something for the marines...

[The sone]

'Twas the night before Christmas, he lived all alone,
in a one-bedroom house made of plaster and stone.
I had come down the chimney with presents to give,
and to see just who in this home did live.

I looked all about, a strange sight I did see,
no tinsel, no presents, not even a tree.
No stocking by mantle, just boots filled with sand,
on the wall hung pictures of far distant lands.

With medals and badges, awards of all kinds,
a sober thought came through my mind.
For this house was different, it was dark and dreary,
I found the home of a Marine, once I could see clearly.

The Marine lay sleeping, silent, alone,
curled up on the floor in this one bedroom home.
The face was so gentle, the room so unclean,
not how I pictured a United States Marine.

Was this the hero of whom I'd just read?
Curled up on a poncho, the floor for a bed?
I realized the families that I saw this night,
owed their lives to these Marines, willing to fight.

Soon 'round the world, the children would play,
and grownups would celebrate a bright Christmas Day.
They all enjoyed freedom each month of the year,
because of the Marines, like the one lying here.

I couldn't help wonder how many lay lone,
on a cold Christmas Eve in a land far from home.
The very thought brought a tear to my eye,
I dropped to my knees and started to cry.

The Marine awakened and I heard a rough voice,
"Santa don't cry, this life is my choice;
I fight for freedom, I don't ask for more,
my life is my God, my country, my Corps."

The Marine rolled over and drifted to sleep,
I couldn't control it, I continued to weep.
I kept watch for hours, so silent and still
and we both shivered in the night's cold chill.

I didn't want to leave on that cold, dark night,
this guardian of honor so willing to fight.
Then the Marine rolled over, with a voice soft and pure,
whispered, "Carry on Santa, it's Christmas Day, all is secure."

One look at my watch, and I knew he was right.
"Merry Christmas my friend, and to all a good night."


I always get a little choked up when i read this at christmas time...
merry christmas jarheads...
sone

[ZStomp]

Semper Fi

http://www.jessejordan1.com/Semper%20Fi.jpg

[ZStomp]

http://www.treasurethemoments.org/semper_fi.jpg

http://semperfiheart1.homestead.com/files/semhrthr.jpg

[1369]

Hey Sone, it is spelled Marines, not marines.

Get it right.

Oooh fucking rah.

[1369]

This Marine gets it...


Jimmy Stare
GUILTY
The power had been out for hours. Outside a typhoon raged and rain seemed to slam sideways against the cracked window of Dickey Barracks room 212 at Camp Schwab. The ten or so men in the room were from all parts of the states, a few black, one Mexican and the rest white. Some of them boots, some of them salty guys who had just returned from running live patrols against extremists in the Philippines. A single candle burned in the center of the room, illuminating the sweaty, stinking bodies. The guy who lived in the room was leaving on the Freedom Bird as soon as the typhoon lifted. A bottle of Jim Beam was being passed around. I was ordered to that room that night. Not for another thrashing or any crazy shit like that. I had been enduring that stuff long enough to know it was different that night. Somebody had heard me playing and singing in the bathroom and I was told to report to the dark room with my guitar. When questioned, I explained that I wasn't that good and only knew about ten songs. The men in that room didn't want to hear it. All they wanted me to do was play. They were silent and I was terrified. It was March, 1992.

I ended up playing those same ten songs all night long for that small group of men and it would be the beginning of something very special, which eventually led to all kinds of songs and recordings and CDs. I felt like I belonged. I've always considered Okinawa and 3Rd Recon Bn, Camp Schwab, to be the place where I learned about being a man and a brother.

I became known as the weirdo guitar guy. I never really fit in all the way. I was some kind of imposter. After a few years at Schwab, I became just as psychotic, cynical, and violent as the rest of the men who carried the weight. I had no patience for pogues and rear echelon fuck heads that had no clue what I went through on a daily basis. The only people who understood, were my brothers and I hated them just as much as I loved them. I tried for years to get into some kind of action. I lived out of bags and just went from one training mission to the next and one school to the next and on and on. I was always on a ship, in the jungle, in the mountains, in the water, enduring and waiting and carrying the weight and practicing as if it was real.

