A Joke and a Party

An oldie, recycled, but still somewhat humorous and applicable to a recent story.

Three vets are all walking towards the same intersection in the middle of a small town. They served in different branches of the service, doing different jobs, many years distant, but they had a few similarities. They liked to wear various Marine Corps or Army caps, perhaps a VFW pin, maybe even a set of old comfy boots. The one thing that they all have identically in common is that they are all dragging one leg behind them as they walk.


As they near talkin' distance, the first veteran slaps his right hip and says, "Vietnam, back in '69".


The second vet nods at the first, pats his thigh and says, "Fallujah, back in '04".


The third looks at the other two, grins, points a thumb over his shoulder and says, "Dog turd, 'bout 2 blocks back".



Vets can be like that, about their wounds.


War wounds might be brought up in conversation between vets as a part of story time, a sort of 'life really sucked, back when...'. Sometimes, when the source of a scar might have a more humorous shine to it, it can be more of a 'lemme tell you 'bout the time my dumb-ass tried to change a tire with my forehead right in the middle of a sand-storm'-type story. Other vets don't really run away from talking about their scars, they just don't ever seem to get around to it, either.

I was at a party recently, a birthday party of a buddy o' mine, as it were. Now, I knew that he had taken a round in Iraq back in the day, but that was about it. I didn't serve with him, so I wasn't there when he got hurt. We weren't shower buddies in the civvie world, so everytime I saw him, he had long pants on, so I never even saw his scars. Over time, the one conversation where he mentioned that he'd had a somewhat Really Bad Day more of less faded.

Until the party.

See, his kid was of an age that part of the festivities included various water activities, including getting tossed down a slip and slide, sprayed with a hose, or getting heaved into the kiddie pool. As this is Texas and it's currently hot enough to melt the hair on your head, just about everybody was in shorts and tees, haning out in the shade of the trees and occasionally getting hosed down with water.

Good times.

Good times were kept good by a discrete conversation with some about 1) letting him bring up the scars on his leg, if he wanted to, he would 2) yes, that's probably the entry wound. 3) yup, that would be the exit wound 4) that too, another exit 5) yeah, it's about half as big around as it should be, I would imagine that it hurt like hell - probably still does.

True to form, he came over a bit with a couple of beers (this guy, brining me a beer - sheesh!), patted his leg and said, "good thing I'm already married, 'cause I dunno if I could get many chicks with this leg, huh." I responded by telling him that different ladies go for different things but I still wouldn't want to test out that particular theory, as I've met his wife and have no desire to get on her bad side, at all.

Fire In The... Hole?

Way back in the day, probably similar nowadays, there were a number of ways to identify, off-base, if a guy was a devil-pup. An involuntary, momentary brain-lock upon being addressed in Marine-jargon was most likely a hold-over to recruit days, or those from the School of Infantry, when every Marine was in trouble at one point or another, would be a good sign. Likewise, a subtle shifting to the position of parade rest when addressed by a senior Marine was another. These signals were abandoned as soon as possible by the new Marine, so you couldn't always rely on those to ID who was in SOI or a recent grad.


Another, really easy way to spot an SOI libo Marine, besides the presence of the war-bag ((BOOOT!!!)), would of course be the moto-Ts. Motivational T-shirts were usually decorated with at least 17.5 symbols of the Marine Corps and/or nekkid ladies, death, big ta-tas, weapons, frisky females, other service disparagement, and finally & for a bit of variety, nekkid ladies.


Truly, high fashion it was.


Inevitably, moto-Ts were destined to fall out of favor with most Marines on libo, either due to the 'appropriate civilian attire' requirements that couldn't be wriggled out of, or just plain better fashion sense, as the Marine grew up a bit. This wasn't to imply that the Marine stopped getting moto Ts; oh no, we did, we just stopped wearing them so often on libo. Heh, one somewhat memorable pre-liberty soliloquy that I remember from one of my First Sergeants was the speech, shortly after threatening the well-being of any Marine that found himself in the local pokey at the end of liberty, was the part where he spoke of proper liberty attire. He always said something along the lines of, '... closed toed footwear, no exceptions. Trousers, and if it has loops, a belt, no exceptions. A collared shirt, no exceptions. NO motivational T-shirts, no exceptions. Now, I can't control what you wear out and about in town, but when you leave my area and exit my gate, you will most definitely not be wearing any t-shirt that says something along the lines of,

Eat the

and fuck the

I never actually saw any moto T that had this (or would that be a DE-motivational T?) on it, but then again every time the First Sergeant said it, I know there were a few Marines fantasizing about making one up, just for him...


