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WHAT PRESIDENT TEDDY ROOSEVELT
EXPECTED OF HIS MARINE CORPS OFFICERS
GENERAL ORDER No 5
Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps, Washington DC
21 December 1908
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The following Executive Order is hereby promulgated for the information of officers of the U S Marine Corps.
1.Officers of the United States Marine Corps of whatever rank will be examined
physically, and undergo the test herein prescribed at least once every two years;
the time of such examination to be designated by the Commandant of the Corps so
as to interfere as little as possible with their regular duties, and the tests to
be carried out in the United States between May first and July first, as the
Commandant of the Corps may direct, and on foreign stations between December
first and February first.
2.All field officers will be required to take a riding test of ninety miles, this
distance to be covered in three days. Physical examinations before and after riding,
and the riding tests to be the same as those prescribed for the United States Army
by General Orders No 79 (para 3) War Department, May 14 1908.
3.Line officers of the Marine Corps in the grade of captain or lieutenant, will be
required to walk fifty miles, this distance to be divided into three days, actual
marching time, including rests, twenty hours. In battle, time is essential and ground
may have to be covered on the run, if these officers are not equal to the average
physical strength of their companies the men will be held back, resulting in
unnecessary loss of life and probably defeat. Company officers will, therefore be
required during one of the marching periods, to double-time two hundred yards, with
a half minute rest, then three hundred yards with one minutes rest, then complete
the test in a two hundred yard dash, making in all seven hundred yards at the double
time with one and one-half minutes rest. The physical examinations before and after
the test to be the same as provided for in paragraph 2, this order.
4.The Commandant of the Marine Corps will be required to make such of the above tests
as the Secretary of the Navy shall direct.
5.Field officers of the permanent staff of the Marine Corps who have arrived at an
age and rank which renders it highly improbable that they will ever be assigned to
any duty requiring participation in active military operations in the field, may
upon their own application, be excused from the above prescribed. Such a request,
however if granted, will be regarded by the executive authority as conclusive reason
for not selecting the applicant for any future promotion, or for assignment,
selection or promotion to a position involving participation in operation of the line
of the Marine Corps, or in competition with officers of the line of the U S Marine
Corps for any position.
Theodore Roosevelt,
"The White House"
OFFICIAL
G.F.Elliott, Major General Commandant
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Reprinted from "The Old Breed News"
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