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This tall tale has been circulating for decades: While the training to become a member of the U.S. Marine Corps is indeed rigorous and demanding, at no point does it involve the murder of family members. Such tales endeavor to confirm belief those serving in elite military units are the ultimate professional soldiers — cold, methodical, and efficient — even as they offer explanation for how these fighting men came to be that way (by having all compassion and kindness trained out of them). Stories like these work as advance propaganda, instilling fear in potential enemies of the two-legged killing machines that will be unleashed upon them should peaceful attempts to reconcile differences be discarded in favor of military ones. These false tales are not limited only to U.S. Marines, as they also attach to other special forces military units as a way of making those who serve in them appear more fearsome. The rumored heartless act is likewise not limited only to parenticide: In other versions, puppies or kittens the fledgling soldiers have cared for throughout their training are slain by them at its culmination: Sometimes the rumor assumes other forms in which the soldier-in-training is himself deliberately subjected to a near-death experience as part of the process of turning him into a member of an elite corps: The lore about having to kill a loved one (relative or pet) is so well known it even gets repackaged into stories meant to provoke guffaws: This story also shows up in popular culture. In the 2014 film Kingsman: The Secret Service, at the culmination of the multi-month Kingsman selection process, candidate Gary Eggsy Unwin (Taron Egerton) is called upon to shoot the dog he's raised and trained since its beginning. Another item of folklore that has to do with nascent Marines and the training they undergo is the humor offering The Farm Kid's Letter Home.
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