The Big Green Weenie was a saying that we had to refer to any situation that, for what ever reason, was somewhat less than ideal... There was one situation where Mr. Murphy ensured that I got an up close, personal, and quite literal experience with the green monster.
I wasn't the greatest of Marines by any stretch of the imagination, but with a half-way decent head on my shoulders, and a near obsessive-compulsion streak regarding constant gear accountability developed as a result of some painful lessons learned early in the Corps, I eventaully found myself as a section leader of an 81mm mortar platoon. As an E-3.
For the uninitiated, take a platoon of around 50 Marines, and divide them up into three groups. Send 7 or 8 guys a few hills to the rear, and call them the brains of the operation. Those are the guys that figure out all of the math, i.e. so-and-so is getting slaughtered 4000 meters to our north, we need to lay indirect suppressing fire (preferably over their heads) for the next 2 minutes until helicopters can sweep the bad guys.
The guys on the radio calling in the fire would be the forward observers. They are the ones that get to snoop-n-poop ala boyhood Rambo fantasies, or more likely get attatched to some other unit to ensure that someone-who-knows-how-to-call-for-fire isn't on the radio screaming "AH shit, they're killing us!! Fire Away over there!". This being a training scenario, forward observers were usually up on the hills somewhere, conducting intense... infiltration techniques. Right. When I was an f.o. it was me, another Lcpl. and a salty old SSgt. SOP was get to the hill about 4 hours before the range went hot, and wake up Mr. Grumpy occasionally to make sure that we weren't jacking up the calls for fire.
The large group of about 40 or so Marines is the firing line. They are the ones that actually do the blowing of shit up. They are sometimes divided in to two groups, 1st and second section, for ease in leadership and employment.
Anyways, one day the Gunny decided that I had enough living the good life away from higher staff NCOs and Os, called me down from the hill, and informed me that I was now in charge of 2nd section. I went from just worring about my own gear and ass to that of about 20 Marines, all of their gear, 4 or 5 81mm mortars, and any and all serialized gear (compasses, binoculars, radios, etc.) This is not somethat that you would normally expect to find a Lcpl. doing, especially when there were actually a few Corporals that I was in charge of. Guess he was just looking for a couple of laughs or something. Somewhat suprisingly (most of all to myself) I did a decent enough job.
So one one training excercise, we got word that the Battalion Commander was going to be making his rounds of Weapons Company, so everyone had to be on their toes, ready for the Big Green Weenie in the event that he decided to stop by. See, we couldn't just focus on our training, fire off our alloted rounds, move to the next position, and repeat as necessary. We had to pick one range with good overview for the brass, and make sure that when/if they showed up, we could put on a good show for them. Pain in the ass for us, hence our slogan Semper-er, no the other one, The Big Green Weenie strikes again!
As I was not too concerned re our proficiency with the weapons systems, I decided to focus on other training areas that tended to get neglected more than they should like land nav, first aid, and the like. Half way through a class, Gunny called me aside, along with the Sgt. Section Leader for 1st section, the Sgt. who ran the Fire-Direction-Control (big brains) and Mr. Grumpy. We kind of just ran over in what direction we wanted to continue training after the dog-and-pony show that was to be conducted upon the arrival of the brass. Acutally they ran through the plans. I was just a Lcpl. I didn't say shit.
Meanwhile, my Marines had completed the class that they were working on, and like any motivated group of highly trained, superbly equipped, professional class of military killers did what just about anybody would do in their situation. They started talking shit and playing grab-ass.
Back to the leadership meeting, most of our chain of command showed up in the always tactical white Ford f-150s and proceeded to make their rounds.
Meanwhile, one of my Marines was discussing his latest trip to the neighborhood porno-shop...
While the XO was discussing our allocation of rounds and new equipment...
my Marine was describing the joy of finding the perfect dildo....
XO noted the shabby condition of the paint on some of our Hummers...
Marine found that painting a didlo camoflauge green is a hilarious endeavour...
Walking up the firing line, the majority of our chain of command was greeted by a thundering roar of "1st section sucks 2nds Dick!!!" followed by what looked suspiciously like a HUGE. Green. Dildo. Soaring though the air accompanied by much definitely non-Marine-like tittering and giggling. By the time we got up to the line, my trusty second in command of the section had attatched the dildo to the front of his kevlar helmet and was running around like a bull sized hedge-hog poking everyone in sight chortling "Ha-ha, Big Green Weenie Strikes again!!!".
sigh. Got to love those Marines.
