In Tim's Very Own Words

For me it’s always interesting looking through the weekly newsletter that Julie publishes. Although I’m aware of some of the insanity that goes on aboard base, sometimes it doesn’t hit me how life looks from the outside until I read about it after a day of training. The scary thing is, it’s all true.

For example, she mentioned the “box nasties”. In answer to the unspoken question, yes, that is the only thing the lieutenants call them. “Are they really that bad?” you may ask. The funny thing is, no, they’re not. It’s just that eating box chows is somewhat like drinking antifreeze. A little bit may be fine, but there is a physical limit your body can take before it decides it’s time to check out of life. I firmly believe that if a lieutenant were stranded on deserted island for three months with 10,000 box chows, rescuers would find him starved to death with only 12 box chows eaten. The other 9,988 boxes would be stacked neatly in nice military piles on the most remote corner of the island. (Which, believe it or not, some of the other lieutenants were doing. They had their own little box-chow collections going in certain room. I think that’s as bad as a repeat felon collecting all the hand-cuffs that have been slapped on him.)

Weird Things That We Endure in Class That Commercials Will Never Mention

-Mal-functioning thermostats in the classrooms. The only times the A/C seems to be on is when the ambient exterior temperature is less than 50 degrees. Some Marines will wear two t-shirts, a sweatshirt, etc. under their uniforms just to stay warm. Everybody shivers constantly, and that leads nicely to…

-Long classes. The Corps has a knack for taking 45-minute concepts and compressing them into 3-hour classes. Which means that we’re often cold and hungry, since the average time from breakfast until lunch is usually 7 hours.

-Obscure cleaning details. Obviously, cleaning your gear is vital. Cleaning the room is healthy. But edging sidewalks?

-Working with 60-year-old equipment. Forget museums. If you want hands-on history, ask to play with Marine communications equipment. Our motto is, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. If it is broke, drop it and see if that fixes it. If it doesn’t, that’s why we have commo guys. Obsolete is not a word.

-Nomenclature. Just to give you the foggiest sense of what it’s like some days, here is an example of a very receivable instruction. “Get out your SL-3 gear and attach your 3-foot tape to your AN/PRC-119s and set the FCTN on LD, MODE on FH, COMSEC on CT, after which you will check your TA-312’s BA-3030 and attach the WD-1.” By the way, a BA-3030 is a D-cell battery. I respect those who work commo for their MOS.

Perspectives on training thus far
I think every officer has a moment at TBS where he thinks, “wait a minute, taxpayers are PAYING me to do this?!” For example, rifle range. Where else on earth do you get premium-grade instruction, about 200 rounds of pistol ammo, nearly 1,000 rounds of rifle ammo, a free rifle and pistol rental, a free 500-yard range, your own pit crew, night vision goggles and laser designator, an awesome tan, and you get paid for it? Or for another example, MACMAP: the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program. Learning how to be a deadly fighter with your bare hands. Which for me, having been involved in martial arts in high-school, was inherently fascinating. Although as our firearms instructor said, “if you’re having to use MACMAP in-country, that means your rifle’s empty, your pistol’s done, and your kabar’s broke.” I still loved it.

Training is not like the commercials. If you watch them too much, you get the idea that the majority of our time is spent running top speed through the woods, yelling intense commands to fellow Marines, shooting an unending supply of ammo, and taking breaks only to strike dramatic and inspirational poses in slow motion while the high-energy sound-track pounds in the background.

That’s nice and all, and while I certainly wouldn’t want to spoil anyone’s warm fuzzies whenever they watch those commercials, the truth is somewhat different. While Marines do run through the woods at top speed, that usually means they have either missed a checkpoint on Land Nav and they are now frantically trying to make it up, or they just realized that their squad moved on and they are trying to show up before the squad leader gets a count. We will yell in the woods, but we prefer to use hand signals if possible, or if that doesn’t work because the fire team leader is distracted by a bug, we will trot over and smack him to get his attention. Whenever we take breaks, it’s usually an unspoken call to drop the pack, sit down, break out the chow and continue whatever meal got interrupted on the last break, and we only strike dramatic poses when we know there’s a camera somewhere near. The closest thing we ever have to a sound-track is when the Marines across the hall have their computer speakers up too loud. That being said, we are still the most effective fighting force on the planet, and we know how to get the job done, one way or another.