"When we got off the bus, we had a rude awakening," recalled Montford Point Marine Cpl. James Pack in an interview with Fox News. "I said, "Lord, what did I get myself into?"

The black Marines, many of them arriving from the North, were taken to a segregated -- separate section of Camp LeJeune, N.C., for basic training.

"We knew we were being trained harder," said Lt. Col. Joseph H. Carpenter, in a Marine video made about the surviving Montford Point Marines. "They're going to make us a model to all the other white Marines. Think about it. In fact, we were breaking every record they ever had because they pushed us to the end of endurance where we just couldn't go any further."

The first recruits had to clear five and a half acres of land with their own hands at Montford Point next to the camp where whites were trained on the New River.

"Mosquitoes, rattlesnakes, bears and alligators were at that camp," Robert Hammond, one of the Marines, recalled before receiving his Congressional Gold Medal.