelle Baerman's story.

Staff Sgt. Baerman is herself a U.S. Marine.

On Wednesday, she became one of the rarest women in America. She graduated from Drill Instructor School at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island. She won the class Iron Woman award. And she earned the right to wear the distinctive "Smokey" hat that marks a U.S. Marine Corps drill instructor as elite.

DIs are asked to do the impossible.

They must train warriors like John Wayne in "Sands of Iwo Jima," but do it in a civilized manner. They must mold a platoon of 70 different egos into one slick team. They must get 18-year-olds to instantly obey orders. They teach history, physical fitness, hygiene, time management and discipline. They might represent the first discipline their troops have ever known. They don't ask for authority, they take it. And on top of that, they must get every Marine to buy into intangibles such as pride, loyalty, honor, courage and commitment.

All in 12 weeks.

But Baerman asked for it. It's the only military assignment that is chosen, not ordered. And the DI, always a non-commissioned officer, lords over the boot camp experience that is the one thing all enlisted Marines share until the day they die.

"I truly wanted to make Marines," Baerman said. "I knew from day one I wanted to be that recruiter or that DI. You can get busy and then start wondering, 'Am I still young enough to fulfill my dream?' "

After a few hugs and snapshots, the petite 25-year-old pride of Joy, Ill., stepped out of the Parris Island Theater and into the toughest job in America.

Iron Woman

It's physically tough. She will march hundreds of miles during this three-year tour of duty -- day and night, in rain and oppressive sunshine, always swarmed with Lowcountry sand gnats, always under stress and pressure to produce.

Baerman is the fittest of the fit. She earned a perfect score on combat fitness during the 11-week DI School -- things like picking up an ammo can, lifting an ammo can over your head. She did a flexed arm hang for 2 1/2 minutes. The requirement was 70 seconds. She did 100 crunches in 2 minutes. She ran 3 miles in 21 minutes, 22 seconds -- just 22 seconds over the standard. That what kept her from a perfect overall score of 300. She ended up with 297.

"I came here wanting that Iron Woman award," she said. "I came in fit, I was eating healthy and I tried to stay rested. But it's hard to do PT (physical training) on your own when you're so tired, and you have to spend so much time studying."

Sleep deprivation was the toughest part of the training for her.

She'll have to get used to it. In her new job, she'll work at least 100 hours a week. She'll be up at 3 a.m. Her recruits will go to bed around 8 p.m. Then will come paperwork and other duties shared by three DIs assigned to each platoon. DI's follow their every move for 12 weeks, then get a couple weeks off, get tested again, and start with a new platoon. Baerman will influence about 500 recruits during this tour. Her Saturdays, Sundays and holidays are now distinguished only by what number of training day they happen to be.

Drill Instructor School itself has become more difficult over the years. Last week's graduates spent 107 hours on close order drill; 55.5 hours on leadership training; 213 hours on the recruit training order, including 102 hours of crucible and basic warrior training; 56.5 hours of combat conditioning; and nine hours of Marine Corps common skills.

Right cadence

The job is an emotional wringer. Baerman faces a daily test of wills that she has to win 100 percent of the time. She's taught that at work, under the most trying circumstances, she cannot lose her cool. In a job notorious for its screaming meanness, she must first and foremost lead by example.

At home, her marriage will be tested. And that's with a husband who knows what she's up against. Sgt. Travis Baerman of Winamac, Ind., is primary marksman instructor at the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort pistol range.

He's been in the Marine Corps since 2001. She's been in seven years. They were married three years ago and bought a home in Beaufort. With deployments to Iraq and Japan, they figure they've actually, in time together, been married only a year. They both want to stay here. They both want to retire as career Marines. Being a DI should help improve her career. "I wanted to be in a higher echelon," Michelle Baerman said.

The Baermans ride around town with her special CD playing.

"She listens to cadences in the car," Travis Baerman said.

Personalized cadences are now a big part of her job. Learning the right cadence between her worlds of work and home will test the emotions.

Ribbon Creek

Drill instructors also have a morally tough job.

Marines have been training on Parris Island since 1915, but time on the island and throughout the Corps is marked by a single date -- Sunday, April 8, 1956. On that moonless night, a drill instructor marched Platoon 71 into a tidal creek behind Parris Island's rifle range to teach them discipline. A night march in the marsh was supposed to be a good way to jerk tight a loose platoon. This time, everything went terribly wrong. Six recruits drowned in Ribbon Creek. The aftermath nearly drowned the Corps.

Before Ribbon Creek, hazing and maltreatment of recruits could include punching them, burning them with cigarettes, forcing them to eat cigarettes, and stacking them in trash cans, according to reports from late 1956 cited by historian Keith Fleming in his book, "The U.S. Marine Corps in Crisis."

This past week, moral decisions were a big part of Sgt. Maj. Eric J. Stockton's keynote address to the newest drill instructors.

He told them they were now part of the "world's finest institution, that is a U.S. Marine Corps drill instructor."

But he told them point blank that their morality would be tested.

"When you have to make a choice, go back to your training," he said. "I ask you to take care of them the same way you want someone to treat your son and daughter."

And when you see something wrong, he said, "Have the moral courage to stand up and raise your hand and say, 'Stop!' "

Staff Sgt. Michelle Baerman has stepped into a familiar Beaufort story. And there's nothing normal about it.