Author: Maximilian

The dog has been tamed. For those of you that missed the momentous occasion, former Secretary of Defense and Marine Corps legend James Mattis got married in Vegas over the weekend in true Marine Corps fashion. Well, except his new wife is a respected physicist and not a stripper or a girl he’s been stringing along since high school, but close enough.

General Mattis has been a loved mainstay of the OIF generation of veterans for quite some time now, but ran into some political crossfire as the Secretary of Defense under Trump. It’s annoying, because I can’t post anything about the good General without some mouth-breathing MAGA’s crying in the comments about how he was mean to Trump or whatever. I feel like his Vegas wedding is a fitting, happy ending to a storied career and Marine Corps legend, and I’m happy to see the man enjoying himself and living his life.

We all should be.

Congratulations, Mr. Mattis. Hit me up if you’re ever on the west coast.

As a Lance Corporal of Marines, there’s nothing worse than the day a Staff NCO summons you without telling you why. All you know is that you need to report to the company office, and that it’s probably not good. Generally speaking, as a Lance Corporal, there’s never really any good reason for you to be talking to a First Sergeant.

The SNCO encounter is the boss fight of the Marine Corps experience.

(To help you out if you’re not sure what is going on here, in the video game Elden Ring, boss fights a marked with a yellow fog door. Once you cross the threshold, the boss fight begins, and your butthole gets torn asunder.)

Better pump some levels into VIG, this guy looks like he means business. The Marine Corps is full of unique and ubiquitous characters aboard every base. While many of them are unique to time and place, the sword dude is one of those guys you’re sure to run into at some point. Why? Presumably because boots all over the globe love to buy medieval swords (with their family crest).

The Marine Corps is an interesting cross-section of dudes who were wrestling champion in high school and dudes who played Magic the Gathering in high school. I would say that buying swords only appeals to the latter, but, well…

Tom Cruise has done wonders in the field of military recruiting and awakening the latent homosexuality of young men everywhere with the release of Top Gun back in 1986. 35 years later, he’s done it again with the release of Top Gun: Maverick, currently sweeping the box office by storm across the globe. Tom Cruise has single-handedly recruited more hopeful pilots and naive POG’s into the US military at-large than even the the most distinguished of recruiters.

It’s only fitting that, combined with his three divorces and questionable sexual orientation, we bestow Tom Cruise with the honor of commissary privileges and GI Bill benefits. Now maybe Mr. Cruise can finally finish that Associate’s Degree he’s been working on at AMU while living off that sweet LA county BAH.

Congratulations, Mr. Cruise, and welcome aboard.

As an infantry Marine, you’ll often notice that basically every POG or POG-adjacent in the battalion will stack their chest with NAM’s and all manner of other awards while you and your friends carry on without. This phenomenon is due to something I like to call “Admin-Proximity.”

You see, infantry Marines at the bottom of the rung have many layers of official and unofficial leadership in between them and Marine Corps administration. POG’s that work in small shops of (typically) 5-12 Marines, will be in close proximity to not only their leadership, but the Marine Corps administrative system itself. The knowledge of awards and how they’re given is free-flowing in the POG ranks, and it’s much easier for their leadership to acknowledge their accomplishments and submit them forward using the tools at their disposal.

Not so much in the infantry. If you do something amazing, but your class ratio is 45 Marines to 1 Staff NCO and/or officer, the odds of you getting noticed and written up for it are much smaller than your POG counterparts, who wine and dine and schmooze with ranks across the board on a regular basis.

I’m afraid the “BDE” of being infantry is the only award you’re likely to get during your enlistment as a grunt in the Marine Corps.

(Big-Dick Energy)

There is no greater feeling of power than being a roadguard during a formation run. You are the only thing protecting a platoon of Marines against thousands of pounds of steel and machinery. You are the barrier between a successful morning PT session and complete chaos. You are the roadguard.

No matter whether the driver of the oncoming vehicle is an officer or a Staff NCO, they have no authority to pass when you bravely stand in their way, yellow glow belt emblazoned across your abdomen. You are the hero that the base needs, and the one they deserve.

Thank you for your service, roadguard. Semper Fidelis.

People born after September 11th, 2001 probably don’t remember the red specter of Russia looming as the default geopolitical foe to the US. Every movie, book, and other media regularly showed Russia as the leading cause of American military conflict. This naturally changed into vague, middle-eastern threats after 9/11, but Russia has historically been the cat to our mouse for a long time.

