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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: Once upon a time...long, long ago
There was a time...in my estimation, a far better time. A time where we sailors prided ourselves in being smartly decked out...took pride in bright piping, clean ribbons, shined shoes and a bleached white hat. Marines were ALWAYS seen off base in pants with knife blade creases...shirts with three identifying creases down the back...In my six years I never saw a sloppy Marine in public...never saw one with unshined shoes. The term SHIPSHAPE was coined by our naval forces. Now our off base military looks like a pack of sloppy shiftless bums. You see em everywhere...every branch...wearing uniforms intended to be working uniforms...Marines in sloppy unkempt cammoflage pajamas, stupid looking octogon shaped railroad engineer caps...dirty roughout boots. (the military personnel must be saving a fortune not purchasing shoe polish.). The Army is the absolute worst...the lazy bastards fasten their rank, unit designators, division and organization shoulder patches with Velcro....G--dam VELCRO....Velcro is used by pre-schoolers and kindergarten kids who are too bloody stupid to learn how to tie their shoes...same kids who are in their second year at the community college before they master the science of reading a wristwatch. Velcro insignia....Who in the hell came up with that idiotic crap? Uniforms were our identity....When we cleared the gate, there was a lifesized photographic image of a properly squared away bluejacket with the caption DO YOU LOOK LIKE THIS SAILOR?....I attended a funeral at Arlington National Cemetary....There was a funeral at a gravesite nearby. That funeral was attended by Army personnel wearing those baggy grey camo pajama looking Velcro suits....it looked like a bums convention. When some jaybird Jiffy Lube mechanic dies, his fellow employees at least have the decency to wear coats and ties to his service out of RESPECT....With those Velcro suits, the bastards don't even take the time to stick stuff on straight...most of has turned up edges or stuck on haphazardly and looking like hell. In the late 50's early 60's the Commadant of the Washington Naval District, would have skinned ANY bluejacket alive who entered the hallowed gates of Arlington without clean starched whites, with sharp looking metal 'over the pocket' designators....ribbons or medals and mirror glass buffed shoes. Why, the respect for our dead patriotic dues payers rated it...common decency and honor deserved it and every veteran and active duty demanded it....Someone up at the Legion last night told me that with some National Guard units, they no longer issue Class A uniforms and because of expense cutbacks some Marines aren't issued those wonderful dress uniforms that were their hallmark. I don't know about you, but nobody gave me a damn dime to get me to join....My nation didn't have to buy my service...Uncle Sam did'nt have to pimp for Lady Liberty and turn her into a whore to entice redblooded American lads into serving in her Armed Forces (and I am damn proud of that)....but she did give me a wonderful uniform with a proud history and heritage of courageous service woven into every thread. I feel sorry for the poor shortchanged sonuvabitches we are buying today and dressing like residents of a hobo village and presenting to the public as sharp troops. DEX |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 2253
Location: Foothills of the Ozarks | Subject: Marines are not authorized.....
I obtained this from the official USMC website on Uniform Regulations and copied just a portion of it. Any Marine wearing Utilities (camo's) off base, except during their commute, is in violation of USMC policy. Also, as a point of clarification, Marines are not issued the "Dress Blue Uniform" that we all know and respect. Each Marine is responsible for purchasing it with their own funds; they are issued the green Class A uniform but not the Dress Blues.
I agree on the inappropriateness of working uniforms being worn off base, for any reason.
3. Marines are prohibited from wearing the utility uniform as a liberty
uniform off-base or during inappropriate circumstances such as:
a. at restaurants, pizza parlors, bars, lounges, etc.;
b. when dealing with public officials (police, courthouse, attorneys);
c. while attending classes or activities, or conducting business at
education facilities;
d. at commercial airports/bus stations for travel or entering pick/drop
off passengers;
e. at retail/rental stores, shopping malls, and shops for shopping or
paying bills;
f. at grocery stores/supermarkets;
g. at movie theaters, mini-golf, or other similar entertainment/
recreational or sporting activities.