One important exception to the moto-T rule was, of course, the company T. Every so often, usually during or after a float (deployment on ship), school, combat deployment, or as desired, a unit would come out with a T-shirt. Said shirt would have as its primary color camo green and would usually have a small unit logo on the front and a somewhat larger decoration regarding the units activities on the back. The T would often find its way into the rotation of wear under the cammies, where few would see it. The absence of nekkidness on the T would even make it ok for the odd boots and utes PT, depending on the command, of course.


I have found, now nearly 4 years (!?!) after getting out, that most of my old moto-Ts are getting back into my wear-rotation. Might be a shocker to hear, but I don't get out to the bars nearly as often (or at all, really) as I did before, so the Ts are nearly always worn during my puttering about the house, landscaping, during my 'runs', and whatnot. Some are so frayed and 'holy' that puttering about is about all they're fit for.


Moto-Ts have also become something of the 'easy gift' for My Love. One day she ran into this website, and it quickly became a go-to place for gifts, for me. It's a website devoted to not only the moto-T (and they have come a long way), but bumper-stickers, coins, flags, patches, rank items, and just about everything you could slap an Eagle, Globe, and Anchor on. As I am in danger of entering into 'crusty old bastard' Marine status, even the stuff that was in fashion, then not, and now again is good to go, for me. They send us a nice catalogue every month or so, and apparently the models they use are actual Marines, their wives, girlfriends, and kiddos.


Methinks the inclusion of the ladies cuts down quite a bit on the 'nekkidness' of some of the old stuff that I remember. Sure it's still out there, just not so much from this company.


Anyways, I got the most recent catalogue the other day, and pretty much as soon as I opened it, I saw something... interesting.


Now, I really hope that this is something for the ladies...


I really hope that this example is not in fact 'man-panties' that are now standard issue...


And mebbe it's just me, but 'fire in the hole' is not something that should be used on a pair of panties, man or otherwise. Seeing the phrase, 'fire in the hole' just makes me think that if a Marine were to take 'the li'l General' out for a little 'close order drill' with a 'training buddy' that had 'fire in the hole' on their panties, well, said Marine might have to later 'get his bore punched'.


Any Marine can tell you that 'getting ones bore punched' is never, ever, ever a good thing, probably because that big beefy Doc remembers every crack you ever made about his beloved Navy...


One slightly chuckle-worthy item aside, they are otherwise good-to-go and officially Murphy-approved, as dubious as a distinction as that is...

Wing Man Bravo Foxtrot

Murphy's military definition of the day;

Dump Ex. (Dump Exercise) - The period of time when, at the end of a training evolution, there's the realization that only a limited amount of time remains on the training schedule... and there's a metric ass-ton of ammo, mortar rounds, feral cats, pyro, etc. left to use up. It usually devolves into more or less a free for all / max rate of fire / redneck wet-dream for all boot Marines and anybody wanting to shoot the mortar / machine guns / whatever-is-being shot, blown up, burned up, or annihilated.

Example: "Get all the FNGs and Pog- er- interested Marines to stand by the mortars for the Dump Ex! We're leaving in 20 minutes and we have 500 HE rounds to fire! Half Load!!!..."



If however, Marines are off-base and in a bar, it is NOT to be used in the following (no definition provided, I'm sure you can figure it out).

"Duuude, those burritos tore me up! *burp* I'm gonna finish my beer and go take a dump... ex!"

... especially when Murphy is someway, somehow, looking like he's hitting it off with the li'l hottie who's way outta his league in the first place!

