Idaho's Citizen Defense Lawyer

Tag: usmc

What it Means to Serve

April 1, 2013 /

The opinions expressed are my own.  I don’t speak for everyone, but this is true for a great many.

I joined the Marine Corps in September of 1999.  I had this idea in my head that I was going to be on the far side of the world up to my neck in the bodies of my fallen enemies only to return home to be up to my neck in women.  Neither proved to be true.  The first wave of boots put in my charge were 9/11 Marines.  I have a strong feeling that many would have joined regardless, but some I’m sure were prompted by watching the towers fall.  I always pitied them as I watched them picking up cigarette butts around the company office.

I preferred the pre 9/11 military.  Maybe it’s a desire to differentiate myself, but I don’t think so.  It has nothing to do with those Marines I met and the fantastic troops I worked with, but rather with the rest of my country.  For the most part, pre-Iraq, and definitely pre-9/11 the fact that I was a Marine mattered only to Marines.  It mattered to other servicemembers.  It really didn’t matter much to anyone else.  I liked it that way, except for fact that I always hoped the uniform would help me with the ladies.

But nowadays being a serviceman means everyone is a hero.  It means that the Lance Corporal who spent Iraq behind a ladle in the chow hall somehow is an expert in foreign policy whose opinion cannot be called into question.  It means that veterans who are generally just assholes get a pass because “he must have PTSD”.

I don’t want you calling me a hero.  It’s awkward, and it makes me feel small and unworthy.  I’ve met heroes.  More importantly, to many civilians, I just don’t like you.  I don’t care what your opinion is.  I don’t respect you.  I fight, and would die for you, but most of you are unthinking enemies of freedom.  You’re soft.  You’re self-indulgent.  Many of us joined the Corps to get away from you. To join a superior culture.  While we fight for you, we mock you.  Do you know that?  We call you “the zoo”.  We talk about the nasty bodies “back on the block”.  When we watch “A Few Good Men”, Jack Nicholson is the hero, not Tom Cruise.  We are two Americas.  We want you to leave us alone far more than we want your adulation.  I don’t like you, and you are screwing up my Corps.

Before 9/11 you didn’t care about me.  This neglect was wonderful for my culture.  This allowed me to train harder.  When you weren’t looking, my Corps became stronger.  It became tighter.  We were more able to police our own.

But now you’re paying attention.  You’re making sure your little boys and girls are being treated as good as you think your little heroes should be treated.  You seem to think we’re all heroes.  This has created an entitlement culture amongst the military.  We used to pride ourselves on the sacrifice.  It brought us together.  Now our military is filling up with people crying about how little we get for what we do.  They’re RIGHT.  But we’re forgetting the idea that we’re service men, not serve-us men.  We are not supposed to be getting adequately compensated for our work.  That’s the service part.

So this guy, Bill McClellan, posted an article calling for the end of government paid veterans funerals.  He was RIGHT.  It costs a lot of money.  In the grand scheme of things it is a pittance, but we few, we happy few should be volunteering to shoulder that burden FIRST.  That’s what it means to serve.  You bet we deserve that rifle squad and bugler.  But deserve’s got nothing to do with it.  Our country’s greatest enemy right now is its out of control spending.  Let us lead by example, show our sacrifice, that America may follow, and in turn save herself.

When we allow the rest of American society to care for us, we get soft, we lose the tightness of our bond, and we stop caring for each other.  You will find the tightness of the bond of pre-9/11 Marines is stronger than post-9/11 Marines UNLESS those men served in combat together.  They suffered more hardship together.  They didn’t have an undeserving society showering them in praise.  Therefore, they had, and needed, each other.

Mr. McClellan has gotten a lot of flak, but he is right.  And kudos to him for having the guts to stick to his position.  I suppose that’s just the difference between a Marine writer and a civilian one.  End government paid military funerals.  Let us veterans come together and honor our own, rather than put that burden, however small, upon the American taxpayer.  Besides, I’d rather a handful of squadmates at my funeral than a city of the people of Walmart lining the streets waving their flags they bought from Chinese slave laborers.

Chewbacca!

January 24, 2013 /

601334_10151293389628612_1213147671_n

 

I’ve discussed the notion of placing women in the infantry before at length.  Just for a third time, I support it, and not just because it should increase the combat effectiveness of the army. ( just kidding!)

To be honest, I think that not allowing Marines to roll their sleeves, have sleeve tattoos, or wear silkies will prove far more damaging to my Corps than will allowing women in the grunts.  I do think however that this move was made too quickly.  The Marines have slowly been sticking their toes in the water on allowing women in.  It was bound to happen, but it would have been better to have been phased in, rather than made so abruptly.  The army had not been preparing for this though, so perhaps this was the only way it was going to get done in a reasonable time period.

Regardless, there is no need to fear change.  You cannot pat yourself on the back for being on the cutting edge of things while simultaneously avoiding it.  That is not to say that all change is good, but you must be open to it.  The concern of course is that standards are going to be watered down when women are involved.  Unfortunately that’s probably true.  But then again, there will be some unintended consequences — some good, some bad.  One of those is that while standards may come down, there will be a stronger push to not be beaten by the women.  Such shaming of fat bodies will carry over to greater physical fitness.

Honestly, I have had a greater kinship with Marines, especially infantry Marines than anyone in the outside world.  My well documented love of redheads aside, I would consider it the greatest fortune to find a woman who I could share that with.  In Firefly terms, I swoon for Kaylee, and Inara might be hot, but the woman I’d truly want to make my own would be Zoe.  That’s who you establish dominance over this world with.

In short:  not many women can handle a ruck.  Those that can are a special breed.  I’d share a fighting hole with one in an instant.

