[HTML1] Making the rounds today is a video posted on You Tube by Matteroni2 that made us laugh our butts off. It shows a guy screaming in sheer terror on a giant slingshot ride in Orlando, Fla., while his friend tells him “it was worth it just to hear you scream like a little girl.” Apparently the screamer is a Marine, but it’s hard to tell for sure. Before the slingshot hurtles him and his friend into the sky he says he’d rather be in Afghanistan than sitting there on the ride with the anticipation of waiting to take off. …
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A Facebook page dedicated to the tar and feathering of ship’s captain Francesco Schettino, who appears to have fled the $45 million cruise ship Costa Concordia and its passengers and crew after grounding it off the coast of Italy’s Tuscany region, has turned to a famous Marine Corps icon to express its disdain for the man some Italians have named “chicken of the sea.” Among dozens of satirical illustrations created using well known images from movies, music albums and other pop culture, is the famous shot of retired Gunnery Sgt. R. Lee Ermey shouting — in Italian — at a…
The list of off-limit places in southwest Arizona has nearly doubled for Marines, according to a news release from Marine Corps Air Station Yuma. Among them is a place called “S**t Creek.” It’s not a roughneck bar nor a seedy store. It’s actually “the confluence of the Colorado and Gila rivers,” according to a Yuma news release. It’s not completely banned, mind you. You can visit in the daytime, but when the sun sets — stay out! Also notable is The Mine Shaft, located at 3905 S. 4th Avenue. This bar was added “because of the amount of physical altercations…
The list of off-limit places in southwest Arizona has nearly doubled for Marines, according to a news release from Marine Corps Air Station Yuma. Among them is a place called “S**t Creek.” It’s not a roughneck bar nor a seedy store. It’s actually “the confluence of the Colorado and Gila rivers,” according to a Yuma news release. It’s not completely banned, mind you. You can visit in the daytime, but when the sun sets — stay out! Also notable is The Mine Shaft, located at 3905 S. 4th Avenue. This bar was added “because of the amount of physical altercations…
The certified trainers at Semper Fit — the Corps’ in-house health and fitness promotion group you see at the base gyms — have designed a kick-ass workout program that they think will satisfy even the most demanding physical fitness disciple in the Corps. The program is called High Intensity Tactical Training, or HITT, and it will be ready to go in about three weeks. It’s got a library of more than 600 exercises that have been combined into 60-minute workouts meant to be done three times a week. Marines who took part in the beta test done this past fall…
[HTML1] This video is a keeper. Using the unit’s motto “Make Peace or Die” as a title, Combat Camera from 1st Battalion, 5th Marines has produced and posted this high quality video documentary of the unit’s seven treacherous months in Sangin, a bomb-infested district in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province. During the 2011 deployment from April through October, 1/5 fought hard and got dirty. The unit lost 17 Marines and had close to 200 wounded and still never stopped charging forward. The video is edited with arresting still images of Marines on patrol, talking with Afghans, watching explosions, crossing rivers and caring…
You’ve read some of the details about the coming 15,000-Marine drawdown of the Corps in previous issues of Marine Corps Times. But this report takes it even further. In this issue, you will learn specifics: which units are being deactivated, how many will be reorganized or realigned and where the Corps will actually be adding people and assets. For example, along with the stand down of a historic regimental headquarters and three battalions, several tank companies, field artillery batteries and recon companies will go away. At the same time, the logistics community will undergo sweeping changes, and Marines will be…
[HTML1] Our colleagues over at USA Today caught up with former Marine Cpl. Scott Olsen after recovering from a head injury sustained during the Occupy Oakland protests on October 25. Olsen lost the ability to speak for a period of time, but is slowly regaining it. With a scar above his left eye, Olsen returned to the scene of the protests where he was hit by a projectile, resulting in a fractured skull. The 24-year-old had this to say about his experience from the USA Today story: Even when it comes to his injury, Olsen considers himself fortunate — and…
‘Tis the season for turkey, tailgating and that classic game on the gridiron, football. But all that rough play with your best buddies can sometimes turn into a trip to the Doc or, worse, the emergency room. Over Thanksgiving 2010, the Naval Safety Center got 54 reports of injuries, including Marines and sailors who “attempted to work off their turkey tryptophan with a pick-up game.” Some of them suffered poked eyes and sprained ankles from playing on the football field. No word about any resulting lost work days. The fall season typically sees double the number of football injuries than any…
In the first of a seven-part series on 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, NPR correspondent Tom Bowman revisits the seven-month deployment with an interview with Lt. Col. Jason Morris, who commanded the battalion during the deployment from September 2010 to March 2011. The 3/5 had 25 Marines and corpsmen killed in action, the highest casualty rate for any single unit in Afghanistan in 10 years of war. “It was just over a year ago that Morris took nearly 1,000 Marines to a place in Helmand called Sangin. It was a haven for Taliban fighters and drug traffickers, a place where the…
