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\"Why do you hate them so much?\"

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SoupNazzi

"They beat up on a weakling, and that's all they did. The rest is just smokefilled coffee-house crap. They tortured and tormented a weaker kid."

Full Metal Jacket.  It's quite a movie.  The beginning sequences of life in Boot Camp are possibly closer to reality then we'd like to know.  That was how some D.I.'s treated the recruits back then.

Things changed between then and the late '80s.  DIs could no longer touch the recruits.  But, as I mentioned in a previous entry, they found other ways to torment us.

Anyways, "Life imitates art."  Nothing could be closer to the truth.  Like in FMJ, we had a Pvt. Pyle.  No, he wasn't the shit bird that received the blanket party.  He was someone entirely different.  And like Joker, he was my bunk-mate.

However, unlike Pvt. Pyle in the movie, we didn't give him a blanket party, and he worked hard to not get us in trouble.  So, we helped him.  Me and my bunk neighbor would adjust his uniform before morning inspection.  We would make sure his bunk was made correctly and his footlocker was organized properly.

Speaking of footlockers, we got to experience a full foot locker emptied out onto the squad bay floor, and then having the DI count down while we cleaned it up.

Another favorite of my platoon's DIs was to take our M-16A2 and hold it out straight with both arms in front of us.  The M-16 is only 8.5lbs, but try and hold that sucker out straight for 10+ minutes.  Burn baby burn.

Anyways, we looked after our Pvt. Pyle, and even though he went "UNK" at rifle qual and got dropped to another platoon.  He worked his ass off and got qual'd and reinstated with our platoon so he could graduate on time.

Pvt. Pyle graduated with the rest of us, and went on to be an Infantry grunt.  I have no idea what happened from then on, but I'm sure he was able to succeed someway or another.

Back to Greece
So, the United States decided that we no longer needed the items in Italy that my Security Force Company was guarding.  So, they were moved, and as such, our mission in Sicily ended for the most part.  The bulk of the Company was given orders to various Infantry units, while all of the newer arrivals, and some of the older Marines found out we had a new mission.

The Air Force specifically requested a Marine Guard force for these nifty planes that they had stationed in Crete, Greece.  These were "intelligence" planes, and were worth $1 billion each, and there are only 14 of them in the world.  RC-135s.  Not to be confused with KC-135s.  These planes were tasked with snooping on the stuff that was happening in the Balklands. 

The reason the Air Force wanted Marines, we found out, was that Greece was considered a "HIGH-HIGH" terrorist threat to American military and American companies over in Greece.

There was this lethal little terrorist cell in Greece called "17 November".  17 November was named after the last day of the Athens Polytechnic Uprising against the Greek Military Junta.  The Military Junta crushed this "uprising" using tanks.  Tanks which were most likely supplied by the United States.  As such, 17 November harbored a deep hatred for anything American.

A very lethal group, they carried out 23 assasinations and 103+ attacks against U.S., Turkish (Greeks hate Turks and Turks hate Greeks (it all deals with Cyprus)), and Greek targets.

Anyone remember the Athens Bus attack against Air Force personnel in 1987?  That was them.  16 people were injured.  More would have been killed, but the person triggering the bomb did so from a far distance, and so triggered it too early to get maximum damage.

So, the Air Force didn't trust their own people to guard their planes, and we were called it.  We replaced a Marine FAST company.  FAST (Fleet Anti-terrorism Security Teams) are the special forces of the Security Forces.  They get all the fun toys and good training.  Possibly not on the same level as Force Recon, they still got some damn good training and gear.

So, there we were.  Marines guarding Air Force Planes on a Navy base.  What a cluster-fuck.

And yet again, I digressed off my main point.  Guess I'll have to pick it up on a later post.

Comments (9)

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TDrag27·
My husband, also a former Marine, LOVES that movie. I don't know how many times we've watched it...And we have that \"this is my rifle this is my gun\" scene framed in our basement bathroom (a little weird, I know). \r \r But you're right - Dean has told me about people that were assigned to him for \"looking after\" before and we've discussed at length the similarities between the movie and his experiences.
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TDrag27·
And as a sidenote - Did you decide to take your blog in a different direction? Or has that just been a coincidence the last few days?
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Devonsangel·
Glad mom didn't know that bit of information!
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Brad·
if only everyone could experience the way the military works - wouldn't we all be better for it?
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SoupNazzi·
Tdrag - After finding out about my Marine friend's death recently, I've been getting into contact with a lot of my former friends, specifically those from Italy and Greece, and we've just been recalling stuff that happened. The good and the bad.\r \r A lot of these stories, I've never told anyone. Not even my wife. It's not that I'm ashamed of them (well most of them), but I just thought I would share.\r \r I believe I've told my sister some of my stories, and she mentioned I should write a book, but I'd really have to dig deep into my mind to dredge up some of the really bad memories. I tend to bury them so deep that I don't remember them.
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SoupNazzi·
LOL, the funny thing is, is that I gotten a bunch of emails from Marines that were in Greece with me, some of which were just one liners like:\r \r \"I need a gyro...\"\r \r Which automatically made me think of \"Joe's Gyros\". This place was just a really small business outside on the same street where most of the bars we went to were.\r \r After our drunken escapades in the bars, we would all go to Joe's and grab 2-3 Gyros. This was typically at 2-3am in the morning, but he was still open, and his Gyros were second to none!\r \r My mouth even now waters when I think of them.\r \r (And actually, they weren't Gyros over there. Souvlakis is what they were called. Gyros were made with lamb, while Souvlakis were made with Pork I believe.\r \r I also miss good Tzatziki. Excellent shit. Oh, also \"real\" Greek salad. Over there, Greek salad did not contain any lettuce. Just cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, olives, and feta cheese. (and maybe a few other things.)\r \r I really miss the food over there.
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TDrag27·
Soup - Sorry to hear about your friend...But I think it's cool how you've put the inspiration to use. I like the new stories.
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SoupNazzi·
I haven't abandoned my other \"format\". I'm just supplementing it with more substance.\r \r These stories are the \"cake\".\r \r Everything else is \"icing\".
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SoupNazzi·
\"The Cake is a Lie.\"