39 Reasons to Love the Marine Corps

In honor of the Marine Corps’ birthday, I copied these reasons why one of them loves what he’s doing. These are from Roberto T. Cast, and then I had to abridge them because 1) there are so many, and 2) some just didn’t make sense to my civilian brain. That’s why I included the link. Feel free to go back and check out the ones I left out:

1. Best haircut. Hands down. You can’t have a bad hair day with a USMC regulation haircut and you spend less on shampoo.
2. Dress blues. They’re the coolest uniforms in any military worldwide.
3. Bloused trousers. Another distinctive Marine look that sets the proudest service members apart.
4. The rest of the Marine sea bag. From the Alphas to the camouflage utilities, uniforms just look better on a Marine than any other service member.
5. Marines don’t wear dungarees.
6. Most respect II: When the Corps returned to Haiti after 60 years, an old man on the beach at Cap Haitian said, “Welcome back!”
7. Toughest mascot: The Marine Corps’ is a bulldog, the Navy’s is a goat and the Army’s is, very appropriately, a jackass.
8. Esprit de Corps: Even if you can’t spell it or pronounce it, the Marine Corps have it in spades. One example; when sailors get tattoos, they do it to express their individuality, and their choices range from Betty Bop and Mickey Mouse to raging sea serpents. When Marines get tattoos, they do it to express their solidarity, and choose bull dogs, “Death Before Dishonor,” and “USMC.”
9. Best war monument is the Iwo Jima.
10. The Marines invade, and then go home. The Army has to do the occupying.
11. The silent drill platoon. Just watching them apply their trade makes you want to wear dress blues.
12. Status: Sailors live and work on ships. Marines go for cruises then hit the beach.
13. Best fast attack vehicle, the LAVs
14. Best fighting knife, the Ka-Bar
15. Best duty assignments.Okinawa, Kaneohe Bay, Camp Pendleton, Diego Garcia, Moscow, North Carolina. Plus any ship at sea.
16. Worst duty assignments, Okinawa, Kaneohe Bay, Camp Pendleton, Diego Garcia, Moscow, North Carolina. Plus any ship at sea.
17. Most exotic duty assignments, Kuala Lumpur, The White House.
18. Best phone number. Call 1-800-MARINES and you’ve got the Corps and if you’re a civilian with the mettle to be a Marine, a recruiter there will be happy to sign you up.
19. Toughest DIs. They’re so tough that when the Navy wants to train its officers, whom do they call? 1-800-MARINES.
20. Toughest boot camp, San Diego, California. When Navy recruits were still training in San Diego, occasionally they would jump the fence and accidentally land at MCRD. The Marines would keep them a couple of days and when they were sent back, they were glad to be sailors! Corpsmen EXCLUDED of course.
21. Best motivational cry, Ooh-rah! It’s pronounced Ooh-rah and NOT Hurrah
22. Best emblem, Eagle, Globe and Anchor
23. Best campaign covers, The Smokey Bear hat
24. Best slogan, Once a Marine, always a Marine
25. Best slogan II. Tell that to the Marines
26. Best slogan III, Send in the Marines
27. Best nicknames I, Jarhead
28. Best nicknames II, Leatherneck
29. Best nicknames III, Devil Dog; the ultimate compliment, it was given to us by our enemy. The German Army in World War I, whose soldiers’ greatest fear was running up against the toughest American fighting men, the Marines, they called us “teufelhunden,” or Devil Dog
30. Most remarkable airplane, The Harrier. No other service’s jets can take off and land on a dime.
31. Most dangerous airplane, The Harrier. Not a simple science, but luckily more of a danger to the enemy than to Marine fliers.
32. You’re a Marine. Not a soldier or a troop.
33. That’s Marines, with a capital M.
34. Tradition! The Corps is older than the republic itself
35. The Commandant’s House. It’s the oldest occupied residence in Washington, D. C.
36. Chesty Puller. You got to love a service that has heroes with names like that.
37. Unity; every Marine is a rifleman.
38. Poetry in motion. They’re weapons, not g-u-n-s and if you don’t know the pithy verse that explain that, don’t ask us. We blush to tell.
39. Point of the spear, out in front, kicking down the door. What the Marines do best.

---

 

Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, author/editor of dozens of books on integrating tech into the classroom, a tech columnist forTeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for ISTE’s Journal for Computing Teachers, and freelance journalist on tech ed topics.