You’re on Marine Corps time

I will never forget the first words I heard when I first arrived at MCRD. We arrived from the airport about 10:00 p.m. (military time was not the standard for a few more minutes). It was dark, we had tinted windows, and the building stood out like a brightly lit island in the void. We pulled to a stop, and a Marine stepped on. We had all lost the power of speech when we passed the gate, so it was complete silence for a heartbeat. Then came The Word. read more

MARINE OF THE WEEK // FEARLESS LEADER:

Gunnery Sgt. Aubrey McDade
1st Battalion, 8th Marines
Fallujah, Iraq, Nov. 11, 2004
Award: Navy Cross

Shortly after departing their base in Fallujah, then-Sgt. McDade and 1/8 Bravo Company’s 1st Platoon entered an alley and encountered an immediate heavy volume of small arms and machine gun fire. In the opening seconds of the engagement, three Marines were seriously wounded as the well positioned and expecting enemy pinned others down. On contact, McDade rushed from the rear of the platoon column toward the kill zone and immediately deployed a machine gun team into the alley to provide suppressive fire on the enemy. After several attempts to reach casualties in the alley were met with heavy, well-aimed machine gun fire, he showed total disregard for his own safety by moving across the alley and successfully extracting the first of three wounded Marines from the kill zone. Aware of the fact that there were still two wounded Marines in the alley, McDade dashed through the heart of the kill zone two more times, each time braving intense enemy fire to successfully retrieve a Marine. After extracting the last casualty from the kill zone, he assisted in their treatment and medical evacuation. His quick thinking and aggressive actions were crucial in saving the lives of two of the three casualties. (U.S. Marine Corps photos by Staff Sgt. Jonathan C. Knauth & Sgt. Kenneth Trotter) read more

Stolen Valor

A recent news story regarding a Fake Army Nurse( Vietnam and Iraq Wars) that stole a seat on an Honor Flight to Washington D.C. gave some one the idea to start a Dishonor Flight but there are certain criteria :
1) Must possess a forged or blurred ,in the proper spaces, DD-214 or claim that your records were destroyed in the 1973 fire at the NPRC. Note: a certified copy will not be accepted .
2)Must wear a leather vest with as many pins and,or patches that you can fit.
3)If you are wearing a ribbon stack or any medals they must be arranged out of order and any combat medals can not be DOD engraved.
4) Must have the proper Combat Veterans hat with the war of choice,even if you were to young or old at the time of conflict.
5) Must be able to tell at least one war story that can not be verified or that you were the lone survivor. Better if you were captured and escaped
6) If you require a service animal you must have the proper fake papers to be seated in first class
You can contact Juan A Bee at the dishonor flight HQ. read more

Wise a**ed teenager

Back in 1973 I was just 17 years old and talked my mother into letting me sign up. Bus ride to St. Louis, 707 to San Diego. Truck ride to MCRD. Yellow foot prints.
The Corps gave me nothing, I was issued the essentials. I think they charged for replacements.
About two weeks into Boot Camp I was cleaning my M14 on the Company street when an Officer stopped and asked me a question.
Coming to attention I answered his question. An hour later I was shipped to te north side Depot Casual because he didn’t like my answer.
His question? “How do you like it here, Private?”
My answer, “Sir: I could take it or leave it, Sir!”
Spent too much time watching John Wayne. I didn’t know our Platoon 286, Company F was way over recruits.
A talk with an officer and then they said “Sign here,
I was there when JFK was shoot. The Sgt, said “A Marine did it.” Then he said it took him three shots.
A few days later I was on a train home.
Found out a year or two later I could have refused to sign and just gone to another Platoon.
Several years later I was in a match at Camp Lincoln at Springfield, IL. There was a Marine Sgt, at the line next to me. He was shooting an accurized M14 and I had my Remington 40XB 7.62×51 bolt gun. [ Very similar to the issue USMC sniper rifle. Very similar to the M40 ] I have a left master eye so I was shooting left handed, Standing there we were facing each other. I fired my 10 rounds, including a reload faster than the Sgt.. He was so interested in watching me reach over the rear sight and work the bolt with from the left shoulder he forgot to fire his tenth shot. I beat him on time, and score.
I shouldn’t have signed read more

1983 Beirut barracks bombing: ‘The BLT Building is gone!’

At 6:22 on Sunday morning Oct. 23, 1983, a 19-ton yellow Mercedes stake-bed truck entered a public parking lot at the heart of Beirut International Airport. The lot was adjacent to the headquarters of the U.S. 8th Marine Regiment’s 1st Battalion, where some 350 American service members lay asleep in a four-story concrete aviation administration building that had been successively occupied by various combatants in the ongoing Lebanese Civil War. Battalion Landing Team 1/8 was the ground element of the 1,800-man 24th Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU), which had deployed to Lebanon a year earlier as part of a multinational peacekeeping force also comprising French, Italian and British troops. Its mission was to facilitate the withdrawal of foreign fighters from Lebanon and help restore the sovereignty of its government at a time when sectarian violence had riven the Mediterranean nation. read more

MISSION FIRST, MARINES ALWAYS: BACK TO BASICS FOR LEADERS

The sword was passed for the 19th time as Sgt. Maj. Troy E. Black became the 19th Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps in late July.

“Mission First, Marines Always, Semper Fidelis” were the closing remarks Sgt. Maj. Black addressed the Marines during a social media post on July 27, 2019. As Sgt. Maj. Black accepted the Sword of Office, those four words were a reminder of the responsibilities bestowed upon leaders. “Mission First, Marines Always is not a new concept or new statement,” Sgt. Maj. Black said. “But it is a simple truth that expresses the basic principles of Marine Corps leadership that are essential to our success.” read more

Summer Of Love

The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people converged in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. Although hippies also gathered in major cities across the U.S., Canada and Europe, San Francisco remained the center of the hippie movement. [1] Like its sister enclave of Greenwich Village, the city became even more of a melting pot of politics, music, drugs, creativity, and the total lack of sexual and social inhibition than it already was. As the hippie counterculture movement came further forward into public awareness, the activities centered thereon became a defining moment of the 1960s, [2] causing numerous ‘ordinary citizens’ to begin questioning everything and anything about them and their environment as a result… source: WIKIPEDIA. read more