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Master and Commander
Posts: 2253
Location: Foothills of the Ozarks | Subject: While researching uniform regulations I got this.
Timely given Dex's post; in my opinion anyway.
ASK A MARINE
Ask a Marine what's so special about the Marines and the answer would be
"esprit de corps", an unhelpful French phrase that means exactly what it looks like - the spirit of the Corps...but what is that spirit? and where does
it come from?
The Marine Corps is the only branch of the U.S. Armed Forces that recruits
people specifically to Fight. The Army emphasizes personal development (an
Army of One), the Navy promises fun (let the journey begin), the Air Force offers security (its a great way of life).
Missing from all the advertisements is the hard fact that a soldier's life is to suffer and perhaps to die for his people and take lives at the risk of his/her own.
Even the thematic music of the services reflects this evasion. The Army's
Caisson Song describes a pleasant country outing. Over hill and dale,
lacking only a picnic basket. Anchors Aweigh...the Navy's celebration of the joys
of sailing could have been penned by Jimmy Buffet. The Air Force song is a
lyric poem of blue skies and engine thrust. All is joyful, and invigorating, and safe. There are no land mines in the dales nor snipers behind the hills, no submarines or cruise missiles threaten the ocean jaunt, no bandits are lurking in the wild blue yonder.
The Marines' Hymn, by contrast, is all combat. "We fight our Country's battles," "First to fight for right and freedom," "We have fought in every clime and place where we could take a gun," "In many a strife we have fought for life and never lost our nerve."
The choice is made clear. You may join the Army to go to adventure training, or join the Navy to go to Bangkok, or join the Air Force to go to computer school.
You join the Marine Corps to go to War! But the mere act of signing the enlistment contract confers no status in the Corps. The Army recruit is told from his first minute in uniform that "you're in the Army now, soldier". The Navy and Air Force enlistees are sailors or airmen as soon as they get off the bus at the training center. The new arrival at Marine Corps boot camp is called a recruit, or worse, (a lot worse), but never a MARINE. Not yet, maybe never. He or she must earn the right to claim the title of UNITED STATES MARINE, and failure returns you to civilian life without hesitation or ceremony.
Recruit Platoon 2210 at San Diego, California trained from October through
December of 1968. In Viet Nam the Marines were taking two hundred casualties a week and the major rainy season and Operation Meade River had not even
begun yet Drill Instructors had no qualms about winnowing out almost a quarter of their 112 recruits, graduating 81. Note that this was post-enlistment attrition. Every one of those 31 who were dropped had been passed by the recruiters as fit for service. But they failed the test of Boot Camp! Not necessarily for physical reasons.
At least two were outstanding high school athletes for whom the calisthenics and running were child's play. The cause of their failure was not in the biceps nor the legs, but in the spirit. They had lacked the will to endure the mental and emotional strain so they would not be Marines. Heavy commitments and high casualties not withstanding, the Corps reserves the right to pick and choose.
History classes in boot camp? Stop a soldier on the street and ask him to name a battle of World War One. Pick a sailor at random and ask for a description of the epic fight of the Bon Homme Richard. Ask an airman who Major Thomas McGuire was and what is named after him. I am not carping and there is no
sheer in this criticism. All of the services have glorious traditions but no one
teaches the young soldier, sailor or airman what his uniform means and why he should be proud of it.
But...ask a Marine about World War One and you will hear of the wheat field
at Belleau Wood and the courage of the Fourth Marine Brigade comprised of
the Fifth and Sixth Marines. Faced with an enemy of superior numbers
entrenched in tangled forest undergrowth the Marines received an order to attack
that even the charitable cannot call ill-advised. It was insane. Artillery support was absent and air support hadn't been invented yet. Even so the Brigade charged German machine guns with only bayonets, grenades, and an indomitable fighting spirit. A bandy-legged little barrel of a Gunnery Sergeant, Daniel J. Daly, rallied his company with a shout, "Come on you sons a bitches, do you want to live forever?" He took out three machine guns himself.
