The Marine and the Sailor
An old Sailor and an old Marine were sitting at the VFW arguing about who'd had the tougher career."I did 30 years in the Corps," the Marine declared proudly, "and fought in three of my country's wars. Fresh out of boot camp, I hit the beach at Tarawa, then at Iwo Jima where clawed my way up the blood-soaked sand, and eventually took out an entire enemy machine gun nest with a single grenade. As a sergeant, I fought in Korea and walked back from the Chosen Reservoir. We pushed back the enemy inch by bloody inch, always under a barrage of artillery and small arms fire. Finally, as a Gunny Sergeant, I did three consecutive combat tours in Vietnam. We humped through the mud and razor grass for 14 hours a day, plagued by rain and mosquitoes, ducking under sniper fire all day, and mortar fire all night. In a firefight, we'd fire until our arms ached and our guns were empty, then we'd charge the enemy with bayonets!""Ah," said the Sailor with a dismissive wave of his hand, "Lucky bastard; all shore duty."
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Haha. Good one!
ReplyDeleteExcellent - and oh, so true!
ReplyDeleteI figured you, NFO, and maybe the Chant du Depart guys would get a lick out of it.
DeleteMy paltry 86 weeks at sea were spent in luxury compared to what you guys had!
Seems like a "outstory" contest.
ReplyDeleteI was checking in on Forrestal and talking to a first class Parachute Rigger, he admitted that he had 19 years in and this was his first ship.
ReplyDeleteYou know, that sounds like a conversation that could really happen!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was doing my first float, there was an obnoxious bosun's mate who was going on and on about his time at sea. A P.O. 1st class said " oh, for God's sake, Jones, I've got more time on the shitter than you have at sea!" I found out later that was a standard canard that the old hands used to squash bumptious loud mouths.
Gotta remember that one!
DeleteNice.
ReplyDeleteIn England they always used to go on about their time at Imjin Hill. A bit like the True Cross, the battle's vets circle the world many times.