Originally posted by: BoomerD
Originally posted by: Steve
Originally posted by: DainBramaged
Seriously though, if you are an asshole going into the Marine Corps, you'll be an asshole still. If you aren't, chances are that you won't be. Simple as that.
I'm glad you posted in this thread. You went to boot camp out in San Diego, you came back and you were still your fun-loving, enjoyable self.
See? Here's living proof...went in an asshole, came out...Dainbramaged!
😀
Consider this:
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night
only because rough men stand ready to do
violence on their behalf.
George Orwell
I've been around a LOT of Marines in my life. I served 4 years myself. My son served 8, including 2 tours in Kuwait & Iraq.
Yes, some can be complete dickheads, but others are the finest human beings you'll ever meet.
When my son and his heavy helicopter squadron came home from Iraq after their first deployment, there were several who either had no homes to go to on that first Thanksgiving back, or had no money with which to make the trip.
We asked our son to extend the invitation for Thanksgiving dinner/weekend to any who wanted to get away from the barracks.
He ended up bringing 8 or 9 other Marines home with him. (we live about 400 miles from San Diego where they were stationed and they drove up in 3 cars.) Granted, we didn't have beds for most of them, but my offer to pay for a couple of hotel rooms went untaken. They said that if we didn't mind, they'd prefer to stay at our house.
They slept on couches, the floors, anywhere they could find enough room to stretch out. It was wall-to-wall Marines!
For dinner, my wife (and I) prepared a 25 lb turkey, 2 large hams, one large beef roast, 20 pounds of mashed potatos, nearly as many sweet potatos, a HUGE "glorified rice" salad, 3 or 4 "green bean caseroles", 3 pans of stuffing, 8 pies, including pumpkin, apple, coconut & banana cream, and blueberry, (to one guy's great surprise, "Goodness Mrs. Boomer, that there's an "upside-down pineapple cake! How'd you know that was my favorite thing in the world?" and more.
I had 2 cases of beer, several 1.75l jugs of assorted hard liquor, 3 or 4 cases of soda.
When the weekend was over, the food was totally wiped out, the pies were gone, and the soda was gone.
They drank less than a 6-pack of beer and NO hard liquor. (gotta say, I was stunned by this!)
These guys were as polite as any men I've ever met. Each was humbled by the fact that we were willing to take in men (boys to my wife & I) we didn't know, feed them, house them, and treat them like they were family.
My wife & I felt it was the least we could do for these guys after they spent 8 months in the desert.
These fellows were in the first waves into Kuwait & Iraq, so all the current infrastructure that supports our troops over there now, wasn't in place.
They didn't have internet access, or cell phones, very few opportunities for showers on regular intervals, and the food was often only MRE's for days or weeks at a time.
They were happy as hell to have home-cooked food for the first time in nearly a year.
As they left, each one hugged my wife and thanked us for allowing them to be part of the family for the weekend.
To our great surprise, the following week, we got a phone call from their squadron commander. He had heard about what we did and called to thank us personally. He remembered that we had sent "care packages," not only to our son, but to the entire squadron while they were deployed, and thanked us again for that.
So, after all this long rant, Marines are Marines, and like every other group you'll encounter, there are good ones and bad, nice ones and assholes, honest ones and crooks, but in the end, they're still Marines, ready to go to war to protect our freedom, where ever the threat may be.
(in spite of how much I'm against the current war, the troops are still fine young men & women, and are deserving of our support.)
Semper Fi.
