This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Marine Corps

  • This Week’s Friday Feel-Good

    Elbert Wood, 93, of Houston, TX, is a USMC World War II veteran. He came home from a medical appointment on January 21st.

    His home had been vandalized. Two juvenile “little darlings” had broken in. They’d spray-painted many of the walls, furnishings, carpets, and appliances.

    Wood served in the Pacific in World War II. He was wounded in action twice. He also recently lost his wife – 19 days before the incident, to be precise. Let’s just say he deserved better than this.

    Just another case of big-city vandalism and taking advantage of the elderly, eh? Perhaps. But here’s where the story takes a good turn.

    Seems as if word of what happened to Mr. Wood got around. Independently, many pitched in to help.

    Like MAJ Roberto Rodriguez, A/1/23d Marines – and his troops. They went to the man’s home to help.

    On arrival, they were joined by a group of contractors laid-on by a local radio station. So instead of doing clean-up work, the Marines instead cleared the entire house so the contractors could do a better job while doing the rehab.

    GruntLife – a vets organization – also got wind of the incident. They started a fundraiser to send Wood and his children on a trip to DC to visit the World War II memorial and the National Museum of the Marine Corps. The fundraiser achieved its initial target of $5,000 within 72 hours.

    The revised plan is to send Woods’ children to accompany him to DC in April as well. They’re well on the way to making that happen.

    No, this won’t make the incident “go away”. It happened; nothing can change history. But it does help mitigate the damage done to Mr. Wood – both that done to his property and his dignity.

    And it also shows that, while there are indeed many jerks among us, there are also those who still give a damn.

  • Longer floats

    The Washington Times reports that the Navy says that their sailors and Marines are going to be on longer sea duty tours because the USS Enterprise has been retired and the USS Lincoln is undergoing four years of refitting and maintenance bringing the number of carrier groups to nine;

    “We need 11 carriers to do the job. That’s been pretty clearly written, and that’s underwritten in our defense strategic guidance,” Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations, said recently.

    Carrier deployments have lengthened gradually over the past decade, from six months to as long as nine months.

    Adm. Greenert said it will be at least two or three years before carriers return to six-month deployments, as the Navy strains to keep operational its flattop fleet and the battle groups of combat and supply vessels that support their missions.

    Well, I don’t know how the wetter services feel about these types of deployments, but I’m guessing it won’t help retention much.

  • Gay News

    Two links today in regards to the recent repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. In one sent by Parachute Cutie,; the Department of Defense is paying an average of $14,000/per to folks who were booted out of the military for not following the simple restrictions of DADT says Associated Press;

    The federal government has agreed to pay $2.4 million to dozens of gay troops who were discharged and denied full separation pay under the pre-2011 “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, according to a new court settlement.

    The class-action lawsuit was spearheaded by the American Civil Liberties Union and filed in 2010 on behalf of about 181 gay troops who were honorably discharged for violating the military’s ban on gays serving openly in uniform.

    I don’t remember the rum-runners getting forgiven for plying their illicit trade after Prohibition ended. All they had to do was keep their mouths shut about their particular sexual preference, and they couldn’t…now they get to cash in on it.

    Jerry920 sends the news that the Marines have decided that same sex couples should be able to join the spouses groups, says NBC;

    NBC News reported Dec. 14 that Ashley Broadway, the newlywed wife of Lt. Col. Heather Mack, was blocked from joining the spouses club at Fort Bragg, N.C., sparking accusations from a national military spouses organization that Broadway was being blackballed only because she is a lesbian.

    The Marine memo, issued Tuesday, described the Fort Bragg club’s stance as having “caused quite a stir” and added, “We do not want a story like this developing in our backyard,” confirmed Capt. Eric Flanagan, a Marine Corps spokesman.

    I’m sure that’s a good way to destroy the spouses’ clubs and support groups. Folks will probably pull stakes and leave the groups…I’m just saying.

  • Marines saving the world one ball at a time

    Preston sends us a link to the short Washington Times story about some Marines who escorted some ladies to a ball;

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    Nikki Reese, right, a senior at Woodbridge High School, is escorted by Marine Sgt. Jacob DeMille to the 6th annual Cinderella Ball, at the Willard InterContinental Hotel, in Washington, D.C., Sunday, June 5, 2011. The ball, put on by The House, Inc., is for local students with life-threatening illnesses or disabilities. The House, Inc. is a leadership resource for area students that offers before and after school programs and weekend activities. (Drew Angerer/The Washington Times)

    There are more pictures at the link.

  • Marines to enforce weight standards

    fatmarine
    UT San Diego reports that for some reason the Marine Corps has decided that they need to enforce weight standards. Of course, folks like the Orcan American pictured above got all fat on the day that General James Amos took command of the Corps.