French liaison-officers hardened though they were by four years of trench
bound slaughter were shocked as the Marines charged across the open wheat
field under a blazing sun directly into the teeth of enemy fire. Their action was so anachronistic on the twentieth-century field of battle that they might as well
have been swinging cutlasses. But the enemy was only human. The Boche could not stand up to the onslaught.
So the Marines took Belleau Wood. The Germans, those that survived, thereafter referred to the Marines as "Tuefel Hunden" (Devil Dogs) and the French in tribute renamed the woods "Bois de la Brigade de Marine" (Woods of the Brigade of Marines).
Every Marine knows this story and dozens more. We are taught them in boot camp as a regular part of the curriculum. Every Marine will always be taught them! You can learn to don a gas mask anytime, even on the plane in route to the war zone, but before you can wear the Eagle, Globe and Anchor and claim the title United States Marine you must first know about the Marines who made that
emblem and title meaningful. So long as you can march and shoot and revere the legacy of the Corps you can take your place in line.
And that line is as unified in spirit as in purpose. A soldier wears branch of service insignia on his collar, metal shoulder pins and cloth sleeve patches to identify his unit. Sailors wear a rating badge that identifies what they do for the Navy. Marines wear only the Eagle, Globe and Anchor together with personal ribbons and their CHERISHED marksmanship badges. They know why the
uniforms are the colors they are and what each color means. There is nothing on a Marine's uniform to indicate what he or she does nor what unit the Marine belongs to. You cannot tell by looking at a Marine whether you are
seeing a truck driver, a computer programmer or a machine gunner or a cook or a baker. The Marine is amorphous, even anonymous, by conscious design. The Marine is a Marine.
Every Marine is a rifleman first and foremost, a Marine first, last and Always! You may serve a four-year enlistment or even a twenty plus year career without seeing action but if the word is given you'll charge across that Wheatfield! Whether a Marine has been schooled in automated supply or automotive mechanics or aviation electronics or whatever is immaterial.
Those things are secondary -- the Corps does them because it must. The
modern battle requires the technical appliances and since the enemy has them so do we. But no Marine boasts mastery of them. Our pride is in our
marksmanship, our discipline, and our membership in a fraternity of courage and
sacrifice. "For the honor of the fallen, for the glory of the dead", Edgar Guest wrote of Belleau Wood. "The living line of courage kept the faith and moved ahead."
They are all gone now, those Marines who made a French farmer's little
Wheatfield into one of the most enduring of Marine Corps legends. Many of them
did not survive the day and eight long decades have claimed the rest. But their actions are immortal. The Corps remembers them and honors what they did and so they live forever. Dan Daly's shouted challenge takes on its true meaning - if you lie in the trenches you may survive for now, but someday
you may die and no one will care. If you charge the guns you may die in the
next two minutes, but you will be one of the immortals.
All Marines die in either the red flash of battle or the white cold of the nursing home. In the vigor of youth or the infirmity of age all will eventually die but the Marine Corps lives on. Every Marine who ever lived is living still, in the Marines who claim the title today.
It is that sense of belonging to something that will outlive our own mortality, which gives people a light to live by and a flame to mark their passing.
Passed on to a Marine from another Marine!
SEMPER FIDELIS.
And now passed on by a Navy man who was honored to serve with Marines!
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 2672
Location: New Jersey | Subject: RE: While researching uniform regulations I got this.
Doc, did you have to go through the entire Marine boot camp, or just a shortened version of it, when you served with them? |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1262
Location: Va.Beach,Va. | Subject: RE: Once upon a time...long, long ago
Dex, it was once suggested to me to affix ALL of my crows with velcro so as to
make them easier to change at my next visit to the WIERDROOM.LOL  |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 2253
Location: Foothills of the Ozarks | Subject: RE: While researching uniform regulations I got this.
Runner485 - 2009-07-31 9:31 AM
Doc, did you have to go through the entire Marine boot camp, or just a shortened version of it, when you served with them?
