Author: SgtGrit

In the early 1970 I was on Recruiting duty in the San Jose area south of San Francisco. We had several small offices there. About once or twice a week I’d make a trip to HQ 12 the Marine Corps Dist at 100 Harrison St downtown Frisco to pick up supplies and what not, deliver case files, police checks, and what nots. The Gunny who was in charge of supplies knew I was starting to collect WWl and WWll firearms. He told me about a gun store just up a few blocks from HQ where they had a Remington 03A3 for sale (cheap). So I’m thinking, I’m here so I better take a look. Now parking was a real problem in this area so I figured I’d just walk over as it was only a couple of blocks. This area that HQ was in was also noted for being home to a bunch of panhandlers, winos, and all sorts of odd balls. If you were in uniform, you could and would get a bunch of cat calls and B.S. from this bunch. Even though you wanted to drop kick a few of ’em we were instructed to ignore they’re BS. So I go to the store, looked at the firearms and figured I was here, had money in pocket. The kids would have to live on peanut butter and jam for a week but what the hell, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, right. So I paid for the piece and walked out the door. As I stood on the sidewalk, rifle in hand, I think how do I carry this thing back to HQ. Port arms, trail arms or right shoulder arms or what? So I take it by the forearm, butt stock over my shoulder and took off. I hadn’t gone 10 feet and I knew I’d made a bad decision about not driving. The first people walking on the street who saw me ducked in the nearest store or they crossed the street and the further I went more of ’em vanished. I passed a SFPD car with two cops sitting it, they looked at me nodded, I nodded and kept walking. I think I know how Moses felt at the Red sea. When I got to 100 Harrison St, no cat calls this time. Nobody said anything. As I was telling the gunny what I did, the Major came out of his office, looked the rifle over, handed it back and as he walked away I remember his words like it was yesterday ”Top, hope you were smart enough to put it in a gun case.” read more

The ultimate response to a Dear John letter…

You gotta love a man like this, Humor in the face of defeat.
A Marine was deployed to Afghanistan. While he was there he received a letter from his girlfriend. In the letter, she explained that she had slept with two guys while he had been gone and she wanted to break up with him. AND, she wanted pictures of herself back.
So the Marine did what any squared-away Marine would do. He went around to his buddies and collected all the unwanted photos of women he could find. He then mailed about 25 pictures of women (with clothes and without) to his girlfriend with the following note:
“I don’t remember which one you are. Please remove your picture and send the rest back.” read more

A Staff Sergeant walks into sick bay and asks the navy doctor for a vasectomy. “I been married for ten years. I got twelve kids. I think its time I got a vasectomy.” The doctor raises his eyebrows and says, “yeah. I’d say its time. How about next week, Tuesday at 1400.” The Marine nods. Now the Marine has been on leave for three weeks and he is from the Air Det., so his hair is long and he was wearing civvies. The doctor says, “All I need is your name, Petty Officer…?”  The Marine is taken-aback. “Petty Officer?! Petty Officer?!!!  I’m a Marine Corps Staff Sergeant, OoRaw! I deserve the respect owed to a Marine!”  The navy doctor looks shocked and a little paniced.  “You are a Marine?! Shoot. I’m sorry.”  The Marine says, “No problem Sir. Just don’t make the same mistake twice.”  But the doctor says, “No. You don’t understand.”  He closes the door and lowers his voice.  “You aren’t supposed to know about this, but navy doctors only perform vasectomies on sailors.  Marines perform vasectomies on themselves.”  The Marine takes a step back, “Uh…that’s Ok Sir. I’m hard Corps but I’d appreciate if you do all the cutting.”  The Doctor responds, “there is no ‘cutting’.”  The doctor opens the desk drawer and pulls out a canteen cup and a firecracker.  He instructs the Marine, “All you have to do is light this fire cracker, drop it into the cup, hold it to your right ear and count to ten. That’s your Marine Corps vasectomy.”  The Marine looks puzzled. “Doc, I don’t get the connection.”  The doctor reassures him that there is a connection.  The Marine takes the cup and firecracker and gives the doc a wary, “Aye, aye”.  He goes home and tells his wife. She doesn’t believe it.  “Navy doctors aren’t enough. You need a civilian doctor’s second opinion.”  So remembering the confusion from the first encounter with the doctor, he goes out and gets a high and tight. He gets into his Dress Blues and walks into the civilian doctor’s office. “I’m a Marine Corps Staff Sergeant.  I need my self a vasectomy, OORAW!”  The civilian doctor says, “No problem.”  He pulls open a drawer and pulls out a cup and firecracker and gives the Marine the same instructions, “Light this firecracker, hold it to your right ear and count to ten.”  The Marine salutes and says, “Second opinion”.  He goes home and tells his wife.  In disbelief she says, “Are you SURE the directions are right?”  He says “yes”.  She asks, “Well. Are you ready?”  He thinks for a second, “Yep”.  The wife hands him the cup and lights the firecracker.  She drops it into the cup.  He holds it to his right ear and he begins to count off with his left hand, “one, two, three, four, five…”  A paniced look crosses his face but he quickly solves the problem by transferring the cup to be held between his legs and continues to count with the right hand, “six, seven, eight,….” read more

For Thanksgiving the cooks were able to obtain some frozen turkeys from the Army. The cooks put the turkeys on steel tables, the cooks then sat on the other tables. We gave them all the heavy scrub brush heads we could find. The cooks spent two nights throwing the scrub brushes at the rats to keep them fom getting the turkeys. Worked.  We had a good Thaksgiving… Anyone who was on Okinawa at that time can tell you the size of the rats, like medium sized dogs… No cats on the rock, I guess the rats got them… read more

I was with 1stMarDiv Forward in Saudi when we were all told to clean our vehicles for a visit from President and Mrs. Bush, who were coming to have Thanksgiving Dinner with us.  We cleaned our vehicle as best we could using brooms and a little bit of water. read more