Like everyone has said, nothing while he's in Basic training. He'll have to leave it in his footlocker or send it home. If left in his footlocker, it'll be stolen within 24 hours.
If he gets to the Sandbox, I think the Strider SMF would be great IF he's in a combat arena. If he's a clerk, no.
Sonnydaze
You get off the bus, everything stops. No posessions, no decisions, no anything; every second of the next 12 weeks is scripted and written down on a training schedule,
right down to your every bowel movement. Everything you have in your possession gets taken away before you ever get to your baracks and you never see it again until you leave. Nothing [of yours] goes in your footlocker and you have no decretion about anything. As a matter of fact they will even tell you where everything they give you goes in your footlocker.
As for the stolen part, I couldn't imagine a world where someone would steal something out of a locked USMC footlocker, in bootcamp!
Generally speaking, taking a knife [or anything] to Boot Camp would be a monumantal mistake and would likely brand him a problem child from day one. And brands like that don't go away in the relatively small Marine Corps. Second, his next stop after Boot Camp (and a short trip home) will be his schools. Infantry training school and then primary school, I wouldn't imagine either place would be knife friendly.
Once he gets to his first unit he will see what others who are more experienced are carrying and will probably want that. That environment takes the knife snob out of you quick, at your unit a knife or any other tool either works in your particular job or it doesn't. Lots and lots of snobby knives never leave the barracks and the tried and true old workhorses go to the field. When I was in, the sight of a clip sticking out of the corner of your pocket would usually get fixed by the First Sergeant. He would come up to you rip the knife out of your pocket, usually ripping your pants in the process, and then break your folder throw it on the ground and then tell you to pick up every piece. While you were on your knees with a ripped uniform picking up small pieces of "whatever" you would get a lecture about the USMC uniform and how NOTHING gets put on it, not a string and not some stupid clip holding a knife. Fanaticism is the bare bones norm in the Marines but, they take that to a special kind of sick extreme in Boot Camp.