I learned what it meant to be Recon in my time and I realize now every Recon guy has their time. That magical point in their career, where they seem to know everybody and they walk tall and feel good about being part of something special. They want to face terror and they want to be pushed beyond their limits. When they succeed it's amazing. It makes a man feel ten-feet-tall and bullet proof. When they fail, they see life differently. They tend to discover other things that are more important to them. I know both sides of that story and I'm somewhere in the middle.

What it means to be Recon changes with each group of men who collectively carry the weight. They each own the copyrights to their version of the real Recon. I walked in that shining light for a brief while and I know how it feels. I know how it makes a man look.

These days, I don't recognize 90% of the names in the company roster. I can't hang like I used to, I can't sing and play like I used to, and I just don't feel like I used to. It's only a matter of time before I fade from the memories of the few who still recognize me in the unit and that's normal. There are so many men who have gone away in my time that I can't remember all of them any more.

Things have changed, I've changed, the times have changed and I just can't change with them anymore. At 36, even though I've never really done shit, I've done enough. The very thought of putting another ruck on my back and struggling up another mountain or baking in another desert or freezing in another ocean or doing another shooting package or rotting on another ship just gives me a headache. It's still pretty easy to find Marines who haven't deployed much if ever. There's just something wrong with that when there are guys on their third combat tour in four years.

I've discovered there's this thing out there most people do…it's called living a life, and that has started looking real good to me. Instead of simply existing between events on a jam packed training schedule that never ends, I have an opportunity now to live my life a little differently.

I was just going to get out and throw away all those years of work because I didn't feel honorable or courageous, just bitter, angry and tired. I felt like I had worn myself out training 13 years to run a marathon and the marathon never happened. I didn't see a way out of my situation without leaving the Corps.

I entertained some lucrative job offers: Wallmart, LJ's Landscaping and Burger king were all very interested in my many years of sacrifice and hard work and were willing to pay me the going rate plus free food for my services.

I also put in a package to leave Recon and become a reporter and a photographer for the Marine Corps. To my surprise, the Marine Corps approved it. The people in charge of making the decision, actually read the web page, watched the movies, listened to the music and interviewed me. They didn't pull any punches. Basically, I could write but my mechanics sucked. They would take a chance if I was willing to learn and two months after I got back from deployment, I checked into reporter school.

I've seen my wife about three months out of the last 12 and learning this stuff has been like drinking from a fire hose but I love it. Everyday I'm surrounded by hundreds of creative weirdos in uniform. Artists, Video Edit Gurus, Radio DJs, Writers, Software Geeks, Lithographers, Cameramen, and Reporters etc. It's like the military took all the freak shows and crammed them under one roof. I'm just as geeky as the rest of these people. I speak their language. I understand the stupid shit they debate about. I have conversations almost everyday about different editing techniques and camera tricks with various other weirdos around me. I have found some kind of new home here.

It didn't bother me that the stories I had to write were so fucking boring, they could have been used to put insomniacs to sleep. I liked the whole process. The interview, the notes, the outline, the creation of the story under the parameters set down by the course, the inevitable bashing with the red ink pen and then the late night struggling to do it all over again. I loved it all and can't wait to interview real people.

My new life as a rear echelon pogue comes with a price. Guilt. I find myself apologizing to too many people for leaving Recon. I feel like I have to explain myself to these wonderful souls who email me from Iraq and Afghanistan. Men who have been wounded. Men who've seen their friends die and tell me their dead buddy loved my music. Men who carry the weight, while I enjoy a warm bed, more than four hours of sleep a night on a regular basis, and the glorious ability to stay inside by a fire as it pisses down cold rain outdoors. Men who face war and all that comes with it, while I learn how to write.

War waits patiently like a worn out whore on Whisper Alley who knows somebody will fuck her sooner or later.

Many men face that whore every day, while I learn how to be a radio DJ.

I miss certain things, like standing on the ramp at 20,000 feet and touching fists with a brother just before I jump. So many words pass between those fists but there isn't enough paper or time to tell the story. "I love you, I hate you, your breath stinks, your kids are stupid, your wife's ugly and I'll bleed for you if it comes to that…"

I simply took for granted all those years of trusting the guy next to me with my life. I took for granted the ability to hate someone with every fiber of my being, yet still look them in the eye and tell them I've got their back.

