Marine Mishmash

Since looking up some of my friends from the Marines, the emails have been a flowing and more and more of us are connecting, especially those of us who served in Greece.

You see, Greece was considered a "hard-ship" tour.  The base had very little to provide for any military person.  (1) mess hall, (1) barber, (1) restaurant, and a lot of mud in the winter.  We were a small unit, on a Navy base which was part of a Greek Military base,  guarding Air Force planes.  There were appx. 30-40 of us at any given time, and the feeling was us against the world.

However, it really wasn't much of a hardship in the summer.

In the summer, all the northern Europeans came down for vacation.  Not your typical 5-7 day vacation, but closer to 4-6 weeks of vacation.  Some stayed even longer and worked at the local bars.  Of course, for us Marines, the Swedish, British, Finnish, Norwegian, Dutch, Danish, German, etc...  women made our tour that much less of a hardship.  Some of the Marines even tried to do "world tours" where they attempted to bed a woman of every nationality they could.  Some came pretty close to this goal.

Of course, there were other ways we measured ourselves against each other.  If we weren't trying to "qualify" for the world tour, we tried to "qual" (bed women) in other ways.  Some of the more notorious "qualifications": 
The Beach Qual - The easiest qual to get, as there were beaches all over the place.
The Lighthouse Qual - Medium difficulty.  The light house was out on a finger of land in the harbor.
The Bathroom Qual - Easy.  The one requirement was that the bathroom had to be in a bar or a dance club.
The Taxi Qual - Hard.  But not impossible.
The Public Park Qual - Hard, but again, not impossible.
The Swedish Qual - Easy.  This required anal sex with a Swedish girl.  Luckily, there was one that worked at the bars and her standard saying was "I can't respect a man that can't fuck me in the ass."
And others that I may never have found out about.

Our Standard Operating Procedure for liberty was as follows:

Our work schedule was 3 days on, 3 days off, and 3 days of training.  While on duty, we worked 6 hours on and 6 hours off for 3 straight days.  Change of guard happened at 9am, and as soon as we were off, we went to bed, since, even though you had 6 hours off, you didn't get to sleep that full 6 hours.  closer to 4 hours if you were lucky.  So, once off guard, we hit the sack and slept until around noon or so. 

From there we grabbed a bus and went to the nearest beach where we drank beer, played volleyball, and basically relaxed.

We'd do this most of the afternoon, work up a decent buzz, and then head back to base around 4-5.  Maybe take a 1-2 hour nap, and then prep for the night out on the town.

We'd head out to town around 7pm and immediately plant ourselves at one of the many outdoor cafes around the harbor.  Here, we would eat dinner, (Greek salad, fried cheese, etc...) and drink big ass beers for the next 3 hours or so.  Worked our buzz up really good just before hitting the bars around 10pm.

Around 10pm, we'd start hitting the bars.  En mass.  First thing that happened in almost every bar we came into:  Free shot.  They did this because they knew we were bringing in a lot of business.  So we'd hit 4-5 bars, all of which were in walking distance of each other, and get 4-5 free shots within the first 2 hours of the night.  Combine that with the big ass beers we were drinking earlier, and a good drunk was had by all.

Looks like shit on the outside, but the inside was always rockin.

So, until 10pm until around 2am, we'd bar hop, chasing various Northern European women who worked (illegally) in the bars, or the ones who were tourists.  At 2am, the bars started to close, and those that hooked-up, went back to their lady's rooms (Rooms to Let cost around $5 a day.  Vary spartan and plain, but served a purpose for those on vacation for 4-6 weeks.).  Those that didn't moved on to the Dance Clubs.

Specifically, "Panther".  Ever seen a Euro-disco?  Whoa...  dark, loud, and packed.  This was usually the last chance for hooking-up, but it also provided some of the best looking women.  Those that hooked-up, left... those that didn't...  stayed there until 5am.

Now, we didn't go to the dance club every night.  Sometimes we'd hit all-night beach parties or house parties.

Anyways, those of us who didn't hook-up, would head back to base around 5am.  Hit the rack (bed), and sleep until around noon.  Then, rinse and repeat.  For 3 days.  That was the guard schedule of partying and fun. 

Once I had been overseas and on the guard for over a year, they pulled me off the guard and put me in Admin to give me a break.  (I was on legal hold for a car accident.  Funny enough, the lawyers were on strike.  Not sure how lawyers can strike, but they did, so that required me to stay longer, as I was facing court because the accident cause serious injuries.  I had a Greek lawyer, but she was on strike, so we couldn't go to court until the strike was over.  Anyways, that's a story for another day.

And so ends, how Marines hooked-up in Greece.  Stay tuned for more Marine Mishmash, as I return to hazing, steroids, the Terminator, sex on the beach, and other various crap that I experienced while in the Corps.

I leave you with Roxanne.  The Italian Stallion.  She was a Gunnery Sgt. but got busted down to SSgt (Those were real military ranks.  She was an official Marine) cause she bit a Naval officer.  Gee she bites?  Who knew?