Monday, April 26, 2010

Avatar or Pocahontas? You decide!

White people travel to a foreign land to get a money making mineral.
White people are represented to the natives by good looking white man.
Good looking white man is stalked through the woods by beautiful native girl. Deus ex Machina answer for why they miraculously speak the same language despite being from different worlds.



Oops, she happens to be the chief's daughter!

Beautiful native girl teaches good looking white guy about their connection with nature, most importantly through a spirtual tree.


Good looking white man and beautiful native girl develop a romance while she teaches him about her native ways.

Beautiful native girl might have left out the detail that she's already spoken for by a member of her tribe.


Well, good looking white guy also left out the fact that he's working for the evil foreigners out to steal the land of natives for mining purposes. Deception works both ways, friends.


Native folks don't cotton to deceptive foreigners, so they chain our hero up. (Sorry loyal readers, James Cameron has a lock down on pictures like Fort Knox. Get the DVD, an identical scene is there, I promise.)
Evil invaders decide they're through playing nice with the savages and begin their all-out assault on the land. Poor victimized land.
Evil invaders give up their cause, having been taught a hard lesson by the natives and return to their home world.

Let's not forget some other important scenes:
-Native girl diving off into an abyss, at the shock of good looking white guy who is impressed by her obviously thorough knowledge of the land.
-Native girl has to literally free whitey from the bonds her tribe has placed on him, and save his life in the climax.
-Our handsome hero must face down his evil superior officer in the climax.
-Members of the foreign invading party feel sympathy for the natives and change sides.
-Native girl's betrothed is killed by a foreigner
I could really go on, but I think you get the point.
I'm just gonna say it: Disney did it better!





























Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Stuff I Hear at the MarDet

"She seems about as violent as a box of cookies."

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Stuff I Hear at the MarDet

In honor of shitmydadsays.com, I've decided that stuff I hear at the MarDet is pretty darn funny.

"You Marines, you're like...warrior chicklets! You're eggs, ready to hatch and move on to the fleet!" Plt Sgt: "I am NOT your mother hen."

On the questionable hours of the base gym: "My blood was hot, I had lava blood. I said, 'Your hours are not posted anywhere, Sir!' Then I saw this groundhog running around so I started chasing him."



Thursday, April 1, 2010

It Seems We Have a Little Girl-on-Girl Crime, Here

The drawn-looking Sergeant darts her eyes sharply around the room, as if to subtly ensure no one is trying to escape. “So, the reason you’re all here,” she begins to the all-female crowd, “is because Gunnery Sergeant and other NCO’s around the det have been hearing things about only you. That’s why there are no males here.”

Things? What things? A few eyes search each other out, hoping for some kind of hint. The Sergeant then begins a monotone “discussion” about fraternization and inappropriate behavior.
The logical conclusion would be that she is referring to inappropriate relationships between females, Sergeants socializing with Lance Corporals and the like. She did say this was only for females, right? Only females are being accused of fraternizing.

But she’s not.

She’s talking about our “behavior” with males. We have been witnessed sitting in common rooms alone together, talking in the stairwells and generally liking each other too much. Our conclusion is wrong. This is about us. The others. The females.

Clearly, our fellow Marines can have nothing to do with this discussion on fraternization because clearly they have nothing to do with it. Expect being the partner in crime. Fraternization requires more than one person, yet this Sergeant seems to think it is the work of mastermind Eves drawing men into their traps.

Before I came into the Corps, I assumed that the sexism I’d heard so much about would be at the hands of men. That assumption has been wrong every step of the way. It was put to me very plainly by a Staff Sergeant at Camp Geiger:

“What do you guys want to talk about today?” he asked in one of our afternoon discussion hours.

“Staff Sergeant,” I piped in, “I’d like to know why the females here get treated so different from the males.”

He arched a brow and shifted uncomfortably, “What do you mean?”

“Well, we don’t have any of the same liberties. They are allowed regular smoke breaks, they get to go to the vending machines, they have unlimited time for chow, they get to take naps during the day. We don’t. Our instructors play games with us and the males are just treated better. Why?”

“Well that’s not us,” he was referring to the male instructors around him, who seldom interacted with the female platoon, “that’s you!”

The realization hit me like a ton of bricks: it’s not male Marines treating females like dirt out of misogyny; females are doing this to each other.

I had been filled with hope and a sense of closeness when female Sergeant G had gruffly told all the females in our platoon to come to her with any problems we might have. “Don’t go to the males. They don’t know what to do with you and they’re just going to laugh at you.”

Cut to a week later-
Me: “Excuse me, Sergeant…”
Sgt. G: “What.”
Me: “I was supposed to get my meds yesterday and…”
Sgt. G: “WHAT THE HELL? I DON’T CARE GO AWAY.”