Semper Gumby

So I might have mentioned that I enjoy various types of martial arts. I've studied a little bit here, a little bit there, and a little bit of quite a few styles, at one point of time or another. I've even learned a little bit, too, I suppose.

One year I fell in with a group that taught a little bit o' everything. No uniforms, few 'rules', just a small group of guys that met at a local gym and pounded the heck outta eachother. Good times. The guy who led the group helped to run a school in a nearby city for a few years, and then moved here for college.

One day at class, he mentioned that his old school was going to have an informal seminar / fight night thing, and that if I was interested, I should go and check it out. He explained that a few of his old teachers would be there, and that the matches should be quite... vigorous at the least. Let me put it this way, groin shots were not recommended, but the prevailing thought was, if you took a shot to the nuts, you should have had a better and faster defense.

Only problem was getting released by the Gunny a few hours early at the end of the day / night of the seminar.

I only halfway expected a positive response, and that was about what I got. I guess Gunny felt that as I was asking for a few hours at the end of a slow day to go partake in a give n' take ass kicking session, it could be considered somewhat work-related, or something. It didn't mean that he couldn't give me some grief, though. Considering that I wouldn't have been terribly surprised with an outright 'no', a little grief was good to go.

One last conversation that I was having with him and a few other Staff-NCOs, and one of them hadn't known that I did martial arts. Most of the guys in my platoon knew, and I had by then somewhat appointed as one of the resident platoon hand-to-hand nuts who'd be called on to assist/teach a class, now and then. This Staff Sergeant looked at scrawny li'l me and grumbled, "You do that ninjer stuff? Show me something!"

Slight problem.

What was I going to do, tell him to 'Grab. Mah. Wrist.'?

I knew that I didn't want him to throw a punch my way. Hell, I might not survive it.

I knew that if I kicked him upside the head, I better make it quick and really good, or I definitely wouldn't survive it.

...

...

...


So I dropped down into the splits.



I used to be really flexible, and hadn't really streched out for a while, but the commentary was definitely worth it. I knew I was golden when I heard a passing Marine exlaim, "Sweet baby Jesus, Gunny, make it stop!"

More Snippets of Wisdom...

I have learned to 'never say never', but I suppose that it might be a safe bet to make that nowhere in a pre-liberty briefing can one find authorizations for junior Marines to be mind-numbingly drunk on the beach...

... at about oh, 1030 in the morning...

...hitting on all ladies (and a few innocent trash cans) in a 5 mile area...


Clue #1.

When one of the civilian police responders (of about 4 or so) turns out to be female, she's probably not going to be interested in manly displays of musculature, the rippling of ink work, or suave come-ons.


Clue #2.

Police departments in the vicinity of Marine bases have probably dealt with drunk, amorous, and/or feisty Marines.

At least once or twice.


Clue #3 (bonus).

Don't fight with the cops. Ever. Not even once, and not even 'just a little bit'.

Following boot tread-marks and reading boot-sole labels on the bodies of Marines recently released from the pokey provides for hours of fond reminiscing at the end of the float.

An Unexpected Serenade

I don't remember the year I first visited the Stumps, but it was about as fun and glorious as the other trips I made out there. That is to say, not very fun at all. But what the hell, it's desert warfare training, not disneyland. It's not that there wasn't any humerous moments, it's just that they were all so drenched in hot sweaty man stink that it just kind of sucked all the humor away at the time.

Did I mention it got kinda hot over there?


One afternoon we had completed the misery that passed for our training, and gone to the rear. On most civilized bases, 'the rear' was somewhere that looked a little bit like, you know, an actual base. Guess we had pissed somebody off that had the bling bling on their collars, because our rear area looked like some crusty old crew chief had just kicked a bunch of tents off of the rear of a passing helo, and let them land... wherever.

At least our tents were air conditioned. Yup, they had these flaps that you could lift up and tie off, and there you go... pretty good, at least until 0830. After that and before late afternoon, you were just as miserable as anywhere else under the blazing sun. Not that we were hanging out much in the tents in the morning or anything, 'cause, who needs the stinking shade?

