Why I miss the Corps

[Gunslinger]

Marines in Iraq ease tension with humor, pranks

HADITHA, Iraq (AP) -- Slumped on the doorstep of a war-damaged police station, worn out and sweltering in 110 degree heat, Pfc. Derek Davidson couldn't resist a joke about a friend who'd stayed back at base after injuring himself lifting weights.

"I gotta go to the gym more often," Davidson lamented. Around him, a small group of fellow U.S. Marines, taking a brief break from battle, erupted into snickers.

As they have throughout their history, the Marines here often turn to jokes or pranks to relieve the tension of living in constant danger, these days while patrolling dusty streets of this western Iraqi town.

The humor is often dark and almost always salty, focusing on aching backs, alcohol, their own mortality -- and, of course, old girlfriends.

At one Haditha home that the Marines commandeered, a dog handler instructed his German Shepherd, who usually sniffs out explosives, to sit on the head of a resting Marine. That sparked roars of laughter and approval as the startled target tried to scramble away from the obedient dog.

Other Marines pack boulders in their friends' backpacks before patrols, then try to suppress laughs as they watch their buddies struggle with the extra weight -- as if Marines weren't laden enough with body armor, weapons, ammunition and other gear.

After three days of sporadic fighting where civilians, insurgents and suicide bombers all look alike, Capt. Christopher Toland, a company commander, and Davidson, 20, of Columbus, Ohio, and their fellow Marines were tired and hot and just looking for a break from the tension.

Toland, a 6-foot-4 Texan from Austin who serves in the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, once played a Secret Service agent on the TV series "The West Wing." Now he regales his Marines with tales of alcohol, women and girlfriends gone bad.

"At least in the 'Nam, they had booze and women," Toland jokingly complained last month, speaking of the Vietnam War.

But just as quickly, the Marines can turn deadly serious.

While many took naps in this building with bloodstains on the walls, an armored vehicle ran over a hidden land mine just outside. The explosion thundered through the hallways and sent waves of fine sand rushing inside through broken windows. Fortunately, the worst injuries this time were damaged ear drums.

As they patrol streets, catch quick naps and patch up the wounded, the Marines' dry sarcasm is a staple.

During one patrol on a market street -- where rotting vegetables abandoned by salesmen festered in the desert sun -- a low-flying U.S. warplane roared overhead, prompting a group of Marines to look up.

"It's the Iraqi Air Force," quipped Sgt. Nicholas Moore, a native of Virginia.

Often jokes take on a dark tinge, which may only be funny to those who regularly face their own mortality in a war where death and maiming by roadside bombs is an everyday possibility.

As he said goodbye to a friend departing for a mission, Sgt. Shawn Bryan of Albuquerque, New Mexico, warned jokingly: "If you get whacked, I'm going to take your TV."

And, during the ride to Iraq's western border for the Operation Matador offensive on insurgents in mid-May, one Marine from the 3rd Battalion dozed off, prompting the others to quietly put on their gas masks.

"Wake up! Gas attack!" they then screamed.

Their startled, gasping friend scrambled to throw on his own mask as the others burst into laughter. Three weeks later, some of them still chuckled at the memory.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

one thing about the Marines is they teach you to sleep when/where you can.  The bold text made me spit beer through my nose.

[rpm]

Reminds me of a gag I pulled on a couple Gunners Mates during a particularly dull patrol.

These guys were good friends of mine. We were constantly pulling jokes on each other. One night they were making their watch rounds and had to enter the powder mag. It had a halon fire supression system with a loud warning bell. You had 5 seconds after the bell went off before the Halon flooded the compartment. The test panel for it was just above the deck hatch for the mag.

This was a small hatch that you had to squeeze thru and then climb down a 10ft ladder to the deck. I waited until both of 'em were deep into the mag, then hit the alarm test. Those guys FLEW out of the hatch in world record time and looked like they were having simultanious heart attacks. Aaah, good times.

[Nilsen]

ROFL



A few weeks before I was done with my active service I pulled one on the Captn.

Our MTB squadron had 3 boats, and every week the squadron commander from one of them came over for an inspection on the other two.

Our captn at the time was about to go through some evaluations to become a squadron commander. He was abit uptight and i knew he wanted thigs to be perfect. I knew our squad commander well and together we plotted against my captn.

While he was on the bridge waiting for the squad commander to get onboard, me and the XO blew up a "woman" and placed her under the captns bunk with just abit of the hand sticking out and then we went up to our post.

After a while the squad commander with my captn behind him went into the captns cabin to inspect.. and guess what the squad commander found under the bunk and demanded an explenation for

Oh my... I have never seen him so red in the face, but he kept his cool. Oh my oh my... the squad commander and I sat on the conspiracy for a couple of hours and then let my captn off the hook, but those few hours were interesting indeed.

