EMCOB
Copywriter: Nelle Thomas Art Director: Justine Thompson
battles won.
Who knew that I would write a book for work? Introducing the Enlisted Marine Corps Opportunities Book: a beast totaling 160 very detailed pages that took over a year to complete.
The EMCOB is the Marine Corps recruiting manual. AKA Bible. It is a big glossy book that every recruit gets to look at when they are deciding whether or not to make the major life decision of joining the Corps. This book wasn’t done until it was approved by everyone, including the Generals.
The war room we set up for this project was papered from floor to ceiling on all four walls with these pages. We had a color-coded notes system indicating whether edits were strategic, tonal, technical, factual or otherwise.
When you write for the Marine Corps, staying in line with their strategy (called Battles Won) is paramount. There’s a list of words I wasn’t allowed to use, like ‘strong’ and ‘warrior’, because they are carry the connotation of the Army, not the Marine Corps. Several days after the book was approved they decided we needed to go back and change the verb tenses on every page. Plus, things can get a bit technical. I can tell you the difference between DEP, MOS, SOCMAR, MARSOC, MEOP, and MCMAP. By the time I was finished with this thing, I could tell you the page number of the information you were looking for.
Every word of this very long book had to be perfect, and I can say with confidence that every word is.