So once we had gotten back and gotten all of the various little details taken care of, we got turned loose for a few hours before hitting the rack. My team leader at the time thought it would be kinda cute to give a liberty brief, even though we could walk over to the very generously named 'e-club' or... that was about it, there was nothing else except for sand, everywhere.

Friggin' e-club didn't even have beer, just sweet tea and AC.

My grand plans for the evening consisted of chow, toilets, showers, & sweating. Pretty busy night, considering there was a pretty good chance (about 175%) that I would be standing some sort of firewatch for a few hours during the night).


[heh, rereading this post I realized that it's kind of... bleh. It's actually not all that bad as many Marines will tell ya, but this one seems to be naturally oriented to a bleh setting.]


First up on the schedule, chow.

True to form for the rest of my years in, chow got distributed while I was running around on a working party or meeting or whatever. I returned to my pack to find that I had been alloted 8 identically nasty omlette meals for the next training evolution. Guess which chow was the least desired in the platoon, go ahead, take a wild stab in the dark. If I recall correctly, I was a PFC at the time, and if you had little to no rank and didn't grab 'em when you could, you were pretty much screwed when it came to chow.

So like I was saying, first up on the schedule, the toilets.

Grabbing a roll of life (toilet paper), I headed over to the crapper building. I was pretty excited to actually have a throne to sit down on, rather than having to dig another hole, pop a squat, and do the dirty deed... until I opened the door. The entirety of the building consisted of two lines of crappers, one about arms reach away (and facing) from the other line.

No stalls, walls, or anything between, or nuthin'.

Guts a grumbling from the crappy MREs I had been eating earlier, I said 'fuggit', and and side-stepped past a couple of other Marines to get to an open seat. It goes without saying that it wasn't a normal everyday experience to be 2 feet away from & facing another dude, taking a dump.

Of course, the Gunny decided to strike up a conversation. Gunny had too much rank for us to tell him to let us do our business in peace, so he rattled on... from both ends.

(Yeah, I know.)

Attempting to affect an air of nonchalance like it was no big deal to drop a loaf in a small room full of Marines, I reached into my cargo pocket and pulled out a letter that I had gotten recently. Dear old mom had written, and I had been looking forward to the opportunity to catching up on the family news. I hadn't expected to read it right then, but oh well.

One of the Corporals was yakking now about how, "if you stop to think about it, the Marine Corps is technically paying us to take a dump, right now. Whoa".

What, you thought all conversations were about Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, and Chuck Norris?



Did I mention that this was around my birthday? Yeah, I had kind of forgotten, myself (not much for that sort of thing).

Slicing open the top of the letter, the birthday card that she had included fell out and opened up. The strains of that tinny birthday tune started up, disrupting the room's conversation. I think it was the Gunny that started it, but when he was finished he had the whole group singing, all of 'em perched on the crappers.

*sigh*

It's nice to be loved.

Air Travel

Throughout the years I had the opportunity to fly commercial a number of times for military duty. If the group was small enough, we would usually go in civilian attire, and pack everything else under the cabin. Always seemed to be interesting when the NCOIC (Non commissioned Officer in Charge) would explain to the airline person(s) that yes, we did arrange to stash 20 rifles, 5 pistols, 4 mortar systems, 2 240Gs, various compasses, binos, and a partridge in a pear tree etc. under the plane. Once the paperwork was done, as far as the airlines were concerned, we were civilians taking a civilian flight, so bring on the long lines, x-ray machines, and all those hot TSA chicks! Paperwork always seemed to be MIA.

Me, I think Murphy has a cousin in the airline industry.

Hell, I'm sure of it.

