Calling ALL Marines - Past and Present

+1 I have a couple of shirts from tough schools or small units that I value still.

 

To be honest in my entire 4 1/2 p) years in the Corps, I never saw anybody use a challenge coin. I heard about them when I first went in, after that not really.



What reasons did you guys go in for?


When I got to the "reason for joining" part of my enlistment papers I still remember writing "To see the world" in that line. What can I say? I was 16 when I signed (summer before my senior year of HS) and 17 when I left for bootcamp.

While I didn't get to see all of it, I got to see more places than I ever thought I would've seen in those 4 1/2 years had I never joined. I sure as hell wasn't ready for college after high school either. Ha!

Having joined the military opened up doors I didn't know existed, but my biggest "shock" was the culture diversity. I'm from South Texas, a predominantly Hispanic area, and when I first got to boot camp I had never seen other people other than Hispanics and whites. My best friend while I was in Japan was Vietnamese. My brother from another mother. haha

I honestly loved the diversity of the Marine Corps.

Then I got out and was surrounded by nasty, filthy, undisciplined civilians!

Took about a year to get "adjusted" to being surrounded by the nasties and getting used to the fact that the general population has a somewhat different mindset.


whooo rant over.

 

Civilians drive me nuts when I go home. Mostly no purpose in anything they do, wishy washy pc bullshit opinions when you talk to them about anything, and then to top it off most people ignore vets till they know you are one.....and then they act like you're going to shoot up the place. I get more relaxation on leave by going to a cabin in the woods than anywhere civilised.

Thats my rant lol

 

I couldn't stand civilians before. Now that I'm out, I'm a civilian too, but I hate those bastards. I'm a student so I'm surrounded by all these kids that didn't even have a drivers license by the time I'd been to afghan. I haven't made it through a day without wanting to punch at least one of them in the face.

 

I've been out since '06 and managed to get a couple of good jobs since then. I still wish I could wall-to-wall counsel some of these idiots every damn day. The whining, bitching, and stupidity amazes me. Some of these people make 15-minutes-prior-to-15-minutes-prior look intelligent. I keep telling my boss we should save these stories and publish a book someday of all the incredible stupid stuff we come across.

Ex: Woman received email, prints email, scans email to PDF, attaches PDF to email, sends email with attachment to her department.

 

Yeah that's pretty bad. I just don't get how so many of them are so entitled and cry about every little thing and how hard their life is. You're a student for crying out loud. I mean really, you failed a class? STFU. It's not the end of the world.

The best part of my deployment is that for the rest of my life, I always have something to keep everything in perspective. I was talking to an advisor and she started freaking out when I told her i wasn't doing well in a class. I started laughing and told her "Ma'am after the stuff I've seen and gone through getting a bad grade is the least of my worries."

 

Exactly. I had a doctor that was chewing peoples' asses because he couldn't work under "these conditions". He went to jump on me when I asked him what was the problem with "these conditions" (slow internet connection). He said this was just too much stress for him. I told him this was not stress. Nobody was getting shot at. We were all pretty guaranteed to go home that night and sleep in our own bed. This was not stress.

He went back to his office and went about business as he should have. His nurses love telling that story now. I have yet to have another problem out of him also.

Sometimes people just need to pop their head out of their ass and put the world into real perspective.

 

Yep. Enough said. So you work at a Dr.'s office? I had a surprising experience with one yesterday...

 

I do IT consulting and management for a large number of customers. It just happens that a good number of our customers are healthcare offices.

 

She's more worried about losing that government cheese you bring to the table more likely lol. Student life is a Cakewalk for sure. Mine might be a little more hectic with a family but we will muddle through just like always.

I will say I am damn tired of waiting for my extension to go through. This waiting game is encouragement for alcoholism.

 

Well got my wifi set up here in Darwin. Finally getting off base libo this weekend, but someone will f*** up and then we won't have libo the rest of deployment. When I heard that Australia was hot I figured California desert hot, I was wrong, it's humid as hell. One of the Company's had a little 3 mile hump and they had 17 heat cases lmao.

 

Darwin, eh. Maybe you will be able to go to Cairns. Talk about a good time,

 

Darwin sounds like Oki. The heat/humidity when we got there was amazing.

 

Service Dates: 1970-1973
Rank: corporal
MOS: 0311
Deployments USS Albany CG-10, Med cruise x2

 

Service Dates: 1998-Present
Rank: GySgt
MOS: 0341 / 0369
Deployments: Yokosuka, Japan / Okinawa, Japan / Iraq x 2 / Afghanistan

 

Service Dates: 2000-2005
Rank: Sergeant
MOS: 7212
Deployments: Iraq OIF I & II (2003,2004)

OoooRah!

 

Service Dates: 1982-2012
Rank: MGySgt
MOS: 6123/6119
Deployments:
3x's UDP to Okinawa
5 MEU's
Iraq 2004-2005

 

Service Dates: 1996-2000
Rank: Corporal
MOS: 3521
Deployments: Okinawa Japan '96-'97

 

At ITB West, graduating from Delta Co as a 0352 on June 4th. Still awaiting orders on where I will be stationed, however I'm excited to be done with schooling and move on to the next step in my career.

So far I've had some pretty good enjoyment seeing Marines drain their bank accounts and do EXACTLY what we were told NOT to do basically since day 1 of recruit training. Maybe it pays to be a little older coming into the Corps...

 

Hopefully you end up in Hawaii that's where I went after ITB West, I was an 0311, but congrats and good choice for being an 0300.

I served 2005-2009 w/ 3rd BN 3RD Marines. I co.