There are a slew of agencies that run training camps led by former Marine Corps drill instructors for corporate employees and students.

The first was set up in 2002, and its four drillmasters, all ex-Marines, branched out to start their own companies due to differences in training style.

Now, more than a dozen can be found on the Internet, though only about five are operating properly and actually have former Marine instructors in command, according to Lee Hee-seon, chief of Camp Tank.

Kong Ki-young, head of Marine Academy, agrees.

“There is growing competition, but also surging demand from businesses and schools,” Kong said.

“Nowadays, about 90 percent of our trainees are students from elementary through high schools.”

The trainees, both students and adults, are given close-order drills from the moment they get off their buses.

The drillmasters are tougher on students as discipline is the main purpose of training for them.

“Three days of camp can’t change who they are, but they certainly learn a lot about discipline and order. Their principals and teachers are surprised at how they can suddenly behave so well,” Kong said.

Adult trainees are encouraged to feel a greater sense of commiment as they sing company songs while on rubber boats in the middle of the ocean and chant in unison while squelching in the mud alongside one another.

Sometimes the camps are about getting the labor and management closer to each other.

In a two-day training camp that ended Friday, about 30 members of the union and management-level staff in their 40s and 50s from Korea Southern Power Co. rolled on the ground together on Silmido, an uninhabited island off Incheon well known as the training site of special agents in the late 1960s with a mission to kill then North Korean leader Kim Il-sung.

“The training is obviously tough and exhausting because you get to use muscles that you never used much,” Lee said.

“But like how you feel good about yourself after going hiking even if you didn’t want to in the beginning, the trainees are rewarded with a sense of accomplishment and confidence.”

A survey of some 4,900 workers in about 59 companies who trained at Lee’s camp in 2010 showed that 93.7 percent were satisfied with the training, he said, adding that his company has trained employees of large conglomerates, foreign companies and political parties as well as celebrities since 2003.

“Women may lack physical strength, but they go through the exact same drills and they never fall behind men,” Lee said.

“Foreigners tend to enjoy the camps more than Koreans. They are not stiff and seem to find the training amazing as they have never experienced it before.”

By Kim So-hyun (sophie@heraldcorp.com)