Terminal Lance #169 “Douche Blues”

As sure as the wind from a Gunny’s mouth, every major event you can think of probably has had some Marine somewhere in dress blues–naturally, cameras and the like tend to drift toward these individuals, either in interest or to show their support for “the troops”. Reasons withstanding, you will always find an active military member in uniform at these events. Bare in mind, dress blues are only ever required to be worn at balls and the like, so if you spot a Marine outside of this environment clad in black and gold, odds are he’s doing it to impress.

That said, there’s not anything really wrong with that. As we all know, dress blues do tend to impress. I think I generally found the idea of wearing dress blues outside of a ball to be “moto”, and tried to avoid it, as most Marines do. Even I succumbed to their charm though, and ended up wearing them out for an anniversary dinner as well as a dinner with my mother while on leave.

I guess I should also mention that I don’t really use the term “douchebag” in any sort of angry fashion, I really mean it more like, “Hey, look at this douchebag.” For Marines, I would say it’s really more of a term of endearment when used in reference to other Marines. Well, okay, maybe not always, but whatever.

I suppose I should say that continuity really has no place in the Terminal Lance strips. Unless it’s some kind of storyline (e.g.: Necropocalypse), I don’t want there to be an expectation that these need to actually be a coherent story of any kind. If it really matters to you, we’ll just pretend that Garcia talked Abe out of leaving and he stayed to celebrate in the barracks. Good? Good.

Anyway, the holidays are officially over. For Marines, this means you’re probably going to be heading back to your station soon, if not already. While most Marines would have you believe they’re miserable on base, it doesn’t stop them from smiling and greeting eachother at that first morning formation back from leave. As much as you love your family, there’s also admittedly a certain amount of comfort in the return. In any case, I hope you all had a great bunch of holidays, unfortunately I just found out you have duty tomorrow. All of you.