An hour later I approached the affable and charming Sergeant P, a male who reminded me of my brother.
Me: “Sergeant, if I need to get meds, what should I do?”
Sgt. P: “Did you tell anyone?”
Me: “Yes, Sergeant.”
He thinks for a moment then smiles and looks down, literally biting his tongue, “You told Sergeant G?’
Me: “Yes, Sergeant.”
He nods, smiling broader, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.” And he did.

Was this the male I wasn’t supposed to approach with my problems because he would laugh at me and turn me away? Was she the female who would be there to support me like an older sister?

I’ll never forget the constant reminders my drill instructors gave us at recruit training: we are not female Marines, we are Marines. No qualifier. It came as a great shock to me upon arrival to this Marine Detachment (det) when I was informed that we have “females only” values discussions on a regular basis. One of the biggest topics in these discussions (called “PME’s”) is about how our male counterparts view us as something “other”.

How exactly is having little girl-talks to which other Marines are not welcome going to help dispel the sense of otherness that plagues female Marines?

Ladies, you’re doing this to yourselves. You’ve made a special club with secret meetings and secret codes. There is nothing that an NCO should say to me that she should not say to a male Marine. If there are special health concerns that are unique to females, then males need to understand those as well. One day these male Marines may have one or two females in their charge. What are they supposed to do when such a female has a problem and they have never had any mature and in-depth discussions with females?

As long as females continue to consider themselves to be something other, then male Marines will follow suit. If you want to be one Marine Corps, then it starts with inclusion. A Marine is a Marine. We don’t have short Marines only meetings, we don’t have Hispanic Marines only meetings, and we shouldn’t have female Marines only meetings.




"They (Women Marines) don't have a nickname, and they don't need one. They get their basic training in a Marine atmosphere, at a Marine Post. They inherit the traditions of the Marines. They are Marines." - LtGen Thomas Holcomb, USMCCommandant of the Marine Corps, 1943

Monday, May 11, 2009

Two Step

I could feel Craig’s gaze slicing into my back from across the bar.  “I have a boyfriend,” I had told him, “I can’t do this.”  His response had been a burning, “Well, where is he?”  I knew where my boyfriend was and why he wasn’t there with me, but under Craig’s scrutiny it seemed like a failure.

            Roger was stocky, lighthearted and not much more than a big kid.  Roger was never fully aware of me as anything more than a playmate, and I was losing patience with him daily.  For so long I thought: I have to make this work.   Craig was the one who asked why. 

            Craig was tall and sinewy with shadowed eyes that always knew what I was thinking.  I’m not a cheater, I told myself, I don’t do this.  But then I made eye contact with him.  I could see the muscles in his jaw flex from tension and he took a forced swig from his beer, never looking away.  I knew what Craig wanted.

            Without preamble he pushed himself away from the bar and marched to me.  “Just dance with me, that’s all I’m asking.”

            I stared at his outstretched hand, frozen and suddenly deaf to the noise around us.  My mistake came when I made eye contact with him again: Roger would never look at me like that.

            I slipped my hand into his and let him lead me onto the dance floor.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

I Bleed Green (You Know You’re out of Uniform, Right?)


The days will bleed together,

Long and steaming.

Thick cammie material will make you puddle.

 

Mud and green war paint will infect your pores.

Kevlar is unnecessary,

your regulation hair is a suitable antiballistic shield.

 

Never, under any circumstances, admit pain.

Run until you vomit.

Run until bone breaks through skin,

no other injury is acceptable.

 

Do not waste free hours with useless sleep.

Use the time to IP, polish, prep and study.

 

Your weapon is your life.

Know every part of it.

What is her serial number?

How do you clear her chamber? (TAP RACK BANG)

How clean are her working parts?

 

Make no mistake:

Your weapon might be female,

but you are not.

You are Candidate.

One of approximately 70.

If found passable,

you will become one of approximately 40.

Only the Spartans survive that long.

 

You will learn to live with hairy legs

And athlete’s foot

And upper respiratory infections

And sleeping at the position of attention

And wading through face-high mud.

 

Marines eat mud.

And babies.

Oorah.

Get some.

Kill Kill Kill.

 

Remember these terms:

Head. Rack. Deck. Bulkhead.

Squared away, good to go?

PT (gimmie some).

 

One. Two. Three. Four.

I LOVE THE MARINE CORPS.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Asphalt (redux)


I am a mustang in a box stall.
I am a saguaro, gone ten years without rain.
I am a rider on a lame horse.
I am a biker without a Road King.
I am a Chevelle on blocks.
I am a Comanche in a trailer on barren California desert.
I am Frank T. Hopkins in the Wild West Show.
I am Glenn Frey with no strings to pluck.
I am Annie Oakley in a corset.
I am the cowboy watching his range shredded by barbed wire.
I am the map dot circumvented by the highway.
I am the desperado told to settle.
I am the mustang in a box stall.