Flying into San Diego one time, my Gunny realized that being as we were all spread out throughout the plane with even a few guys having managed to finagle their way into first class to hit on the stewardesses & college chickadees, he needed a means to ensure that all Marines would wait up for him upon debarking, as he was stuck in the very back, right up against the on-board shitters. He called for the stewardess. He got the only available one, the steward with the lisp, wrist, and frosted tips in his hair. Conversation went something like this:

Steward - Yes, sweetie?
Gunny - (mumblegrumble), I need a PA for my Marines.
Steward - Ok sugar, what would you like to have me say?
Gunny - (more mumblings & grumblings) All Marines for the weapons competition need to-
Steward - Sorry hon, can't say 'weapons' on this flight's PA.
Gunny - (sigh) Ok, how about all Mortarmen wait for -
Steward - Nope...
Gunny - All Marines wait for the Gunny at the -
Steward - Sorry...
Gunny - Fuck!
Steward - (Hand on own chest, eyes wide) Sir!

On another flight, after getting to the airport roughly 3 hours early, ensuring that all weapons were safely stashed in the belly, and finally getting on board the plane, it turned out that there was actually about 2 full rows of Marines seated together (cue mayhem music here). About 2 hours into the flight, the 'meals' and beverages already served, one guy kind of jumped in his seat. I figured it was a bad slice of ham, but it turned out that he had forgotten to stash something in the weapons containers back at the base.

See, when we were issued all of our personal weapons, the individual Marine signed out for his own rifle, pistol (if applicable) and bayonet. Once everyone ensured that he had his own items, serial numbers double checked, receipts issued, and regular threats on life, liberty, first borne etc in the event of misplaced weaponry, all our stuff was placed in large containers for the flight over. This Marine had forgotten to put his bayonet in the storage container. He proceeded to reach down under his seat, open up his carry on, and pull out the bayonet for all to see. We quickly suggested that putting it back in his carry-on sounded like a great idea.

More rare was the occasion that the entire company would buy the seats for a commercial flight, but there were some advantages. We would dress in cammies and, as there were no civilian passengers aboard the plane, we could carry our weapons up into the cabin. The only stipulation was that we had to have our weapons inspected for lack of ammo and to remove the bolt while the flight was in progress. It was on one of these flights that I heard the best public announcement, ever. After all Marines were seated, and roughly half of the company had verified that this was not a flight with complimentary alcoholic beverage service, smoking section, or dancing girls, the pilot got on the horn.

*ding* "Good afternoon, Marines! My name is Captain John Schmukatellie and I would like to welcome y'all aboard flight 1313 to sunny Panama. Temperature there is a warm 92 degrees, and of course the humidity is about 150 percent."

His only response was groans and a request for a beer.

"On our flight down South I would like to remind you to have all K-Bars, bayonets, and personal knives, daggers, spears and any implements of spearing, stabbing, or slashing safely sheathed. No poking anybody 'till y'all get on libo. Any pistols on board my plane also need to be holstered for the duration of the flight. Please make sure that any personal rifles and machine guns are safely stored in the overhead compartments or underneath the seats, making sure that the muzzles are not protruding into the aisle. Shouldn't be any grenades or other stuff that goes boom on board, so that's easy enough. I also want to say thank you for your service, and thank you for choosing this airline... Dang, I always wanted to say that kind of stuff, but never could!"

Now that's something that you don't hear everyday...

Mess Night, Platoon Pride, & Marines in Trouble (again), Part 2

At another mess night, some years later...

Coming back from the field we got word that there was going to be a mess night the evening before we returned to our base. A building was arranged, beer runs were made, the grills were lit. The order was given to prepare skits, imitations, and jokes. Suckage was highly discouraged, on pain of the Captain's displeasure. To ensure that this one would maintain some semblance of propriety, only the first hour or so would be company wide. After an hour, the Officers and Staff NCOs would go on to their own mess night, leaving Sgts and below to see how much trouble we could get into. The order was 'hang out until the beer is gone, then clean up and hit the rack'. Nothing about seizing the initiative and making about three beer runs....


Good initiative... bad judgement.


For the first hour, everything was cool. A few funny skits from some of the platoons got everyone in a good mood, a couple of platoon jokers got up to do some dead on impressions of the Gunny, CO, etc. The beer was cold and we were pleasantly tired from running around all week. After the higher ups left, most of the Sergeants decided that they were going to hang out in another building, and it was just the platoons Corporals and below sitting around in grouped tables... eyeing each other... with mischief in our eyes.

