Provided by Sue Richardson
Lily Richardson of Cokeville, Wyoming recently received the United States Marine Corps’ highest honor for a newly minted Marine. Lily was selected as the Fox Company Honor Graduate, the top Marine in her company of 584 Marines, made up of 88% males and 12% females. In the five years that the Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego has been training females (formerly all females in the country trained at MCRD Parris Island, South Carolina), Lily is only the third female honor graduate. That’s only 1.5% of about 200 graduating companies.
The official USMC description of the Honor Graduate states:
“The one Marine in the company who has demonstrated the highest degree of discipline, proficiency, bearing, physical fitness, and basic leadership traits that exemplify the highest standards of the United States Marine Corps is presented with a plaque from the Marine Corps Association denoting that he/she is the number one Marine in his/her company.”
Lily received the Chesty Puller Award which is “Presented to the Marine who has demonstrated the highest potential for future leadership and responsibility in the Marine Corps.”
Lily’s Senior Drill Instructor, Staff Sergeant Ashley Cook, said Lily was chosen for her outstanding work ethic, humility, tact, and the ability to lead in a way that her peers respond well to. Lily has always been one to never ask anything of anyone that she isn’t willing to do herself, and she treats people with respect.
Lily become interested in the military when she was in sixth grade. A young man in the community came to speak about his experience in the US Air Force. Lily was intrigued. Throughout junior high she read several fiction and non-fiction books about the military, including “Lone Survivor” by Marcus Luttrell and “No Easy Day” by Mark Owen. During that same time period, Lily was deeply moved by a Veterans Day presentation by Mark Vierig, a retired Marine, about his service as a dog handler during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
During high school, there were not a lot of voices encouraging Lily to join the military. She focused on sports and prepared for college. She attended Utah State University and earned an Associates of Science degree. During those years, she would frequently daydream about a life in the military. She always had the thought in the back of her mind, “If plans don’t work out, I’ll just do it; I’ll join the military.”
In 2024, Lily had a close friend who was in the Army National Guard and he encouraged her to look into it. Feeling uncertain about her future plans for school and/or work, Lily decided to reach out to recruiters from all four branches of the military. Gunnery Sergeant Brennan of the Idaho Falls, ID Recruiting Station was the first to respond. Lily was immediately drawn to the elite nature of the Marines and thought, “If I’m going to do this, why not do the most challenging one?” Lily entered the Delayed Entry Program and finally shipped to bootcamp in July 2026.
Lily’s plan for bootcamp was to lay low, keep her head down, and leave bootcamp without any of the drill instructors remembering her name. However, her work ethic and desire to get things right drew the attention of her drill instructors early on. After about a month, she was made a Squad Leader, supervising about 15-20 recruits in her platoon. After continuing to perform well and show potential for leadership, she was made the platoon Guide, the senior recruit in her platoon of about 70 women.
Lily said the most challenging thing about Bootcamp was, “Learning to be successful in a constantly changing environment. There was never a break; as soon as you felt you’d accomplished something, there was always something new on the horizon. Being able to constantly function at a high level despite hunger and fatigue, with no opportunity for reprieve, was difficult. There was also the mental wear and tear of being with the same people all the time and the monotony of training. Basically, it was three months of growing pains.”
When Lily found out she was selected as the honor graduate, she was quite surprised. After completing the Crucible, a grueling 54-hour training exercise designed to test physical and mental strength, grit, and resilience, Lily and the Guides of the five other platoons went before the Honorman Board made up of all the Senior Drill Instructors, the Company Commander, and the Company First Sergeant. Of her interview, she said, “I was able to stay calm and keep my bearing, but I didn’t feel like I had done anything outstanding that would qualify me over any of the other Guides.” When she was informed that she had been selected as the Honor Graduate, she was excited but didn’t realize magnitude of what that meant. After receiving a letter from her mother, citing the statistics of a female being named Honor Graduate, Lily became increasingly humbled and overwhelmed. “Graduation day hit and I got to meet all these important people [including Brigadier General David Hyman, the Commanding General of MCRD San Diego and the Western Recruiting Region]. It started to sink in what a big deal it was.”
Following graduation, Lily has been able to enjoy a 10-day leave reconnecting with family and friends, and remembering what it feels like to enjoy solitude and be able to reset for the next challenge. She has been breaking in her new boots in preparation for Marine Combat Training. Following MCT she will attend MOS (military occupational specialty) school to prepare to enter the Fleet as an aircrew member. “I’m excited for schoolhouse and to get more of a taste of what it’s like to be a Marine.”