I think it caught just about everyone (Putin included) by surprise when Russia categorically clusterfucked their way into Ukraine and showed the entire world how outdated and absolutely shit their entire military apparatus is. For whatever percentage of their GDP they spend on defense, it seems to be going into more pockets than training. The entire world has watched as Russian tanks have been popping their tops like treaded Pringles around every corner of Ukraine’s streets, while Russian generals eat bullets for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

NATO estimates that up to 40,000 Russian soldiers have been killed, wounded, or captured since the invasion began about a month ago.

Of course, this entire situation is no laughing matter, with war crimes and countless other atrocities being committed against the people of Ukraine by Putin’s impotent forces. I think at this point, if I asked for 40 Lance Corporal volunteers to fight, I’d get them without hesitation…

…Even without the alcohol.

Major announcement, guys! Terminal Lance has been acquired by MCCS (Marine Corps Community Services) to advertise the great deals you can find at your local MCX (Marine Corps Exchange)! For years, the MCX has provided Core Brands, Corps Values to Marines across the globe, at home and abroad. You won’t find a better place to spend your hard-earned Lance Corporal paycheck than shopping locally for tax-free deals at always low prices.

Looking to spend a bit more? Apply for the Military Star Card for extra savings and exclusive offers!

Veterans! Don’t forget, you can shop at the Marine Corps exchange too! I know I do. Just head over to MyMCX.com and verify your veteran status at VetVerify.org

I’m really excited about this new partnership and can’t wait to start sharing these amazing Core Brands, Corps Values with you.

There are many ubiquitous locations in the Marine Corps. Places like Twentynine Palms and Jacksonville, North Carolina are famous across the land for their unique brands of misery and depression offered to young Marines. Every duty station is filled with its own microcosm of culture and identity that can be found nowhere else.

I live on the west coast and I was stationed in Marine Corps Base Hawaii, over in beautiful Kaneohe Bay. This, no doubt, has had a huge influence on the kind of work that I create and where I choose to set most of my Marine Corps comics. A hefty chunk of Marines have quite a different experience, though. Just ask the people that get stationed in Okinawa, Japan.

I’ve actually never been to any of the Japanese Marine Corps bases, but this is how I imagine it probably goes. How can one resist the allure of anime waifus and yakisoba?

In all seriousness, I’ve never really heard any good things about being stationed aboard Okinawa (as a Marine). To my knowledge, there’s a lot of liberty restrictions and some cultural barriers that make it less-than-ideal for a young 20-something year old to enjoy themselves. Not really a fault of Okinawa itself–more than likely the fault of rampant dumbfuckery on the part of Marines and sailors (we’ve all heard the stories).

If you find yourself getting stationed there, just be sure to pack your body pillow and make the best of it.

Last week marked the beginning of Daylight Saving in the US. You know what that means… Sleeve season is upon us! Rolled sleeves are iconic to the image of the Marine and thus are somewhat of a big deal. As you might expect, sleeves say a lot about the kind of Marine you might be.

A truly motivated Marine will put time and care into their sleeves for maximum crispness. They will be flat and sharp against the bicep, providing a watertight seal in the event of a sudden flood or if you need to jump overboard. For the Marine that gives somewhat less of a fuck, there’s the ubiquitous “Gunny-Rolls,” who acquired their nickname from an entire Corps of Gunnery Sergeants who no longer care to roll them properly.

The Gunny-Roller is a Marine with more important things to do than worry about their uniform. You frequently find these Marines amongst the infantry, who find themselves needing to roll their sleeves in a matter of minutes upon returning from the field and being forced to do some nonsense formation before they can be freed for their weekend libo.

In some ways, sleeve crispness is directly related to motivation, much like haircuts. Perhaps there is a chart that correlates sleeves with the amount of fucks one gives. It’s these small things that Marines have to signal their individuality that make them unique, subtle as they may be to the outside observer.

In other news, if you’re into NFT’s, please check out the Muhreens! Muhreens are a collection of 9999 warfighting NFT’s that I created to raise money to produce more animated short films like Post: Frag Out. You can mint your Muhreen today at muhreens.com! Each Muhreen is uniquely generated–there are no two Muhreens alike! I wrote more in-depth about my journey with creating the Muhreens a couple of months back right here.

I know people have feelings about NFT’s, and I don’t blame you, but I had a lot of fun with these. Join the official TL Discord or the Muhreen Discord for more info!