After a couple of hours, we got tired of making the Pvts perform stupid human tricks, and the trash cans were overflowing. After the last beer run, we declared a moratorium on streaking (kidding, sort of). Finishing up a can, one Marine crushed the can and slammed it down onto the table, next to a collection of about 30 or so empty cans. As we were rapidly running out of room for the empties, one can got stacked up on another, and that is how it all started...

Looking over at our nemesis machine gunner platoon, we noticed that not only did they have a stack of cans, but it was much larger than ours.

Oh. Hell. No.

This would just not do. Platoon pride determined that ours would be the biggest and best stack of cans. When our drinking abilities didn't hold up, we turned to cheating.

In a huddle, one Marine said "Hell, we're a friggin' mortar platoon, lets call for fire". We took some hasty, drunken calculations and lobbed our first round (empty can), trying to register a target. The guy who launched it was a little too tipsy, so the can fell about two tables too short and off to the right. The Forward Observers got into the game, sounding off with a fire mission correction of "Add two tables, left one, fire for effect". This was when the MGs started returning fire, with a lucky direct hit. Thusly was demonstrated why it is a bad idea to use indirect (arcing) fire vs direct (line o' sight) fire.

Damn machine gooners.

One Corporal decided that more decisive tactics was called for and made a flanking movement on the MG table. As he was doing this, several buildings away, I can imagine that the Gunny thought he had heard something unusual. It was probably a lull in the battle, so when he heard suspicious silence coming from the general vicinity of our building (nobody running around outside serenading the trees or sidewalk or whatnot). Sounded kind of like...Marines getting into some shit. Possibly realizing the error of his previous order (not specifying additional beer runs, just that when the beer was done we were done), he scooted over to our building.

As the Cpl finished the flanking movement and began the direct attack on the MG table with a stack of about 15 cans high, the Gunny approached the door...

The Machine Gunners realized the attack was imminent and tried to block the way. As the Cpl. launched himself in the air, Gunny opened the door to see:

A room full of drunken monkeys, many beer cans and one portly Marine flying through the air like a NFL wide receiver, radios blaring, all trash cans overflowing, one lying on its side, and a few guys passed out under the tables.

WHAT IN THE HOLY (*CRASH* as the Cpl landed on the MG table, breaking it in half but accomplishing the mission of total destruction of the enemy target) HELL IS GOING ON IN HERE?!?!?





That was a loooong night.....

Mess Nights, Platoon Pride, & Marines in Trouble (again), Part 1

Mess Night is a rare function that is designed to build camaraderie amongst the company. It can be an Officer and/or Staff non commissioned officer (NCO) night, an NCO only night, or an all company mess night. Unlike the Marine Corps Birthday Ball wives are usually not present, and probably for good reason. It is the usually once or twice a career opportunity for the entirety of the unit to get together and show your ass, sort of.

My first mess night, I was a Pfc. Pvts and Pfcs are usually to be found serving the beverages of the night, and some of the junior Staff NCOs and Officers would be found cooking up the meat. Thankfully, there were quite a few Pvts to do the work, which left me to watch the festivities. The senior enlisted man at these functions would serve as the master of ceremonies, what few ceremonies there were. He had authority over everyone but the Commanding Officer, and the M.C. wasn't afraid to demonstrate it. The C.O. was...the C.O., probably doing his best to ensure that this wouldn't turn into a career-ender for him!

My first ever mess night, Gunny Kill was the Master of Ceremonies. First Sergeant was probably hiding somewhere...

Ah, the Gunny. On this mess night, once everyone was seated and the games began, he was seated at the front of the room, with the CO. CO gets a funny look in his eye, and whispers in the Gunny's ear. Gunny starts roaring, so I know that someone is in Some Shit. "Captain Batman, get your ass up here!" says the Gunny. According to the rules of mess night, for this occasion, Gunny outranked the Captain. He could order, fine (usually in the single-digit dollar amount), berate, etc especially as the night grew long and the kegs grew light.

