Quit acting like a Marine!

I hate that statement. It just makes you want to slap a motherfucker. It is something that a civilian will never understand. That's like telling a bitchy chic to "quit acting like a bitch," or a former police officer to "Quit acting like a cop". You see, most Marines Join the service at a young age. From then it is like a revelation of life, you are molded into a Marine, and it becomes you. You evolve from a teen into an adult in the Marine Corps, and that is a critical time in your life. Lets think for a second about the bitch. Just like the Marine they probably wern't that way when they were in their early teens. It probably started from late teen to adulthood that they became that way. Now look at the cop. The cop trains alot to find stashes of bud, or to notice if someone is drunk, etc, etc. Marine's are the same way, we train and train and train, so that it becomes second nature to live in the "field" for months, eat shity food, sneak through the brush, drink fuel tainted water thats 100 degrees plus in tempurature, have baracks where only the heater works in 120 degree heat and the AC comes on only in 30 degree cold. We sleep in two foot of water while its raining, wear grease on our face for the sake of hiding, stay up days at a time, and ran for miles. We've drank until 3 in the morning and then at 4 in the morning cary 80 pounds of gear for a 20 mile hike. We've run in the freezing cold and the burning hot to harden our bodies, humped miles of hills for endurance, and endured the worst conditions in other countries to train to kill an asshole for the sake of our Nation and to protect our country.
In other words, if I want to have a god damn high and stupid haircut, or be clean cut 0-3 inches to USMC grooming standards, that should be my choice. If I want to say words like, "good to go", "Roger that", "Semper Fi", "oo-rah!!!", or just answer your stupid question with a bark, then I can because I earned that right. And you fuck wad civilian's whining about stupid shit telling me to quit acting like a Marine, because I'm "not in any more", I've been through hell to earn that eagle, globe, and anchor, so fuck you. Marine is what I am. It is in my heart and soul, and is a part of who I am. Buddy Dj, also a Marine, and I run a military explorer unit, and some of them go into the Marine Corps as well as other services. I am still serving my country in this way and so is he. We still subject ourselfs to PT, Pain, runs in inclement weather, and wearing BDU's. Quit acting like a Marine? Fuck you bitch I am a Marine! Good to go?

www.jimmystare.com

This is a great site by Jimmy Stare, a Marine in Force Recon, who is also a struggling musician. There are some great pictures, and even some music.

Jimmy Stare

Hiking essay

This is the begining of my hiking essay, though I couldn't find the rest of it. Just a reminder of a Marine Corps Hump.

Hiking

It was about 0445, or if you don’t know military time 4:45 AM, and I was miserable. After drinking until 0200, vomiting anything close to nutritional out of my body at 0210, and finally falling asleep somewhere around 0230, I was gracefully woken up at 0400 with a slap to the head and told the Battalion was to go on a hike (what we call a hump) at 0430. After stumbling around my barracks room for twenty minuets, frantically looking at the gear list with my blurry red eyes, I assembled the 80 plus pounds of crap I was supposed to put on my back for the next 15 miles. So it was 0445, I was sweating liquor, my mouth felt as dry and gritty as the 29 Palms desert I was walking on, and I had never felt as much pain in every area of my body as I did those 15 minuets.
Maybe it was the lack of good sleep, or the cheap whisky, but suddenly I felt Zen like. I noticed the stars, felt the night air, took a deep breath of fresh O2. I noticed for the first time, since I found a pair of them under my sleeping bag, the scorpions and other animal life scurrying around, getting ready for the sun to make its appearance. The eastern horizon of the rough desert landscape gradually went from grey, to red, and then orange. The beauty of the desert country reflected the first golden peak of sunlight. We were heading north east at the time, and I had a front seat view of the beginning of the world. In five minuets I went from totally miserable, to totally content. Why couldn’t all people feel this way all the time?

