As much as I truly hated being in it towards the end of my voluntary sentence, becoming a United States Marine changed me for life, mostly in positive ways. In retrospect, I could have done without ALL the alcohol.
And it really is true, once a Marine, always a Marine.
First to fight. Semper Fi!
[quote]
Two hundred and thirty-one years ago today, they were born at the Tun Tavern in Philadelphia. The news of their birth traveled far more slowly than they did. Some short time later, according to their lore, their first man reported for duty aboard a US Navy ship. The officer of the deck barked, âWhat the hell are you?â and said, âYou go aft and sit down 'till I find out.â The Tripolitan pirates didnât know who they were when a handful marched across five hundred miles of Libyan desert in 1805. Led by a fiddle-playing Irish-American lieutenant named Presley Neville OâBannon, a handful of them attacked Derna under a fierce barrage from three US navy ships, overcame odds of more than ten-to-one and seized Derna in less than three hours.
The first American body armor, a leather collar, was added to their uniform to protect against saber cuts, so they were soon labeled the âleathernecks.â When about fifty of them led the attack and scaled the heights of Chapultepec in 1847, the Mexicans probably didnât know who they were. Led by men such as Sergeant Major Dan Daley, they earned a new nickname from the Kaiserâs army in the First World War battle of Belleau Wood. Daley led them in one charge shouting, âCome on you sons of bitches! Do you want to live forever?â For their ferocious bravery, the Germans named them âteufel hundenâ - devil dogs - a name they wear proudly to this day. Before the end of World War Two, everyone knew who they were: the US Marines.[/quote]
villainouscompany.com/vcblog ⌠_dogs.html
[quote]
MARINES come in all shapes, shades, weights, sizes, & states of sobriety, misery, & confusion. He is sly as a fox, has the nerve of a dope addict, the stories of an old sailor, the sincerity of a politician, & the subtlety of Mt. Saint Helen. Heâs extremely irresistible, totally irrational & completely indestructible.
Girls love them, mothers tolerate them, fathers brag about them,
the government pays them, the police watch out for them & somehow they all work together. You can beat their bodies but not their minds.[/quote]
:bravo: