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USS Denver, NOV1993, off the coast of Mogadishu, Somalia for UNOSOM II. I was promoted to Corporal and had the honor of being given my blood stripes in a locked NCO berthing area, with the portal windows covered. By the time I'd reached the end of the gauntlet, I couldn't stand or use my arms. I was being held up and carried forward by the NCOs, until I reached the end. After they released me, I crawled to my rack and curled into a ball to recover. At 0400 the next morning, my Staff Sergeant tapped me and asked, "Marine, I know you took it pretty hard yesterday. We're going ashore today, we have a mission. Can you make it?" I stretched out my stiffened arms and legs, pretended to feel no pain and said, "I'm fine. What time do we leave?"

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July 20, 2009 at 1:40 pm by Anonymous in - Deployed

When our company Gunny would lecture us, he always liked to yell, "JUST DON'T PISS DOWN MY BACK AND TELL ME IT'S RAINING!!"

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July 21, 2009 at 1:42 pm by DevilDog in - Esprit de Corps

In boot camp, one of our dark green Drill Instructors had a habit of snapping his fingers, shoving his hand in our faces and with his thumb and pointer finger making the L=loser sign he'd scream, "NOW LISTEN HERE BOY!!" in his thick southern accent. It was so intense and always intimidating. I loved that habit so much, I stole it from him and almost 20 years later, I still do it to this day.

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July 21, 2009 at 1:47 pm by DevilDog in - Boot Camp

On a late night before liberty ended, one of my buddies still needed a haircut before heading back to base. We'd been drinking all day and I told him I could do it, even though I'd never been the one to give barracks cuts. We broke out the clippers, he sat down and since I was disgusted by his abuse of the 3" inch rule, I went straight for the top of his unsat head. My first run took a huge chunk out and I had to stop because I was laughing so hard, while he was whining about, "WHAT'D YOU JUST DO??!" It was too late though and by the time he made it back to his unit, he had no more than half an inch left.

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July 21, 2009 at 2:09 pm by Anonymous in - Leave/Liberty

During phase 3 of boot camp a few guys decided one night after lights out to lay in the rack and tell stories. During one particular story from a guy about his girlfriend a voice from the last rack in the barracks said, "Oh really, what happened next?" It was then we found out that the firewatch had fallen asleep and our DI had snuck in from the back door and layed down in the last rack and was listening to us. It was not a fun evening or next day for us to say the least.

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September 1, 2009 at 6:55 pm by Anonymous in - Boot Camp