Terminal Lance #345 “Gear Adrift”

There’s an old and eerily accurate saying in the Marine Corps:

There’s only one thief in the Marine Corps, everyone else is just trying to get their shit back.

Then again, there’s also another saying:

Gear adrift is gear a gift.

One of my first experiences with lost gear was at SOI at Camp Pendleton. About halfway through the two month ITB cycle I somehow lost my goretex jacket. I have no idea how, it was there one day and the next day it wasn’t. I asked everyone I could and no one had any idea what happened to it. Mysteriously vanished. I want to believe it was taken by the One True Thief, if only for the fact that it would take the blame off the people around me.

However, it is rather telling that I’ve never seen a “Lost and Found” section of any platoon.

If you lose a piece of gear in the Marine Corps, I absolutely promise you that you will never see it again. It’s unfortunate, but true; and thus the reason I ended up spending $90 on a replacement goretex at one of the military surplus stores at Oceanside. Unsurprisingly, the store sells a lot of actual issued gear, and they pay money for gear they can sell. I wouldn’t be surprised if the goretex I purchased that day (that also broke my bank account since I was a PFC with no financial management skills) was the exact same one I had lost weeks prior. After all, gear adrift is gear a gift… for the person that stole my goretex.

Either that, or he was just trying to get his shit back.