Happy 230th

November 10, 2005 6:23 AM

It's the 230th birthday of the United States Marine Corps. Every 10 NOV current, future, and former Marines gather to commemorate the founding of the USMC. GoDaddy's founder Bob Parsons is a former Marine, and makes it a habit to send out birthday wishes every year. (flash)
posted by taumeson (40 comments total)

Happy birthday to me.

I guess.
posted by mischief at 6:24 AM on November 10, 2005

Yeah, I just loved getting that spam from Parsons today, despite my explicit opt-out from all email not related to my account there...
posted by twsf at 6:30 AM on November 10, 2005

Yeah...I thought about putting something snarky about Bob Parsons spamming everybody, but I knew other voices would mention it first.
posted by taumeson at 6:32 AM on November 10, 2005

I got the same spam that twsf got, except I hated getting it.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:50 AM on November 10, 2005

posted by rxrfrx at 6:54 AM on November 10, 2005

AWESOME.
posted by selfnoise at 6:57 AM on November 10, 2005

Bob Parson's can eat it.
posted by delmoi at 7:01 AM on November 10, 2005

This is more my kind of Marine...
posted by alumshubby at 7:05 AM on November 10, 2005

Oohrah.
posted by eddydamascene at 7:13 AM on November 10, 2005

Remember remember the 10th of November, the Butlerian bus-i-ness plot.
I see of no reason, the bus-i-ness treason, should ever... ooo, shiny!
posted by anthill at 7:15 AM on November 10, 2005

What is this "Semper Fi" thing? It seems like a lot of people are in the Marines for a handful of years in their late teens-to-early twenties and for the rest of their lives it's Marines this, Marines that. Is there so much glory in the Corps that even 50 years later they still think they shine with it?

"I'm not impressed by your PhDs sonny, I was a Marine back in '83 when them AY-rabs blowed up the Embassy!"

"But Grandpa, you spent your whole three years in the Marines guarding a statue in San Diego!"

"But I was a MARINE in them days, wasn't I! Semper Fi, dammit! Salute me or you ain't gettin' no ribs!"

Hell, I was a Junior Oriole in the early 1970s, maybe I should buy some Orioles bumper stickers and T-shirts and go on about that."That was the REAL Orioles, when Earl Weaver ran a tight team with Boog Powell and Mark Belanger and Jim Palmer and both Robinsons. Imagine my surprise when I found out Brooks Robinson and Frank Robinson ain't related! So I ain't impressed by none o' yer hats an' languages, young man!" (The Orioles regularly made mincemeat out of the Rangers in those years though, no wonder Dubya could eventually buy that team so cheap.)

["We'd sing and dance, forever and a day...."]
posted by davy at 7:18 AM on November 10, 2005

Bob Parsons is a bit of an odd bird. I mean... I'm glad he uses the Internet for his soapbox sort of things and promotes his business at the same time. I felt a little creepy for being a GoDaddy customer after they did that horrible T&A campaign in the Superbowl.. it's like er.. I thought I supported a better company than this.. but hey, the dude knows how to get in the news! And process five zillion domain requests to keep his business in the black.

happy anniversary marines!
posted by cavalier at 7:20 AM on November 10, 2005

Cheers, davy.
posted by Shfishp at 7:21 AM on November 10, 2005

Because becoming a Marine is a little trickier, more strenous than most things, and generally when you work that hard for that long towards turning yourself into something mentally and physically it has this funny habit of becoming part of your identity, ask me another stupid, disrespectful question.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 7:27 AM on November 10, 2005

Also, most folks don't enlist when they're thirty, they do it when they're just finishing high school. And everybody likes to look back fondly on those times , even if, in reality, those times weren't all that great.

You could call it the Uncle Rico syndrome, I suppose.
posted by Gamblor at 7:37 AM on November 10, 2005

I'm not even that old, but every great once in a while, I'll catch myself fondly remembering something that happened while I was in the military, and then I'll snap back into reality, and think, "Who the fuck am I kidding? That was a horrible time, and when it was happening, I hated just about every minute of it."