I wasn't the greatest of Marines by any stretch of the imagination, but with a half-way decent head on my shoulders, and a near obsessive-compulsion streak regarding constant gear accountability developed as a result of some painful lessons learned early in the Corps, I eventaully found myself as a section leader of an 81mm mortar platoon. As an E-3.
For the uninitiated, take a platoon of around 50 Marines, and divide them up into three groups. Send 7 or 8 guys a few hills to the rear, and call them the brains of the operation. Those are the guys that figure out all of the math, i.e. so-and-so is getting slaughtered 4000 meters to our north, we need to lay indirect suppressing fire (preferably over their heads) for the next 2 minutes until helicopters can sweep the bad guys.
The guys on the radio calling in the fire would be the forward observers. They are the ones that get to snoop-n-poop ala boyhood Rambo fantasies, or more likely get attatched to some other unit to ensure that someone-who-knows-how-to-call-for-fire isn't on the radio screaming "AH shit, they're killing us!! Fire Away over there!". This being a training scenario, forward observers were usually up on the hills somewhere, conducting intense... infiltration techniques. Right. When I was an f.o. it was me, another Lcpl. and a salty old SSgt. SOP was get to the hill about 4 hours before the range went hot, and wake up Mr. Grumpy occasionally to make sure that we weren't jacking up the calls for fire.
The large group of about 40 or so Marines is the firing line. They are the ones that actually do the blowing of shit up. They are sometimes divided in to two groups, 1st and second section, for ease in leadership and employment.
Anyways, one day the Gunny decided that I had enough living the good life away from higher staff NCOs and Os, called me down from the hill, and informed me that I was now in charge of 2nd section. I went from just worring about my own gear and ass to that of about 20 Marines, all of their gear, 4 or 5 81mm mortars, and any and all serialized gear (compasses, binoculars, radios, etc.) This is not somethat that you would normally expect to find a Lcpl. doing, especially when there were actually a few Corporals that I was in charge of. Guess he was just looking for a couple of laughs or something. Somewhat suprisingly (most of all to myself) I did a decent enough job.
So one one training excercise, we got word that the Battalion Commander was going to be making his rounds of Weapons Company, so everyone had to be on their toes, ready for the Big Green Weenie in the event that he decided to stop by. See, we couldn't just focus on our training, fire off our alloted rounds, move to the next position, and repeat as necessary. We had to pick one range with good overview for the brass, and make sure that when/if they showed up, we could put on a good show for them. Pain in the ass for us, hence our slogan Semper-er, no the other one, The Big Green Weenie strikes again!
As I was not too concerned re our proficiency with the weapons systems, I decided to focus on other training areas that tended to get neglected more than they should like land nav, first aid, and the like. Half way through a class, Gunny called me aside, along with the Sgt. Section Leader for 1st section, the Sgt. who ran the Fire-Direction-Control (big brains) and Mr. Grumpy. We kind of just ran over in what direction we wanted to continue training after the dog-and-pony show that was to be conducted upon the arrival of the brass. Acutally they ran through the plans. I was just a Lcpl. I didn't say shit.
Meanwhile, my Marines had completed the class that they were working on, and like any motivated group of highly trained, superbly equipped, professional class of military killers did what just about anybody would do in their situation. They started talking shit and playing grab-ass.
Back to the leadership meeting, most of our chain of command showed up in the always tactical white Ford f-150s and proceeded to make their rounds.
Meanwhile, one of my Marines was discussing his latest trip to the neighborhood porno-shop...
While the XO was discussing our allocation of rounds and new equipment...
my Marine was describing the joy of finding the perfect dildo....
XO noted the shabby condition of the paint on some of our Hummers...
Marine found that painting a didlo camoflauge green is a hilarious endeavour...
Walking up the firing line, the majority of our chain of command was greeted by a thundering roar of "1st section sucks 2nds Dick!!!" followed by what looked suspiciously like a HUGE. Green. Dildo. Soaring though the air accompanied by much definitely non-Marine-like tittering and giggling. By the time we got up to the line, my trusty second in command of the section had attatched the dildo to the front of his kevlar helmet and was running around like a bull sized hedge-hog poking everyone in sight chortling "Ha-ha, Big Green Weenie Strikes again!!!".
sigh. Got to love those Marines.
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