50 MILES IN 3 DAYS FOR COMPANY OFFICERS
GENERAL ORDER NO 5
HEADQUARTERS U S MARINE CORPS WASHINGTON
21 DECEMBER 1908
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 in 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 (paragraph 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 minutes rest, then three hundred yards with
one minutes rest; and 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 of this order.
4. The Commandant of the Marine Corps will be required to
make such of the above test 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 physical test,
but not from the prescribed above. 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
in volunteer rank, 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 Marine Corps for any position.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
"THE WHITE HOUSE"
"December 9,1908" (989)
G.F.ELLIOTT
Major General, Commandant
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