Joe:
I went through what is called FMF School; it was a combination of AIT (Advanced Infantry Training) and Field Medical Training. We lived in the field for a good portion of the training; did all the "forced marches" (minimum of 10 miles); weapons qualifications and trauma treatment procedures but as for the official USMC Boot Camp at Parris Island or Camp Pendleton that was not part of my training. But, as the essay above points out; every Marine is a rifleman and the Corpsmen were expected to be able to handle and be proficient with any weapon in the platoon; we used to scoff at the term "non-combatant" as the wishful thinking of some bureaucrat
Edited by Doc Gardner 2009-07-31 6:36 AM
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3670
Location: Kansas City Missouri | Subject: RE: Once upon a time...long, long ago
Doc Gardner, Thank you |
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Old Salt
Posts: 330
| Subject: RE: Once upon a time...long, long ago
[[ Large Print Version... ]] 
There was a time... in my estimation, a far better time. A time where we sailors prided ourselves in being smartly decked out... took pride in bright piping, clean ribbons, shined shoes and a bleached white hat.
Marines were ALWAYS seen off base in pants with knife blade creases... shirts with three identifying creases down the back... In my six years I never saw a sloppy Marine in public... never saw one with unshined shoes. The term SHIPSHAPE was coined by our naval forces.
Now our off base military looks like a pack of sloppy shiftless bums. You see em everywhere... every branch... wearing uniforms intended to be working uniforms... Marines in sloppy unkempt camouflage pajamas, stupid looking octagon shaped railroad engineer caps... dirty roughout boots.
(The military personnel must be saving a fortune not purchasing shoe polish.).
The Army is the absolute worst... the lazy bastards fasten their rank, unit designators, division and organization shoulder patches with Velcro....G--dam VELCRO....Velcro is used by pre-schoolers and kindergarten kids who are too bloody stupid to learn how to tie their shoes... same kids who are in their second year at the community college before they master the science of reading a wristwatch.
Velcro insignia....Who in the hell came up with that idiotic crap? Uniforms were our identity....When we cleared the gate; there was a life-sized photographic image of a properly squared away bluejacket with the caption DO YOU LOOK LIKE THIS SAILOR? I attended a funeral at Arlington National Cemetery....There was a funeral at a gravesite nearby.
That funeral was attended by Army personnel wearing those baggy grey camo pajama looking Velcro suits....it looked like a bum’s convention.
When some jaybird Jiffy Lube mechanic dies, his fellow employees at least have the decency to wear coats and ties to his service out of RESPECT....With those Velcro suits, the bastards don't even take the time to stick stuff on straight... most of has turned up edges or stuck on haphazardly and looking like hell.
In the late 50's early 60's the Commandant of the Washington Naval District, would have skinned ANY bluejacket alive who entered the hallowed gates of Arlington without clean starched whites, with sharp looking metal 'over the pocket' designators; ribbons or medals and mirror glass buffed shoes.
Why, the respect for our dead patriotic dues payers rated it... common decency and honor deserved it and every veteran and active duty demanded it....Someone up at the Legion last night told me that with some National Guard units, they no longer issue Class A uniforms and because of expense cutbacks some Marines aren't issued those wonderful dress uniforms that were their hallmark.
I don't know about you, but nobody gave me a damn dime to get me to join....My nation didn't have to buy my service... Uncle Sam didn’t have to pimp for Lady Liberty and turn her into a whore to entice red-blooded American lads into serving in her Armed Forces (and I am damn proud of that)....but she did give me a wonderful uniform with a proud history and heritage of courageous service woven into every thread.
I feel sorry for the poor shortchanged sonuvabitches we are buying today and dressing like residents of a hobo village and presenting to the public as sharp troops.
DEX
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 6180
Location: Summerville, SC | Subject: RE: Once upon a time...long, long ago
Dex, I agree 1,000%. I wrote to my Senators concerning this along with my feelings of the military wearing these pajamas while meeting and unloading our deceased military people at Dover AFB. I have yet to hear back from either Sen. Lindsay Graham, Sen. Jim DeMint or Rep. Henry Brown.