CAPTAIN: (rising from his seat near the front) Now Gunny, I don-
GUNNY: Shaddap, sir! (gavel slams down) *BAM!* Two dollar fine for the beer fund!
CAPTAIN: Wha- ?!?
GUNNY: Shaddap, sir! *BAM* Three dollars for the beer fund.
CAPTAIN: As you wish. (the required answer came accompanied this night by rolled eyes)
GUNNY: That's more like it. Now a certain informant (wink to the CO) has informed me that before you joined my beloved Corps, you used to be a freakin' cheerleader, in college. Is this true?

-the room roars-

CAPTAIN: (after a minute) Well, I-
GUNNY: Shaddap, sir! *BAM* Two dollar fine for the beer fund!!! Goddamn, the way your going, sir, the next run is on you!!!
CAPTAIN: Yeah, I was a cheerleader at university.
-more roars-
GUNNY: Let's have us a motivating cheer, for the Marines, of course.
CAPTAIN: - Oh fuc-
Gunny - Shaddap, sir! Two dollar fine for risking damage to my delicate ears! Do the cheer, sir! *BAM BAM!!!*

The Captain proceeds to do one hell of a Marine Corps Cheer.

CAPTAIN: Give me a 'U'!!!

*crickets chirping...*

GUNNY: Where's my pose, Captain?!?

CAPTAIN: *sigh* Give me an 'S"!!! (strikes a pose)

*low chuckles*

CAPTAIN: Give me a 'M'!!!

CAPTAIN: Give me a 'C'!!! What's that spell?!?!...

GUNNY: Ok Sir, that's enough of that, sit down.

The good Captain got a hearty round of applause.


Oddly, most of the Officers were hard found after that, until the night was over.

Toys for Tots, Pt. 2

With all the various moving parts of OPERATION: ASSHOLES TAKING ADVANTAGE, there was a few pick-ups that got overlooked. It came to the attention of the First Sergeant, and he made sure that we were aware of the error, in classic Staff NCO fashion. I declined to mention that he might not recognize me due to the fact that I was just helping out and not in his chain of command, but I did kind of like my butt sans boot. I'm kind of funny that way. So a bunch of us piled into a couple of vans and off we went...

To a local fire department. One of the stations in town had agreed to host a couple of collection boxes for the past few months, and it sounded like they had quite the haul. As best as I could figure out, they had combined forces with a couple of other organizations to maximize their potential. Good stuff. I guess one of the fire fighters had a couple of daughters in the girl scouts, and they also decided to pitch in and help out. One of those mothers worked for a newspaper, and they figured...not to help out, but to come and take some pictures for a story.

Fire fighters. Good people. Actually a couple of former Marines in the bunch, and we managed to swap some stories and talk some trash before the festivities began. Before anyone could get into too much trouble, the girl scouts and (mostly) mom's showed up. I don't remember the exact words from the conversation, but I had a great conversation with one of the little girls. She was very proud of her various patches, and asked if I would like a few for my uniform. I declined as politely as I could. My arm was twisted on those delicious mint-chocolate chip cookies, however (cookies gooood).

Eventually, it came time for the photo op. The firefighters, along with the girl scout group made the official presentation of the toys to the gathered Marines. A photographer from the paper took a few shots, took down a few names, and some background story. As we were breaking up, one of the moms asked if she could take a pic with her personal camera. No problem, we were happy to be accommodating.

Now, I don't know if it was something in the air, the uniforms, or something else, but it seemed like every mom suddenly had a camera and a semi-professional interest in taking the best shots. At first I thought it was just the typical proud mama thing, but after a few comments I began to wonder. A couple of the mothers made comments to their daughters along the lines of 'now girls, y'all will want to save these pictures, in a couple of years they'll mean a lot more to yall', 'ok, suzy one photo for you, 5 for me', and 'Mmmmm...*licking lips a la Stiffler's mom*'. Ok, ok, I might have made that last one up, at least the 'Mmmmm' part. I did see one licking her lips, but in her defense, it might have been the cookies... or something. As the pictures continued (with commentary), one of the Marines whispered to the fire fighter next to him 'Dude... you get this all the time?' 'On occasion', was the response.' The Marine very quickly developed an interest in joining a fire department upon his exit from the Corps.

