CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan – I wasn’t looking for a soundtrack when arriving at this sprawling forward operating base, but it appears I’ve found one. Traveling to get security badges here this morning in a van, we were treated to the confident crooning of Right Said Fred and his 1990s classic, “I’m Too Sexy.” The song was playing on a British-run radio station aboard Camp Bastion, which is part of this base. “Forces Radio,” as the DJ called it, is broadcasted to improve morale and keep people informed. It appears to do both of those things – as long as you…
Browsing: Marines
Feminist Naomi Wolf, author of “The Beauty Myth,” is calling Katy Perry’s new video a propaganda piece for the Marine Corps and has suggested her fans boycott the singer. Perry recorded the video for her new song “Part of Me” at Camp Pendleton, Calif. with the help of 40 female Marines. The video debuted March 21. Wolf posted the following comment about the video on her Facebook page four days later: Some have come to Wolf’s defense, including people who identify themselves as Iraq and…
This weekend, more than 4,000 Marines and sailors on the East Coast are grabbing some last-minute liberty before they leave home for a scheduled deployment overseas. The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit and its 2,300 Marines will depart Camp Lejeune, N.C. on Monday and head to Norfolk, Va. There, they will board amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima, dock landing ship Gunston Hall and dock transport ship New York, which will be making its maiden operational deployment. Col. Frank Donovan, a veteran infantry and reconnaissance officer, commands the 24th MEU, which includes Battalion Landing Team 1/2 (1st Battalion, 2nd Marines), Combat Logistics Battalion…
Check out Katy Perry’s new “Part of Me” music video filmed at Camp Pendleton, Calif. She joins the Marine Corps in what amounts to one big, long, awesome recruiting ad. Its not quite a Marine in dress blues slaying wizards on a chess board, but its a close second. [HTML1] If you missed that vintage reference, check out this recruiting commercial from before some of you were born. [HTML2]
[brightcove video=”1492242292001″ /] A swing through Jacksonville, N.C., just wouldn’t be complete without a visit to Sywanyk’s. It’s a bar in a building that is so filled with Marine Corps memorabilia that it almost defies description. In fact, retired Sgt. Maj. Ihor Sywanyk, owner of the one-of-a-kind bar/museum can only describe it this way: “You just come on right in, I won’t charge you and I might even buy you a drink… you will be impressed and amazed and if you don’t like it, don’t come back… but they always come back,” he told me on my third visit. Sywanyk…
News broke widely yesterday that the Marine Corps was about to unveil a new advertising campaign with the slogan, “Toward the Sounds of Chaos.” It was initially billed as a look at the softer side of the service, but if the first video is any indication, it’s far more than that. Check this out. I’m not seeing anyone petting puppies: [HTML1] I’ve reached out to Marine Corps Recruiting Command for details about who is in the video, and where the footage was recorded. Stay tuned… UPDATE: The commercial was filmed in the fall at Camp Pendleton, Calif., said Maj. John…
In January, Marine Corps Times profiled Lance Cpl. Kyle Carpenter. The wounded warrior has undergone more than 30 surgeries since sustaining catastrophic injuries in a November 2010 grenade blast near Marjah, Afghanistan, but maintains a strikingly cheerful outlook on life. Most of the quotes in that story from Carpenter came from an interview I did with him at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. He was refreshingly candid about his struggles — and that he had a number of goals left to meet. One of those goals was doing pull-ups again, even after his right arm…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4ARJk4Fpn0&context=C35c9366ADOEgsToPDskLfZQj3yAYndDMYmy9SXISh[/youtube] Soldiers at Fort Benning, Ga., an Army post about 90 miles south of Atlanta, were treated to a gargantuan BOOM recently by the Leathernecks who train there. An Army TV news correspondent starts her report by saying the U.S. Marine armor school detachment there, “made history… by detonating some of the largest explosions Fort Benning has ever seen.” A group of combat engineers was having some fun… er, conducting a training exercise with their mine clearing line charge, known as the MCLC and pronounced mik-lik, from their assault breacher vehicle and set off the kind of awesome explosion that…
It has been a rough few months in the public relations department for the Marine Corps. In separate incidents, the Corps has taken hits in the last few months for the hazing-related death of Lance Cpl. Harry Lew, the revelation that Marines in Afghanistan urinated on the corpses of dead Taliban last year and the scout sniper community’s use of the stylized “lighting bolt” SS logo popularized by the notorious Nazi SS organization. Time Magazine’s military blog, Battleland, ties those themes together in a blog post today provocatively titled, “What’s wrong with the Marines?” Some readers will be quick to…
With an exception to a long-standing Pentagon policy, female Marines in the ranks of captain, gunnery sergeant and staff sergeant will be permitted to serve in combat arms units below the division level. But don’t expect to see women in infantry battalions yet. The Corps is only cracking the door open for women at this point and will place them in units through the normal assignment process in staff positions for select military occupational specialties newly opened up for female officers and enlisted women. Marines assigned to combat arms battalions will begin seeing women occupying these staff positions sometime in…
