Terminal Lance “Social Distancing”

While nearly all infantry Marines are renown for their ability to entertain themselves in times of intense boredom, there is a subset of this group that takes it even a step further into absolute mastery. These are the line company’s Restriction Marines. Locked away in their barracks with little to nothing to do but go to the chow hall and check in with the duty 3 times a day, Restriction Marines have developed all manner of techniques and skills to keep themselves entertained amidst a total lack of stimuli.

As an anecdote of my own experience, a group of restricted Marines in my company had developed a game of baseball using nothing more than a stop watch and a notepad. You start the stopwatch and try to stop it at exactly 20:00 seconds. On the mark is a home run, and within .03 seconds is first, second, or third base. Outside of that is a foul ball. You get three strikes. The Marines split into two teams and played stopwatch baseball for hours.

Truly masters of their craft.

As we all get quarantined in our homes and barracks amidst the global pandemic of coronavirus, we could all stand to learn a thing or two from the life of the party of every platoon… The Marines on restriction.