Some claim that they wear those pajamas because the coffins may have gotten dirty in transit. SO WHAT !!! The poor bastard inside that coffin just gave his life for this country and these jerk offs on detail are afraid to get a uniform dirty? It most certainly isn't the military that I knew.
Doc, Thanks for your good words. My younger brother was a Marine during Viet-Nam and I am proud of him. Also have a brother that is retired Air Force and was a B-52 pilot over Nam and did a tour as a pilot of the Spooky "Puff the Magic Dragons" and am proud of him also. |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: Once upon a time...long, long ago
The post that claims MARINES don't wear those sloppy uniforms off base sounds great, but in reality it's a joke unless they make some sort or concession to USMC billited in the Nation's Capital or some sort of "to and from" your duty station concession, exception or "blind eye" policy. There's a Marine I meet in the Seven Eleven regularly...He wears that Locomotive Engineer's fatigue cap, those dirty gray looking baggy pajamas and crummy looking sand colored rough out boots. I called him on it and told him the outfit he was wearing was a disgrace to the memory of the once neat as a pin, squared away Corps of my era. You know what his stock bulls**t explanation was....No BS..."Sir, We wear the uniform in solidarity with our deployed brothers." In short, we USMC personnel show respect for our mates risking their lives in combat by roaming the earth looking like Port-a-Potty collection personnel. Makes sense to me. Hey, the USMC Uniform Regulation Enforcement personnel need to get out of their regulation composition offices and visit the real world. Is there anything in that big, fat reg book that explains how they approved that baggy, sloppy...dirty looking...Jiffy Lube mechanic type unmilitary, pockets everywhere uniform? When did our smart, pressed, squared-away Marine Corps make a concious decision to become a sloppy appearing outfit on par with Jordanian National Guard Units, Honduran Backcountry Sheriff Deputies and Pakistani Border Police? WHY? You see kids going around in baggy shorts, showing off two inches of butt crack...could this be a generational USMC recruiting concession? It defies tradional logic....and the silence of the OLD CORPS amazes me. I don't understand putting bluejackets in cammoflage? Is putting a crew in some kind of Vogue fashion designer hoked up cammoflage, going to make a light cruiser disappear? WOW..There's a great idea...invisable carriers, stealth tin cans...man, Ralph Luaren cutesy uniforms to make our NAVY so much more effective...I pity the poor sonuvabitch who gets washed over the side in a state three sea...Those lovely fashion statements will add a great deal of excitement to "man overboard" recoveries. I'm glad those USMC guys in thier baggy Doctor Dentons are a figment of my imagination. The regs sure prove that. DEX |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: Once upon a time...long, long ago
Another thing that never ceases to amaze me with today's military personnel. There are some folks who always pop up like they're shot out of a bloody toaster eager to defend present day eroding values and the wholesale discarding of the small things that were important to us....Things important to winners....men who fought and won major worldwide wars against far more powerful enemies than we've faced since 1945...You can spin it, blame it on politicians, whine about degraded public support, hippies, anti-war jerks....your barbers cat or the position of heavenly bodies in conjunction with sun spot activity...but they hold an annual Victory Parade each year in Hanoi and anyone who carried a weapon in that war has to apply to North Viet-Nam for a visa to visit their wartime positions. The apparent degeneration of pride and respect, that we had, may very well be tied to turning over the control of our uniform design to the civilian fashion world and contracting their design out to a bunch of light in their loafers poofters whose allegiance runs to Madison Avenue rather than honoring the tradition of the brave men who soaked the beaches of Guatalcanal, Tarrawa, and Iwo Jima with the contents of their blood systems. But...By God, what kind of blood runs through the system of a man who wore the uniform made sacred vestments by men who paid a helluva price for that uniform, who DEFENDS the crap our fighting men are given by their civilian masters to wear today. Any sonuvabitch too g--dam lazy to get his insignia sewn on rather than stuck on with Velcro like kids in Stride-Rite kiddie shoes, should be pointed in the direction of ballet school, hair dressers school or china painting school rather than being trained to