People have a tendency to look back on their youth with rose-colored glasses. Unless you're Frank McCourt.
posted by Gamblor at 7:43 AM on November 10, 2005

Bob Parson's is an asshole, cavalier. Anyone advocating the greater use of torture on POW's is an asshole and, in my opinion, a fundamentally flawed human being.

That said, thanks USMC, for your sacrifices and suffering in helping to protect and secure America. Some of the best men I've known have been Marines and they were incredibly honorable and decent men (though I have no way of knowing if they were honorable and decent before the Marines got them).
posted by fenriq at 7:44 AM on November 10, 2005

I gotta say I smoked some of the best weed and hash while I was in the Corps. ;-P

davy: one word; brainwashed!
posted by mischief at 7:59 AM on November 10, 2005

Fenriq,

I will ditto that. I deplore the application of the Marines generally, but of the several I have known, most have been seriously, seriously deeply polite and decent people, super giving and level headed. One was a marvelous lunatic of the first order whose stint in the marines merely made him a really tough, organized, creative and utterly dangerous lunatic. Really fun to hang out with though. Man that dude could FUCK shit up.
posted by Divine_Wino at 8:00 AM on November 10, 2005

I tried to find a link, but after a single google search failed I gave up. Anyways. All the marines, marine reservists, and former marines in and around Fort Gordon, GA are also finishing up a big event today. For the past several days, a marine has been running the 3-mile track around Barton field 24/7. They're stacking up 600 laps, each lap in memory of a marine killed in OIF or OEF. Happy birthday, USMC.
posted by kavasa at 8:07 AM on November 10, 2005

for kavasa: http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/102605/met_5533922.shtml
posted by mischief at 8:12 AM on November 10, 2005

Happy birthday Marines!

Er, I'm more of a submariner myself but some of the best, most deeply contemplative people I know are US Marines. And even now, many of them love the Corps, they love what they do in it, and the ethos that guides them, so I don't think it's all rose colored glasses or anything.

I also being in the military found that sometimes being part of an organization like that can help shape you, mold you, help you for the first time create yourself, and that in turn can last quite a while. So, yeah, you might think that it's silly for former Marines to "Semper Fidelis" each other, but it really means something to them, that even if you never served with the other guy, or he stayed in for thirty years and you stayed in for three, at one time, you had a single common bond that helped shape you and define you, that you poured yourself into. Brotherhood, I imagine.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 8:47 AM on November 10, 2005

Semper Fi!
posted by stenseng at 10:10 AM on November 10, 2005

Wolverines would kick their ass.
posted by bardic at 10:20 AM on November 10, 2005

What is this "Semper Fi" thing?

I've always thought it kinda homoerotic. Women may come and women may go, but I'm Always Faithful to my muscular, macho, well-hung brother marines...

Though I suppose I'd get my pansy-ass kicked for even thinking such a thing in marine circles
posted by PeterMcDermott at 10:34 AM on November 10, 2005

I've always thought it kinda homoerotic. Women may come and women may go, but I'm Always Faithful to my muscular, macho, well-hung brother marines...

Save the fact that there are women marines, and they are treated with the same semper fi additude as any others. (I think that Marines are actually pretty good at the whole "She's one of us" mentality, better than the Navy at least.) Not to say there aren't gay marines - there certainly are - but the bond between marines is one of common purpose and ethos, not homoerotic attraction.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 12:14 PM on November 10, 2005

Come on guys, does it have to be an either/or proposition? =)
posted by stenseng at 12:40 PM on November 10, 2005

Not to say there aren't gay marines
Or fake ones, anyway, as shown in Exhibit A.

"You fucked with the wrong Marine!"
posted by kirkaracha at 12:45 PM on November 10, 2005

Some of the best men I've known have been Marines and they were incredibly honorable and decent men

Same here.

Hell, I was a Junior Oriole in the early 1970s, maybe I should buy some Orioles bumper stickers and T-shirts and go on about that.