I was hoping to lay low and just say I moved over from infantry when I checked in here. They already knew where I came from on day one. If they didn't, they sure did when the young sergeant next to me looked at my name tape and said, "Hey I heard about you, you're that LAT mover from RECON, how the hell did a guy like you get here?" as loud as possible.

It's a question I expected, but I didn't count on how many young kids would ask that same question.

Most of the kids around here were born when I graduated high school. Many of them are still shitting boot camp chow. When they ask me that question, I want to throw a ruck on their back and run them around this base until they puke. I want to make them stand in the rain for days until they are pleading with God, the Devil, Buddha or whoever will answer first, to just make it stop. I want to make them come back from deployment to find their old lady is either fucking somebody else or just gone because she couldn't stand waiting for some guy who was deployed all the time. I want to make them bleed and cry. I want to make them try to explain to their parents on the phone that they can't come home for the funeral because they have a job to do and the job comes first. I want to force them to watch their kids grow up through crumpled pictures in their wallets. I want to make them work every major holiday as well as most nights and weekends. I want to make sure they don't get their leave, to the point where they have at least 30 days over on the books. I want to fuck up their pay so bad that they will get no money for two paychecks, yet they still have go on patrol and do the best job they can, while people who support them scam jump quotas and go home early every day. I want to scare them to the point where they don't know if they should shit or go blind. I want to bust them down in rank, get them drunk on duty, and buy them their first hooker. I want to do all of it to them while incompetent ass kissers get promoted instead of them. I want to make sure 90% of the people in charge of them have the IQ of plant life. I want to make sure I warn them everyday that a bloodbath is just around the corner and my life depends on their ability and then nothing ever happens or it happens halfway, while their friends and brothers endure the fights of their lives in various places. I want to do all these things over and over to them for years until one day they have one too many scars, addictions and tattoos. I want to make them feel like tired old men in young men's bodies. When they walk away, I want to scream at them, "Why you leaving?"

Maybe then, they would understand the answer to the question they keep asking me.

I try to be courteous, accommodating and respectful to them all. I've never been able to give them a good answer. Sometimes when I'm talking to one of them, I realize that I've talked too much and I stop mid-sentence, excuse myself, and walk away feeling like I just farted in church.

I didn't spend 13 years in Recon to pay the rent and buy groceries. I didn't do it for all that extra money I always heard about, but rarely saw. I did it because it was my whole fucking life and then one day I just couldn't do it anymore. I don't know how to explain that to these innocent, unscathed faces who keep asking me why I left.

I got a chance to visit The Wall in D.C. last week. I took a few pictures, said my thanks and prayers to the dead and I quietly thanked those individuals who are sacrificing their bodies, minds, and souls in some festering shit hole right now, so I can enjoy Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and all the days in between off, for the first time in almost 14 years.

[The sone]

Hey Sone, it is spelled Marines, not marines.

Get it right.

Oooh fucking rah.


sorry about that...how nasty am I...i guess im up for another njp...

[1369]

sorry about that...how nasty am I...i guess im up for another njp...

Spoken like a true REMF.:lol

Merry Christmas Sone
:spin

[Cant_Be_Faded]

ZStomp I cannot believe this

[ZStomp]

Burned!

[ZStomp]

ZStomp I cannot believe this


What?

[Cant_Be_Faded]

First you scoff Family Matters
Then you allowed yourself to be scoffed for liking Mercyful Fate

NOW you actually have a USC Avatar? It's one thing to hate texas but to start being a USC homer right before the championship puts you on level with Tlong

[Cant_Be_Faded]

You might as well purchase a Hummer H2, stab me in the heart with a rusty spoon, and steal all my vbookie

I have to change my avatar back to the old faithful just to balance it out now

[ZStomp]

I'll rather be a homer than a UT fan..:lol

[Cant_Be_Faded]

but you're lower than a homer cuz you're not even a real USC fan

this is like when mookie and i were leaving Kyle Field and all the aggies were talking about was how bad ass USC was and how Reggie Bush was "A good Bush"

have you even been to USC campus before

[The sone]

Spoken like a true REMF.:lol

Merry Christmas Sone
:spin


at ease salty one...i work for a living...
http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/5857/recon8qd.jpg
:lol

[1369]

at ease salty one...i work for a living...
http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/5857/recon8qd.jpg
:lol


Get the fuck out.