On a down note, I don’t want to undercut my main point, but you will find a rash of women getting pregnant pre-deployment.  People are really scared to deploy, and I’m not just talking about combat deployments.  I once knew a kid who was going to have his girlfriend run his leg over to break his femur to get him out of a deployment to Okinawa.  The solution for a woman needn’t be quite so drastic.  But that’s no reason to punish all women, nor the Corps for that matter by weeding out the extraordinary women.

Amos Gets Something Right (or simply, Chicks)

November 27, 2012 /

It’s no secret I’m no fan of Gen. Amos.  I am still really pissy about the sleeves down deal and I’ve been out for 7 years.  Fuckin’ wingers.

Now the Corps is trying to do something dumb that the army was smart enough to get rid of:  Banning PMAGS.  Now, my internal Marine apologist at first blush actually let this fly.  Unlike the army, the Corps offers a legitimate justification.  They’re concerned with seating issues in the new Infantry Automatic Rifle, the replacement to the M249 SAW.  It appears this issue is going to be resolved soon as Magpul has acknowledged this and is updating their next generation PMAGs to handle the issue.

But you know, it’s still a foolish move for 3 reasons:

1)  Let’s play the game of percentages.  The guys that make the call on this sort of thing are the type of people that haven’t had a day in the field since they left TBS.  They don’t understand stoppages because the only workout their rifle gets is when it goes to the range to qual once a year.  How many magazine malfunctions are remedied by PMAGs when compared to mag malfunctions in IARs in the rare circumstances the automatic rifleman is bumming mags off of other Marines?

2)  Have you ever tried firing a SAW that was being magazine fed?  The M249 was already a jam-prone piece of garbage.  Having it mag fed was an absolute nightmare when using the issued USGI metal mags.

3)  You should never issue orders that you know will not be obeyed.  It degrades your authority.

But regardless of the length I’ve gone into on this matter, that isn’t what this post is about.  Rather, I’m talking about chicks, Wookies, Field Mattresses, Bag Nasties, WMs.  Under Amos the Corps has actually made a few good moves.  The most recent is that women are going to start being required to perform pullups instead of flexed-arm hangs.  The closer we bring all Marines to the same standard the better.  Word on the street is that this is a simple PR move to show that women cannot hack infantry life.  That’s possible, but I think the fact that every woman to date has dropped out of infantry school is a much better indicator.

Regardless, the Corps is doing the right thing by giving women the opportunity to go through infantry school.  I’ve gone into depth on why I think women should be allowed in the infantry, so I’ll try not to rehash the same arguments.  While I do think having women operate by the same standard as men is a good thing, the Corps still misses, because women aren’t put to the same requirements as a man — 20 pullups.  Women can score a perfect PFT with 8 pullups.

If we insist on demanding different standards, perhaps the better way to do it is to allow women into the infantry, but all infantry Marines operate from a certain standard, while ground combat units have a second set of physical requirements, and the most basic of office pogues have a third, far more lenient standard.  I want the woman in the fighting hole next to me capable of cranking out 20 pullups; I could give a damn what the admin guy can do.

Now, apparently the ACLU is getting involved in the matter and are helping 4 female vets file suit to allow women into ground combat units.  There are a few things people on each side need to understand about this:

1)  Having a helo shot down and ending up in a firefight is not what makes a grunt.  Feel free to chime in here about me being a TOW Gunner John, but being a grunt isn’t about pointing a rifle at somebody and shooting.  Being a grunt is about being cold, wet, sleep and food deprived, and putting something heavy on your back and walking.  Being a grunt is about enduring hardship.  It’s about being delirious with heat exhaustion but holding a post anyways even though all you’ve eaten is a rat-fucked MRE pound cake a hot bottle of water and are operating on 2 hours sleep.

2)  Females don’t get much respect in the military, especially amongst ground combat units.  Why?  BECAUSE THEY AREN’T IN GROUND COMBAT UNITS.  We talk about espirit de corps and the love of your brother that no woman would understand, but we do not give women the opportunity to experience that.  Then we speak of them disparagingly as walking mattresses as if their failure to understand espirit de corps makes them inferior creatures.

I’ve known of female Marines to shuck their uniform during the Marine Corps Ball in order to put on a dress.  This infuriates me to see someone care so little about the uniform and what it represents; what THEY are a part of.  But then again, how will a woman love her Corps the way I do when she never experiences what makes me love my Corps?

P.S.  200 posts and 5288 hits!

This is My Corps

August 27, 2012 /

Not only has my Corps decided to take the lead and bring back the 1911, but check this out…

From the Marines facebook page:

All Terrain Vehicle.

Sgt. Justin D. Head, animal packing course chief instructor, excercises his mustang, Hondo, shortly after grazing. The animal packing course is the only one of its kindin the department of defense and teaches Marines and other military personnel how to effectively and efficiently work with beast of burden to transport munitions, supplies and wounded personnel to and from are

as inaccessible to mechanized and air transportation. The course, offered at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center, teaches an introduction to animal packing, an anatomy of pack animals, animal packing techniques, casualty evacuation techniques, animal first aid and bivouac considerations.
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Aaron Hostutler)
Now my guess is that it’s the only one of its kind because, well, we generally lack the support of the other services.  And frankly, it’s part of what makes for a superior warfighter.  It isn’t too far removed from my time in the Philippines.  We used to have this 1′ diameter satellite dish we had to line up with another geosynchronous satellite to bounce communications out of the jungle.  The soldiers in the area had them in the back of their trucks automatically keeping lined up.  Us?  We had it lashed to a stick and a Marine with his head out the window keeping it lined up with a compass.
Another time, we had Marines in my unit go on patrol tugging a goat around to slaughter and eat out in the field.  Moto.

Follow Us

© 2024 Idaho's Citizen Defense Lawyer

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑

Call Now