Yes davy, becoming a marine is a lot like you being a junior oriole. Excellent comparison.
posted by justgary at 1:23 PM on November 10, 2005

davy, some men still refer to themselves as being in a fraternity. Some make up little clubs and proclaim themselves lifelong members. Or church groups, or the freemasons what have you. Bit more real bonding going on under fire than there is at a frat party.
What Lord Chancellor sed.
posted by Smedleyman at 3:27 PM on November 10, 2005

But smedleyman, the Semper Fi "bonding" is often between people who were not under fire together, or even in the same war police action, or who were never under fire while they were Marines at all. For one thing, though maybe I might be the wrong person to say this here, it seems rather cheap for someone whose Marine career was guarding statues in peacetime to claim "brotherhood" with someone who lost an eye, a leg, and a dozen people he knew personally on Iwo Jima. For example, I claim a certain commonality with the Wobblies who organized in the coal mines 90 years ago, but I don't even call myself a Wobbly let alone claim to be as involved as they were.

My hunch is that most people who've been Marines since the Corps' foundation have never "heard a shot fired in anger", so until somebody shows me I'm wrong I'll go on believing it's got little to do with "bonding under fire". Why for example don't we Americans see the same "once an X, always an X", "all Xes are brothers" phenomenon among present and former members of the Army, Navy, Air Force or Coast Guard, even when the (ex-) soldiers or whatever have been literally under fire together?
posted by davy at 7:53 PM on November 10, 2005

Uther Bentrazor said: "[A]sk me another stupid, disrespectful question."

Uh, okay: Have you stopped beating your mother?
posted by davy at 8:21 PM on November 10, 2005

Why for example don't we Americans see the same "once an X, always an X", "all Xes are brothers" phenomenon among present and former members of the Army, Navy, Air Force or Coast Guard, even when the (ex-) soldiers or whatever have been literally under fire together?
posted by davy

Davy, I'm no expert on the armed forces, but you show an amazing amount of ignorance on the subject, even for mefi.

I'll bet you that if the metafilter community went to paris island not many would make it through boot camp. I doubt I would. Army, Navy, Airforce...you'd have a much better chance.

It doesn't have to do with being "under fire" together. It has to do with the whole experience. Most marines grew up wanting to be marines. If you want to join the armed forces and have an easier time, you don't join the marines.

That doesn't mean you have to agree with it, or even try and understand it. Sure, everyone wants to be part of a group. People join mefi for 5 bucks and buy the shirt. But comparing becoming a marine to a frat where all you go through is a little hazing is absurd. I've seen guys go into the marines and come out almost different people, for the better.

The fact that you want to tear down members of an organization that worked their asses off to join while behind your computer screen is, well, pretty ironic.
posted by justgary at 10:40 PM on November 10, 2005

The fact that you want to tear down members of an organization

the kool-aid tastes good, justgary? Keep pumping those pom-poms.

At any rate, I believe davy is missing the dynamic of elite units that strive to maintain the quality of their inductees. SEALs, Green Berets, Airborne units have greater bonds of brotherhood.

Marine boot is only marginally "harder" than Army boot at this point, and doctrine, training, equipment once deployed isn't so different either.

My grandfather was in the 7th Marines, Peleliu & Okinawa. He earned respect for that service, and so do all soldiers who join units with greater risk and demands than the baseline REMF.

But the USMC now is a military organization that has seen millions of people go through it; to me this enshrining of it as an ÜberKorps looks a lot like PR than truth.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 11:00 PM on November 10, 2005

Well, on the other armed forces, I, as sailor do consider myself of their brotherhood. Never mind that each of us do different things, some more dangerous than others, some more glamorous, some with different levels of difficult, or different lengths of time. We all took the same oath once and we all joined the same organization. As much as I might complain about the Navy or those in it, when it comes down to it, they are my brothers, and even if I don't normally sacrifice a lot for them, I am always ready to. And they for me. Sure there are bad apples, but there is a sense of brotherhood that is tangible when you wear that uniform, whatever you may do, not only because of what you have done, but what you were willing to do.

Marines, in my experience, tend to have the same sense of camaraderie and investment, just jumped up a few notches. One of the reasons is the type of jobs they typically do, another is the difficult in being a marine (not impossible, mind you, but much harder to join the marines to weasel out of something), and another is the fact that the USMC is a much smaller organization.