shove eight inches of bayonet through bad guys. In the 82nd Airborne Division they refer to men who would defend the present issue as folks suffering from "tiny heart" syndrome. Let's reflect on that litiny of USMC Uniform Regs....You don't write such a prohibitive diatribe if you are PROUD of an issued uniform...."Only wear this ugly, goofy looking set of unpressed pajamas on dark nights, in the woods out of sight of the American taxpayers and impressionable children." What's next? Remember the pink rabbit eared pajamas Ralphie had to wear in the movie THE CHRISTMAS STORY? You think they might turn up in the Halls of Montazuma or being worn by the personnel guarding the streets when we dumbass sailors "look on heavens scenes." Hope not, the guys who shot their way from island to island in the Pacific from 42 to 45 deserve better. DEX |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: Once upon a time...long, long ago
Bill, Thanks for the kind e-mail. I grew up around paratroops at Benning and Bragg...My Dad commanded a Parachute Infantry Bttn in WWII and later a PIR Regiment in the years following WWII. Jumpers were proud, cocky tough bastards....German dead from Sicily to across the Rhine attested to thier valor and leathality....They didn't have to advertise how g--dam tough they were....There were no outside the gate uniform stores with tee-shirts showing a tough looking bulldog in a campaign hat with a eagle, globe and anchor on it reading..."Yea though I walk through the Valley of Death, I will fear no evil, for I am the meanest sonuvabitch in the valley" or "Join the Army, travel to exotic places, meet foriegn people and kill them"...."Bomb their ass and take their gas"....You think that such a shirt makes a troop tough? You think that kind of crap doesn't get back to our enemies and motivate them to kill us? World War Two troops would have put a stop to such garbage. It just wasn't the kind of disrespectful thing they tolerated. You can buy that kind of junk sold in PX's. TOUGH UNITS DON"T HAVE TO ADVERTISE....Bill you're right...It has to do with the fact that noone in a leadership position today has served in a life and death worldwide conflict where our actual existence was in jeaprody....We talk about nuke deterrent....When do you unleash this deterrent, we've been UPS'ing nukes all over hell and half Georgia for damn near 50 years and if they are all they say they are, we could turn Northern Pakistan into a charred wasteland full of the incinerated carcasses of the Al Quada leadership....They keep telling us that the raghead Pentagon is in some hole there...If you blow up a few thousand square miles of that mountainous dump you've got to get all the bastards and you send a wonderfully positive message to that grinning goon in North Korea and that lunatic blabber mouth in Iran and you can trigger a lot of street dancing in Isreal.....And a whole lot of folks over in that part of the world can get back to eating barbequed goat...gobbling dates and sheeps eyeballs...attending camel races....and abusing their women. We need to uncork a little mass destruction and get back in the game. My solution...pack up all the remaining Gitmo detainees and parachute them out over northern Pakistan and give them all a fifteen minute headstart before the Enola Gay II flies over a delivers BIG MAMA....a piece of air delivered ordinance that will have smoking camel guts and charred sandals falling in Sarah Palin's back yard. There is another positive thing....It'll take all of Michael Jacksons relatives, doctors, dentists, former Neverland employees, record company executives and child abuse experts off LARRY KING LIVE.....DEX |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 2253
Location: Foothills of the Ozarks | Subject: I Don't disagree with you on this one
If Marines are wearing Utilities off base then they are either out of uniform and flaunting authority (imagine that) or the Corps has changed the regulations. Either way I think the Marine you called on it deserves to be chastised for sloppy appearance. The other piece I posted was something that came to me via e-mail and I happen to agree with it because it reflects my experience serving in the Corps. It's been 40 + years since then and a lot has changed; not all of it good. All I can tell you is that around here, in the good old midwest the Marines you see are always in either dress blues or Class A Greens; you never see a Marine in Utilities, camo or otherwise. Maybe DC Marines are infected with the same "the rules don't apply to me attitude that the politicians have". If that is true then it's a travesty.
Edited by Doc Gardner 2009-07-31 1:22 PM
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Once upon a time...long, long ago
