Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Marines and Soldiers

Hi all...

When I was but a lad, I lived near Naval Station Norfolk. Where there are Sailors, there are usually Marines as well. My mother always commented on the Marine bases. She said that even the grass would salute.

When I was stationed at Camp Lejeune, I realized that she was right. We lived in an immaculate neighbourhood. Each house was identical. The properties were of equal size. The grass did not salute, but that is surprising.

I have been here at Fort Jackson. It is not quite the same. Some of the Soldiers do not salute. The parking lot over by the gym is messy. The gym itself is run down. These things would never happen on a Marine base.

The whole concept of military bearing comes into play. For example, the submariners were sloppy about it. I suspect that their feeling was that they are the absolute best at what they do. Bearing is thus irrelevant. For the Marines, they would likely say that they are the best at what they do BECAUSE of the military bearing.

I think I am more comfortable with the Marine way of looking at things.

To the credit of Fort Jackson though, they do something very smart. If the weather is such that exercising outside requires extra precaution, the command here sends out a message on its internet server. Every .mil computer assigned to this base gets that message. The computer will not allow further work until acknowledgment of the receipt of that message.

R/SCG

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