So, whether they served together or not, or under fire or not, they all served, and that, in and of itself is a bond. Maybe not important to you, but very important to them. The same way, that during the cake cutting ceremony, the youngest and oldest marine take the first two slices. Because whatever they do, they are both Marines.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 11:22 PM on November 10, 2005

Marine boot is only marginally "harder" than Army boot at this point, and doctrine, training, equipment once deployed isn't so different either.

Wow, so uh, that's wrong. They all have varying lengths and such, and about the only comparison you can make is that they all end with a type of "crucible" built on the USMC OCS crucible...sure, the Army's Ft. Benning might call it Victory Forge, and it might be Battle Stations at Great Lakes, but they're all built around what the Marines found out.

So, about the varying lengths. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Navy boot is 5 weeks and Army boot is 8? A stay at Parris Island lasts about 13 weeks. MCT is an additional 5 weeks. If you're going to be an officer of Marines, OCS is 10 or 12 weeks depending, and then you have 26 weeks of The Basic School.

The only non-USMC boot camp that compares to anything you might find at PI can be found at Ft. Benning, but that's only because they train infantry there, or so I'm told. But I've talked to people that've gone through Ft. Benning and it still wasn't as hard as what I went through.

---

It's not that we've gone through the same shit as Marines during wartime. It's that we've been honed to the same sharpness, the same caliber, and we're willing to go through the same shit as they went through. It's not "bonds forged through fire" all the time...it's about knowing that you're made of sterner stuff and that you're willing to do what it takes, and that if somebody asked you to sacrifice on the battlefield that you're ready to get off your ass and go do what needs to be done.

As a civilian you can disagree with the administration (God knows I do) and think all members of the military are baby killers, but at least understand what it takes to become one.
posted by taumeson at 6:57 AM on November 11, 2005

As far as the equipment being the same once deployed...you and I both have keyboards, computers, pens, etc., but what we do with them may be wholly different.

Your argument is that the Marines don't deserve recognition. Why is it, then that everybody recognizes them? Recognition, like respect, isn't a matter of fitting a pattern or being easily established. It has to be earned.
posted by taumeson at 7:00 AM on November 11, 2005

Your argument is that the Marines don't deserve recognition. Why is it, then that everybody recognizes them?

For what? Having a chip on their shoulders? Buying into the bullshit marketing? Referencing past glories like Iwo Jima and Inchon?

Recognition, like respect, isn't a matter of fitting a pattern or being easily established. It has to be earned.

Indeed. Recognition has to be earned, not inherited from previous events that occured before one was born. To the extent today's Marines are selected, trained, and equipped to a higher standard of soldier skill and badassitude they deserve the rep they have.

It's my argument that the average marine rifle platoon and a bradley or stryker platoon are fungible these days. On the operational level, I think the Army's ACRs are pretty much equivalent to a RCT.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 7:47 AM on November 11, 2005

"As a civilian you can disagree with the administration (God knows I do) and think all members of the military are baby killers, but at least understand what it takes to become one."

Taumeson, did you just invite us to understand what it takes to become a babykiller like you, or is your sentence worded badly? I suspect the former but I want to make sure.

And I'm not saying that it's not hard to become a Marine, but I am saying (since y'all brought it up) that the Becoming A Marine is not automatically a good thing. Lots of things are hard to do that still don't need to be done or should not be done: Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer worked really hard to become serial killers (and both were caught almost by mistake after getting away with it for years), but we don't (usually) say that what they did had value just because it wasn't easy.
posted by davy at 6:15 PM on November 11, 2005

the kool-aid tastes good, justgary? Keep pumping those pom-poms.

Yes, because I find it comical that people will sit behind their computer and compare the marines to the scouts I'm drinking the koolaid. You got me.

Marine boot is only marginally "harder" than Army boot at this point, and doctrine, training, equipment once deployed isn't so different either.

Did you write that with a straight face heywood mogroot? Seriously, just an ignorant comment. Any credibility you had on the topic is gone.
posted by justgary at 3:33 AM on November 23, 2005