Marines are not born; they are made. Happy 231st!

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. :sunglasses:

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, “What the hell are you?” and said, “You go aft and sit down 'till I find out.” The Tripolitan pirates didn’t 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 O’Bannon, 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 “leathernecks.” When about fifty of them led the attack and scaled the heights of Chapultepec in 1847, the Mexicans probably didn’t know who they were. Led by men such as Sergeant Major Dan Daley, they earned a new nickname from the Kaiser’s army in the First World War battle of Belleau Wood. Daley led them in one charge shouting, “Come on you sons of bitches! Do you want to live forever?” For their ferocious bravery, the Germans named them “teufel hunden” - 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. He’s 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: :notworthy:

The Paras/Airborne are far, far, far better than grunty Marines. :smiley: :laughing:

Met some BRM in a bar in Yokosuka Japan. Foin chaps they all were!

Okay, that explains why you like to wear leather collars. :laughing:

Okay, that explains why you like to wear leather collars. :laughing:[/quote]

Yes, and the thimbles on the nipples are for protection as well. :blush:

:beer: Happy Birthday ya sea-going bellhops.

My 18 year old nephew is in basic training to be a marine as we speak. i tried and tried to talk him out of it. he is an adrenaline-addict, class clown, make fun of authority, already banged up his body doing flips on the trampoline, spec ed, no steady male role model, kill the allah lovers kind of guy. should fit in, huh? good thing the dems have control of both houses.

Chesty Puller would refer to this as a target rich environment.

Jesus wept, now I know why some folk are complete inane prats…
The Kore indeed…! :ponder:

A high casualty rate does not an elite unit make.
Just ask those old SS dudes, and you’ll still here the same stale rhetoric.
Same shit, different uniform.

And I’d lump the bleeding Para’s in there as well.

In God We Trust.
Always Faithful.
Gott Mitt Uns
Meine Ehre Heisst True.

Uncanny, innit?

relax TC…the Corps is about the men and women IN it, not those on the sidelines…they wouldn’t understand

<added later, upon reflection>
Looking back, the main reason I joined was not to go off and kill people ( I signed up after the Beirut barracks bombings), but because I felt I lacked discipline and confidence and I knew if I went off to college after high school I would become a bum. The Marine Corps really did teach me about those things. It did also teach me about honor and sacrifice and comaraderie. You DO train with guys who literally are trained to have your back when the shit hits the fan, and you are trained to do the same. This kind of loyalty to people is rare these days…IMVHO. Too much mememe.

v, in this day and age, worrying about young dumb kids who join up…well, it would be foolish NOT too. But, through the training and really hard work, the discipline and confidence the Corps DOES bring out of young men and women gives them a hell of lot better shot at becoming the people THEY want to be. Not the person other people want them to be.

To each their own. I know for a FACT that I wouldn’t be the man I am today if it hadn’t been for my time in…and that was in peacetime. The bonds your nephew is making now will last a lifetime. I wish him well and a safe return from wherever he gets sent. Tell him to sign up for the GI Bill. It put me through college and Grad school.

peace
jds

nothing here…keep moving

I always tell my nephews and daughters, don’t aspire to be a soldier. The main ingredient in being a soldier is brave obedience. Aspire to be the civilian leaders and experts who tell the soldiers what to do. As for the Marines helping TJ to become a man- well, that was my brother’s job. But divorce I believe weakened the father-son bond; not that that is an excuse. The thing that helped my brother become a man was becoming a father. I guess there is a commonality with the Marine Corps- being responsible for someone else’s life besides your own. If someone wants real excitement and discipine and danger, better to join up for the Red Cross or some other humanitarian organization.

Damned fine advice. Leave it to some other schmuck to do your country’s bidding. I mean there’s always someone stupid or screwed up enough to do it, right? Fuck them.

HG

HGC, a note of sarcasm? I support a draft. As with the latter stages of Vietnam in the US, when people know that anyone in the right age range could be called up, they start paying a lot more attention as to whether a war is worth it. With an all volunteer army, protest is not as strong because, ‘you asked for it’. HGC, you are serving in harm’s way as we speak? Oh, you aren’t in the military? I’m sorry. You did agree with my post after all. I misread you : (.

Happy birthday, lads. You’re not the Navy, but no-ones perfect… :wink:

There is some merit in that A sense of a shared responsibility which was very much absent from the post I was commenting on.

I asked for nothing of the sort. Your prior post gave me the idea to outsource the war to Mexico. Which is probably not a bad idea either.

At this point in time, well actually long since in the case of the Australian army, we tend to prefer volunteers. Here’s a great intro to the Australian attitutde to conscription: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Australia

HG

HGC, are you or have you ever been in the military? Why or why not? If yes, how was the experience?

Yeah I was, what of it? There was a cold war on at the time, but nothing immediate.

HG

I was just curious, not trying to prove a point.