Yes! QUANTICO, VA — After failing to capitalize Marine in an official media release, a Public Affairs sergeant was verbally reprimanded and publicly executed Friday before a crowd of spectators outside the Marine Corps Museum, officials report. Let that be a lesson to you all.
Captain Nicholas, Remembered (At Last)
Ronaldus Secundus sent this fascinating article in: When he was commissioned as “Captain of Marines” during the American Revolution, Samuel Nicholas was read out of meeting by the pacifist Society of Friends in Philadelphia. He recruited several companies of Marines at the city’s Tun Tavern, participated in their first amphibious landing in the Bahamas, and fought with George Washington in New Jersey. But the Marine Corps’ first commandant – received back into the Society of Friends after the war – was buried without a marker, the same as most others at the cemetery next to the Arch Street Meeting House. [...]
Chow Time
In the news lately: Marines at Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan will lose a key daily meal starting Saturday, causing some to forgo a hot breakfast and others to work six-plus hours without refueling on cooked food, according to Marines at the base and Marine Corps officials. The midnight ration service — known there as “midrats” — supplies breakfast to Marines on midnight-to-noon shifts and dinner to Marines who are ending noon-to-midnight work periods. It’s described as one of the few times the Marines at Leatherneck can be together in one place. ET0802 remarked, “Nothing new here, NBC news. Move along. [...]
“The Commandant’s Freaking Us Out”
From a guest-posting Marine officer at Tom Ricks’ blog: The problem is that there is ZERO fricking information coming out of HQMC explaining ANY of this stuff. Nobody knows what to make of it, so nobody knows how to tighten up their units. That feeds conspiracy theories and loss of confidence in leadership because their actions start to look random and unprincipled. Everyone is cool with a CMC when he fires a commander who screws up — DUI, banging a sergeant, etc. Everyone knows the deal. These mystery reliefs are harder to stomach. Amos doesn’t know it, but he OWES [...]
FACTUALLY INCORRECT!
It’s not an “infantry” division. ;-) Still has damn some good pics.
I Needed a Laugh, But This Ain’t It
ETP0802 sent this in. After a long day of dealing with freaks, weirdos and yahoos– and I work in the Pentagon– I needed a laugh. Unfortunately this isn’t a DuffelBlog article. Anyone out that way care to comment?
Camp Bastion Cover-Up? (But Wait, There’s More…)
Family members of the two dead Marines are saying so. Benghazi isn’t the only bloody disaster being covered up by the Obama administration. As I reported in a series of columns and blog posts last fall, three days after the deadly siege on our consulate in Libya, the Taliban waged an intricately coordinated, brutal attack on Camp Bastion in Afghanistan. Two heroic U.S. Marines — Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Raible and Sergeant Bradley Atwell — were killed in the battle. Many surviving Marines have been honored for their brave, quick-thinking actions to save their comrades and civilians caught in the crossfire. [...]
USMC Four-Stars
ETP0802 sent this in, this very curious article in the WSJ. There’s some greatness packed into that room. Go read the article.
Gun-Day Monday: At the Range
We hit the range this afternoon, MDL, Ronaldus Secundus, Wang and I. MDL brought his Springfield 1903-A3, circa 1943, Wang his brand-new Smith & Wesson M&P 15, and I had the M&P45 and the AK to check zero. RonSec had too many to count, I think, in some giant bag he could barely lift. Two learning points: 1. I was wearing my IWB holster in an old pair of 511 trou, held up by your garden variety USMC-issue tan MCMAP belt. I didn’t have a whole lot of ammo, so I concentrated on placing single shots in the upper thoracic [...]
Exercise in Morocco Cancelled, Lots of Money Wasted
NOT a DuffelBlog article.* Do we have money to waste? I think not. By chance, ETP0802 was there for that exercise and wrote in, “Am on the flight back from Morocco early and catching up on e-mails. Don’t know if you heard, but a rift between the US (specifically the US signaling that they would support a UN motion on the Western Sahara) and Morocco ended up with our AT exercise – AFRICAN LION 13 – being cancelled by the Moroccans and us kicked out. … We never fired a shot. We deployed, disembarked, and then literally about to cross [...]
