Motivational (MOTO) Run

Family Day begins with a motivational run referred to as the “MOTO Run.”

All graduating recruits run a 4-mile course which passes by all four training battalions, plus Support Battalion. At each battalion, selected recruits ring each of the Battalion Bells as the rest of the Company runs by singing cadence, loudly signaling successful completion of Recruit Training.

As recruits run to the cadence of their Drill Instructors, parents, family members and friends line the streets and cheer as they try to find the face of their loved one among the crowd of new Marines.

Family Day

The brand new Marines are given on-base liberty during the day so they can spend time with their families, introduce them to their fellow new Marines and drill instructors, show them the barracks, training areas, parade decks, and other areas where they trained, demonstrate proper liberty behavior, and most of all to share with their families their own personal stories about their transformation from civilian to Marine.

Above information found on the Parris Island web site, October, 2009.

For additional information about Family Day, use the links below:

Parris Island

San Diego

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Below you will find some important advice for families and friends spending Family Day with new Marines. When it’s time for your new Marine to go, this is what “Gunny Says…”

If you want to see the demons come out of the drill instructors, let your Marine be one minute late for accountability. He WILL get blasted, recruit style, in front of every family member on the Depot. Don't be the person begging your new Marine “just one minute more” and getting him in trouble. I don't care if you're sitting in the parking lot across from the AWTF (All Weather Training Facility). When he says he needs to leave, that means he to leave and get with his platoon.

-United States Marine and Series Gunnery Sergeant, 2009