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PARRIS ISLAND, SC (WACH/WFXL) -- When people think of marines they often think of iconic images like Iwo Jima or a drill instructor yelling at recruits. And when a drill instructor yells - they just want to be clear....LOUD and clear.  

Drill instructors put Marines through a lot during training; however they get a lot of their inspiration from a familiar place.

“I still revert back to things I saw my drill instructor do and thats been all the way through my marine corps career,” said Staff Sgt. Gerren Means. “That’s always what I fall back on. My drill instructor.”

The yelling has a purpose and the better the recruits get, the less yelling they'll hear.

Staff Sgt. Deniece Newton says, “Believe it or not through mass punishment comes teamwork! so if one man makes that mistake and the group gets punished then the next time that that one thiks they're going to make the mistake they'll be somebody else peer pressuring them saying hey dont make that mistake because were all going to get in trouble for it.”

Since no recruit is perfect anyone who expects to become a Marine, can also expect to get yelled at.

“So they think we see everything so they know that were going to be held accountable every time - all the time,” Staff Sgt. Means adds.

Whether your drill instructor is yelling the counts to walk, or taking you through a drill making you do pushups in the sand, it seems drill instructors were born to yell.

But Staff Stg. Means says he isn’t a mean drill instructor: “We just try to train the recruits with compassion and just give it everything we got.”

So if you’re nice to Staff Sgt. Means, maybe he'll let you skip the mountain climbers and crunches.

For those of you wondering drill instructors do lose their voice on occasion and say when that happens - they sip a little lemon tea… and get back to yelling.

Stay tuned to WACH Fox and check back to MidlandsConnect.com all week for more reports from Romney Smith at Parris Island as training continues. You can also follow Romney’s experiences on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/romneysmith.