    The trim top officer of the Corps ordered his inspector general to conduct surprise weigh-ins in 2011.

    Failure to meet weight standards has always been a barrier to promotion and potential career-ender. Now, the stakes for battling the bulge are higher because competition to remain in uniform is increasing as the military downsizes.

    But the crackdown on body fat seems to be helping more Marines maintain fighting form.

    The Army dismissed more than 1,600 soldiers last year for failing to meet weight standards. The Navy kicked out 1,374 in fiscal 2012, up from 760 in 2011.

    The Marine Corps, the smallest of the armed forces, discharged 132 for weight-control problems in fiscal 2012. In 2011, it was 186, nearly double the previous year.

    The Duffel Blog has a huge-ass Marine that they stalk and post pictures on Facebook, so yes, there is probably a problem, but they should have been doing something about it all of this time. I’m sure the guy pictured above didn’t get that way during deployments.

  • Marine takes down burgler in WA

    The Spokane Valley’s Spokesman Review recounts the tale of two Afghanistan tours, 22-year-old Marine Corporal Alex Pohle who, while on leave to his parents home with his wife, returned from the store to find the front door wide open.

    After telling his wife to stay in the car, the corporal charged into the house and encountered 43-year-old Christopher Schwanke in his parents’ bedroom;

    After a short struggle, Pohle had him in a choke hold and Schwanke pleaded for his freedom. “Let me go, let me go,” Pohle’s mom heard Schwanke begging before he stopped moving.

    Pohle credited his military training for the take down move and pointed out the blood on his pants and shirt that didn’t belong to him.

    Alex and his parents, Kerrie and Jim, held the burglar down until Spokane Valley deputies arrived within minutes – around 10:45 a.m.

    Lucky for the Marine Corps, Pohle has four more years on this enlistment and hopes to become a drill sergeant.

  • Senate votes to expand Marines

    Yesterday the Senate voted to add 1000 more billets to the Marine Corps, all of which will be assigned to embassy security details, according to the Marine Corps Times;

    It’s not immediately clear how this would affect the Marine Corps’ ongoing personnel drawdown. Current plans call for shedding about 5,000 Marines from active duty each year through 2016 as the service works toward a new authorized end strength of 182,100.

    Mixed signals from Congress? No that’s impossible. Of course, this government reacting a day late and a dollar short from the Benghazi terrorist attack from 9-11 this year.

    “Today, there are 126 U.S. diplomatic missions outside the United States without Marine Corps security protecting [them], including parts of Asia and Africa where we suspect that al Qaida is expanding its presence,” [Senator John] McCain said.

    Extra Marines are needed, he said, because moving Marines from some diplomatic facilities to improve security at other facilities would be unwise. “Increasing one — as is necessary in light of the attack at Benghazi — cannot come at the expense of another,” he added.

    And the military is also supposed to reassess the way they protect diplomatic missions, and the needs of the State Department for military security. The addition of a thousand Marines almost doubles the current size of 1200 Marines assigned to the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group, according to the Marine Corps Times. So, like in everything else, the military is supposed to help the civvies salvage their reputations.

  • Marines change pull up standards for women

    Over the last few days we’ve been discussing how women want to be like men, as far as their occupational endeavors in the combat arms field. I know a few of you mentioned that the USMC was changing their fitness requirements and here’s the Marine Corps Times on that;

    [T]he Marine Corps has spent nearly two years evaluating the restrictions it places on women, with an eye toward breaking down longstanding barriers where possible. Within the last year, for instance, officials have opened to female Marines dozens of jobs in tank and artillery units, among others previously the province of men only.

    So, it looks like the Marine Corps is doing away with the “flex arm hang” for females – pulling herself up for a half pull up and staying there for as long as she can. They’re going to make women do an actual pull up. Yeah, big news, big change.

    That study of 318 female Marines found that, on average, they could perform 1.63 pull-ups. More than 21 percent performed at least three, and 37 percent performed at least three when lower-body movement — a banned practice frequently known as “kip” — was allowed.

    I’ve got news for you – women can do more than a half of a pull up. When I was an ROTC TAC NCO, I usually had the first platoon of the first rotation at Advanced Camp which was packed with Airborne candidates who would ship off to jump school after their six weeks with me, so I made everyone do ten pull ups before they could get in the messhall (including myself). The first week or so, the women would need assistance – but then so did the men, but after the third week of doing ten pull ups three times everyday, everyone was doing them just fine. I think they needed to do seven to get into jump school. Funny how that works – if you train for something properly, you can do anything.

    Men aren’t built for situps like women are, but they make us do them anyway, and there’s no “men’s sit ups”, like there are “women’s pushups”, are there? So we have to train harder at it than women have to train. That’s life.