Toys for Tots, Pt. 1

Couple of years back, wintertime. I'm busy solving the worlds issues with a heavy dose of naptime when...


*brrring....brrring....*

ME: 'Lo?

MARINE BUDDY (MB): Hey there you little turd miner, you still got your dress blues squared away, or are you too fat and nasty for 'em now?

Ah yes, camaraderie and esprit de corps defined in insults to a buddy.

ME: Dunno, think I left my blues over at your mom's house. She and your girlfriend went kinda crazy on me the other night...

MB: Very funny, asshole.

ME: So, who died, got married...(redundant), or needs the dubious eye candy that is me all spiffed up?

MB: You ever heard of Toys for Tots?

ME: Yeah, isn't that the group that gives out...toys for...er...the tots?

MB: Damn. Sharp as always. Being as Christmas is right around the corner, the Marines collecting for Toys for Tots are jumping through their ass to get everything done. Word is they are kinda short on bodies, wanna help out?

I can't really say that I have been all over the charity or charity work. I've done a few projects here and there, given semi-regularly to various churches, bought a few extra burritos and handed them out. That sort of thing. Heck, there have been times that I would have probably been ok to accept money. Never got around to it, though.

ME: I dunno man, gotta lot of stuff to do around the house, gotta trim my nails...

MB: Dude, think of the chicks.

ME: ...ok, ok, twist my arm.

See, this was still back in the day when I thought that I actually had anything to do with the whole girlie selection process. If you think that my military stories are kinda humorous, you should hear 'bout my dating follies. Whole other blog source, there. Eventually, I got it through my thick skull that it pretty much all came down to the lady in question. Me having any kind of plans, hopes, and dreams when it came to the females was just so much comedic folly for the gods. I was never all that when it came to math, but as best as I could figure;

(Marine + charity) x ladies x dress blues (aka chick magnet) = score!

I had visions of how studly I would look, hot chicas, bras just flying through the air like so much confetti...and oh yeah, some appreciative kids. Naturally, this meant that I was assigned to van detail.

Apparently how it works is that a few Marines will start to go round the neighborhood in September or October. They will meet with organizations, groups, businesses, etc. A lot of these people will agree to set up a donation box of unwrapped toys for the kiddos. Some time in December, the Marines will return and pick up the toys for distribution. Apparently, the boat spaces for toy pick ups at all the local Hooters was all taken but, luckily for me, pick up at various bridge clubs, nice little old ladies houses, and gas stations was still free. I got the keys to the ever sexy government van, an a-driver, and off we went.

It wasn't as bad as I had imagined, got to drive around to a local community, with huge houses. Nice little old ladies, and most of them baking up a storm. Cookies good, mmmm. On returning to the great toy gathering point, I say a bunch of Pfcs and Lcpls running around doing the sorting. Boys, girls, neutral, athletic, dolls, all kinds of categories. Lots of work behind the scenes.

Luckily for me, I had returned just in time to the start of toy pick up. Cars would pull up, men and women would get out and start looking for toys. Most of the time, it was apparent that they just needed a little bit of help to make the little one's holiday extra special, and that was what this whole project was for. Their vehicles were usually a couple of years old, some in better shape than others. Mostly blue collar, some language barriers. Most very appreciative. Quite a few promises to donate when they got back on their feet. Then there were the others. Those who drive up to the hangar with the BMW, pimped out low-rider, or Escalade. Deep tint, spinning crap on the wheels, 'bling' everywhere. Chatting on the latest phone, strolling up in $100 dollar shoes, and talking a moment from their busy day to tell a Lcpl to go fetch them certain toys.

WTF, over?

One of the Cpls who regularly worked this function told me that the policy for those Marines was not to make any judgement calls on how needy the folks were. They show up, they get some gifts, that's just the way it was. As he was explaining this to me, another 'pimp-mobile' showed up. This guy had a flyer, A FLYER, that someone had hand-made, announcing that the Marines were handing out free shit to anyone who showed up.

WTF, over?