Salty I ain't/wasn't. Charlie Co. 4th Recon

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Sone, are you a vet or are you kidding

[ZStomp]

but you're lower than a homer cuz you're not even a real USC fan

this is like when mookie and i were leaving Kyle Field and all the aggies were talking about was how bad ass USC was and how Reggie Bush was "A good Bush"

have you even been to USC campus before


:wtf

I just admitted I'm a homer. You know what..i'm not even a homer because I can't tell you anyONE that plays on that team. I just don't like UT. Simple as that. Don't make it difficult.

PS. What does going to the USC campus have to do with anything?

[ZStomp]

First you scoff Family Matters
Then you allowed yourself to be scoffed for liking Mercyful Fate

NOW you actually have a USC Avatar? It's one thing to hate texas but to start being a USC homer right before the championship puts you on level with Tlong

You think i care that i get 'scoffed' for liking Fate or Diamond??? Who cares??????

[Cant_Be_Faded]

:wtf

I just admitted I'm a homer. You know what..i'm not even a homer because I can't tell you anyONE that plays on that team. I just don't like UT. Simple as that. Don't make it difficult.

PS. What does me going to the USC campus have to do with anything?

Get a UT SUCKS avatar or somethin :lol

[The sone]

Get the fuck out.

Salty I ain't/wasn't. Charlie Co. 4th Recon


4th is the tx unit no? nice. so at least you know what it is to suffer...ahhhh, gud times... :elephant remember the best feeling in the world was when you knew the training was done for the day? and you could finally lick the wounds. man that was sweet... :lol

[Cant_Be_Faded]

You think i care that i get 'scoffed' for liking Fate or Diamond??? Who cares??????


naturally, i was kidding

[The sone]

cbf...im a vet. four in and out. why?

[ZStomp]

Get a UT SUCKS avatar or somethin :lol


That would be good too..either way...it gets the message out...make me one...

[1369]

4th is the tx unit no? nice. so at least you know what it is to suffer...ahhhh, gud times... :elephant remember the best feeling in the world was when you knew the training was done for the day? and you could finally lick the wounds. man that was sweet... :lol

Alpha, Charlie and H&S are San Antonio, Samurai Jane's brother works H&S and should be back from the big sand box about now.

When were you in? I had a brother from Alpha that hooked with 1st Force after GWI you may have run into.

The best thing I remember from a pump was hitting the chow hall for a glass of milk and then racing for the head and a paper to evacuate a week and change of tuna casserole MRE's

[ZStomp]

Was Forest Gump in the Marines?

[1369]

Was Forest Gump in the Marines?

That would be a no.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

cbf...im a vet. four in and out. why?


Just wondering. So can you still do all the lethal hand to hand combat techniques?

[ZStomp]

Just wondering. So can you still do all the lethal hand to hand combat techniques?


The only lethal hand to hand combat technique he has also concerns his penis. :lmao

[The sone]

i can paper mache...does that count for anything?

[Chef]

The Marines are worthy of my avatar. I salute those brave bastards. :tu
I'm gonna cook up a batch of my specialty and we can all get down. :fro

[The sone]

The only lethal hand to hand combat technique he has also concerns his penis. :lmao


i developed new and exciting techniques, such as "speed shifting", "the white knuckler", and the "over the shoulder boulder holder", but my personal favorite is the "vulcan death grip".

doggiewater out!!

[Faccia di Angelo]

ZStomp I cannot believe this
LOL I was wondering the same thing about his avatar. :confused


That was nice the sone. That made me teary eyed too. I always keep all you guys in my prayers. Thanks for serving our country. :tu

[JoeChalupa]

Semper Fi!!

[ZStomp]

Go Usc!

[Ishta]

I also get choked up when i read that..Thank you for sharing!

[ZStomp]

i developed new and exciting techniques, such as "speed shifting", "the white knuckler", and the "over the shoulder boulder holder", but my personal favorite is the "vulcan death grip".

doggiewater out!!


I thought you were going to say that you like to turn your hand around and get it 'doggie style'...:lmao