My captn got his revenge tho... The following weekend he put a picture of his girlfriend with some "kind" words written on the back in one of my pockets so the missus was sure to find it when I got home and she did my lawndry She did find it and all hell broke loose and it lasted the entire weekend until she got a call from my captn.

Even today im not 100% sure she belives it was a prank played on me. I get to hear it from time to time.

Ahh.. those were the days.

[SMIDSY]

the best prank i ever pulled wasnt so much a prank as much as it was a strange thing to do....

me and a couple friends decided that we would cause a ruckus in the school quad. we lashed two shoping carts on top of one shoping cart in a "Y" shape. then we tied a chair on top. i was designated the person to sit on the chair (my *** was about 10 feet off the ground). so we pushed the leviathan around campus gradually making our way to the quad. we hit a couple bumps that sent me flying off the well-sanded chair but i got back on every time. our excuse for this act of incomprehensable silliness was that we were "re-enacting the battle of kursk." all the way i was shouting communist propaganda just to further "stick it too the man." we made it to the quad but were promptly asked to leave by a teacher. we aurgued that there was no rule that even remotely covered such a situation but he would not have any of our shananigans. for about a year and a half after that we were known as "the shoping cart guys."

[rpm]

Nils, you have what we call in Texas "huevos grande". I'd never have guts to pull one on the old man.

[Nilsen]

Hehe RPM

The situation on an MTB is prolly abit different than on the boats you have been on. Very small and tight community on these boats. I would not have had the guts to do it if i didnt know the guys involved or if i was a fresh junior officer.

As long as you dont mess with any saftey regulations you can get away with alot unless there are very high ranking officers or foreign guests onboard.

You can only really pull pranks upwards in the hierarky tho.. seldom on the people below you in the system.

[Hangtime]

we had to go play army fer awile.. over exuberent LT decided to pull a CBR drill with c2. At 4:00am. By popping canisters in the company area. Our gas gear sucked, rarely worked right, was always problematic, even with the 8 second warning and wide awake. At night, dead asleep, with the canisters going before the alert, it's just dirty pool

We all got messed up.. including our Top Kick. (boy was HE pissed!) and since the dipstick looies commo jeep with the case of c2 was next to our tent I liberated a few... just saw 'em and grabbed 'em as I stumbled by.

later that day, the acting sqd leader found out I had 'em, and turned 'em over to the top kick. He had us all fall out that night night at 4:00am (silently) and ordered us into the CBR gear. Then he strolled up to the LT's tent, popped one, rolled it into the tent, popped the second and rolled it towards us.

then he quietly said:

"gas."

[slimm50]

Originally posted by Hangtime
we had to go play army fer awile.. over exuberent LT decided to pull a CBR drill with c2. At 4:00am. By popping canisters in the company area. Our gas gear sucked, rarely worked right, was always problematic, even with the 8 second warning and wide awake. At night, dead asleep, with the canisters going before the alert, it's just dirty pool

We all got messed up.. including our Top Kick. (boy was HE pissed!) and since the dipstick looies commo jeep with the case of c2 was next to our tent I liberated a few... just saw 'em and grabbed 'em as I stumbled by.

later that day, the acting sqd leader found out I had 'em, and turned 'em over to the top kick. He had us all fall out that night night at 4:00am (silently) and ordered us into the CBR gear. Then he strolled up to the LT's tent, popped one, rolled it into the tent, popped the second and rolled it towards us.

then he quietly said:

"gas."

Now that's rich.

[Nilsen]

That would get us in deeeeeep trouble over here Hangtime. I would not dare attempt something like that.

[Gunslinger]

Originally posted by Hangtime
we had to go play army fer awile.. over exuberent LT decided to pull a CBR drill with c2. At 4:00am. By popping canisters in the company area. Our gas gear sucked, rarely worked right, was always problematic, even with the 8 second warning and wide awake. At night, dead asleep, with the canisters going before the alert, it's just dirty pool

We all got messed up.. including our Top Kick. (boy was HE pissed!) and since the dipstick looies commo jeep with the case of c2 was next to our tent I liberated a few... just saw 'em and grabbed 'em as I stumbled by.

later that day, the acting sqd leader found out I had 'em, and turned 'em over to the top kick. He had us all fall out that night night at 4:00am (silently) and ordered us into the CBR gear. Then he strolled up to the LT's tent, popped one, rolled it into the tent, popped the second and rolled it towards us.

then he quietly said:

"gas."

we did something to that effect but it was Artillery SIMS in the SNCO's tent at 0330 while the entire deffensive line was asleep.  Of course we were "opfor" and were supposed to tag the command tent we got all the tents just to be sure