Caldernide USMC

dj the archer Foster USMC

My Essays

here is an essay I wrote (I'll put more in later):

To commit or not to commit

Dating for me was an enjoyable experience. What happens though when that inevitable question arises, as in a lot of long term relationships, “when do you want to start living together?” At that time, a lot of guys have to think very hard to decide if this is the best route to go.
Dating has a nice quality to it called distance. With this distance comes enough freedom to do almost whatever you please on your off time. “I’m kind of sick today” or, “hey I got this thing going on this afternoon and won’t be able to make it over” are some common excuses you can use to cut an evening short or cancel it altogether when your significant other wants you over. When living together, this is not possible. The “illness” excuse can lead to your partner telling you they will be home early to make sure you’re ok, and that “thing” you got going on? Well scratch that, because more than likely your live in partner will know if you have any kind of event happening. They do check all your pieces of paper and your calendar.
When dating, you have the reassurance that at any time this relationship can be ended, leaving you free as a bird at the time of your own choosing. Try that when your girlfriend lives with you. Suddenly an easy dumping becomes a financial nightmare, because you’re probably splitting the bills, and you have more than one expense under two names. To do this properly you need to plan months in advance, saving your cash and picking a day to end this wreck of a relationship; and as for getting her crap out of the place? This is a whole other mess in itself involving numerous days and chaotic planning, which more than likely will evolve into vicious fights and some items of yours flying off a second story walkway into the street. This is good if you love chaos and mayhem, bad if you just want to have a peaceful evening watching Monday night football.
Privacy is another option you can have when just dating. Your mail is yours alone. Letters and phone numbers can be safely put out in the open on your dresser or kitchen counter, where only your eyes will be viewing them. Maybe a flirtatious girl at work writes you a nice letter. Maybe in this letter she hints at getting some drinks. You come home from work, set your gear (letter included) on the table, lay down for a minute, and the next thing you know you’re out cold, asleep. Try doing that with a live in girlfriend, where you wake up to the sound of her reading this letter out loud like it’s the damn State of the Union Address. You think your mail is yours? Not when miss live in girl has a key to the mailbox and a handy dandy letter opener. Those letters and phone numbers left out, even if they’re just the hamburger joint down the road, can become the second Fourth of July that year. “Who the hell’s number is this? It has no name?!?” you hear in a shrill, nail biting voice. “Well it’s probably Steve’s burgers,” you answer with confidence. “Let her call that one”, you think to yourself assuredly. Problem is it was the Steve’s burgers where you work, so when she dials that same seven digit number it’s in the wrong area code. So what happens? A chick answers, that’s what happens! You better start praying that you remembered to put those things in a double locked safe, or you’ll come home and all those numbers on the counter will have been dialed, a lose lose situation for everyone involved.
Now, I don’t watch much TV, but at the rare times I want to catch a game or let my mind rot away on some construction or mechanic show, the boob tube is usually already in use. Before I could turn on the crap box and let my mind drift to the land of sports, or hammers, wrenches, and saws. Now I am forced to either leave, or watch some stupid actor/ lawyer convict white trash people in small claims court, or maybe see who will be “America’s next top model,” stuff which has no educational value like football does.
It may seem that I am taking a very negative approach to this living together thing. So far living together means no privacy, no alone time, a lot of unneeded violent confrontations, and no time to watch the tube. Well, I guess living together can have some good points. I would be a hypocrite to say it’s all bad, because I live with my girlfriend right now. Coming home to a nice meal after a long day is great, especially since my cooking slightly resembles the tray rations we ate in the military, and that’s on a good day. Granted she’s just learning to cook, but she does alright on some things. She even took the initiative to buy a cook book, which gives her a few points on my, “don’t toss her out on her keister yet” list.
A clean apartment is another thing I kind of appreciate arriving to find. Gone are the days of wading through my clothes, as if I were on a jungle patrol, looking for trip wires (or coat hangers), and having to get out my compass to navigate from the bathroom to the kitchen. Hell, I just recently found out that, “you need to use antibacterial dish soap” to wash dishes, and that the time to wash them is not after you run out of dishes. I guess now with this antibacterial dish soap, I won’t run out of lava shower soap so soon.
Though the constant companionship can get frustrating, there are times it can be nice. Different situations where I couldn’t figure out what to do used to bring me into combat mode. In my mind I would hear my Drill Instructor yelling, “AAAATACK, KILL!!!” when I encountered problems in my life that I did not want to deal with. Now there’s the quiet voice that gives me an alternative to situations like getting my money back from the rental agency that jipped us by shooting a couple rounds through their main office window, or tracking Mr. no call back apartment manager to his residence and asking him personally about fixing that AC unit that drips water all over the place. Yeah, I guess she has helped me learn some political correctness and manners. So even though there are some definite down sides, the up sides of living together usually cancels those out. Notice the word usually instead of the word always. It is up to you to decide if the girl is worth that much trouble. Me? I bought a document safe and watch TV at work now, so I think I’ll be ok.