Author: Maximilian

For some reason I always felt like I was the only person that didn’t have some obscure friend back home that was going to hook me up with an even more obscure job once I got out of the Corps. It seemed like everyone I talked to had some kind of ridiculous hook up that involved the most random job I’ve never even heard of making an obscene amount of money by the hour in a field that shouldn’t even exist.

Yet, every Marine I knew had a buddy back home that not only did this for a living, he had a high-wage job waiting for the Marine as soon as he got his DD-214.

Me? Well I went to college on the GI Bill, and I encourage everyone else to do the same.

Transitioning out of the military is hard enough, especially when you realize that you’re suddenly responsible for all of your own bills plus food and shelter. Aside from this, simply adjusting to civilian life takes time. College is arguably the best place for a newly separated warfighter to take it all in. If you’re on the fence, think of it this way:

The government is basically paying you to sit in a classroom all day and flirt with hot college girls (or guys). College is especially easy for prior enlisted Marines, because all you really have to do is what you’re told. Show up to class on time and finish your homework, all while collecting that sweet E-5 with Dependents BAH money from the VA.

Unless of course, you have a buddy back home with a better option for you.

On an unrelated note, a new episode of After Action is up for the listening! This week we have special guest Jack Mandaville giving his thoughts on NFL players kneeling during the national anthem. As a veteran. Check it out here.

The Marine Corps is the most elite fighting force on the planet. They are well-known and feared across the globe for their unrelenting strength and resolve in combat.

…But they’re kind of shit at doing most things outside of that. Try to accomplish anything administratively and you’re going to be met with the same bloated US government bureaucracy that we all know and hate. Give a Marine a rifle and he will give the enemy a hell unheard of, but give him a computer and a CAC reader and the hell will be your own.

On an unrelated note, this comic was originally published in the Marine Corps Times newspaper. You can find this comic and 299 more exclusive Marine Times comics (Plus over 450 others) in the new Terminal Lance Ultimate Omnibus being released early next year by Little Brown!

Yesterday saw the official graduation of the first ever female Marine Corps Infantry Officer from Infantry Officer Course, and I have a feeling she will immediately regret it when she realizes that her job is akin to herding 45 hyper-masculine, sexually frustrated cats. There’s always a lot of noise around these sorts of events, but I can’t help but wonder if the glory of making history fades slow or fast when the reality sets in that the infantry is actually quite miserable.

Sure, it’s an accomplishment, but so is punching yourself in the face 100 times and would probably be less damaging to your body in the long run than being in the Marine Corps infantry.

Years back, the stereotype of the infantryman was one of the idiot. The term “grunt” being used affectionately, but also derogatorily as someone who couldn’t score high enough marks to do some POG job. The old requirement for being infantry was simply being able to do 3 pull-ups and being able to point a rifle in the correct direction. This changed almost immediately as soon as women were up on the chopping block for combat roles, adding a few more hurdles into the qualifications in an effort to weed out the “weak.”

This is bullshit, of course, since these steeper requirements didn’t exist prior to last year. As a grunt myself, I can tell you that most of the guys I served with in Iraq would not have been able to fireman carry me in full gear to save my life, were it necessary. Suddenly, being infantry has become the most prestigious of titles, reserved only for the most fit and amazing of Marines.

With that said, I’ve always been partial to the infantry on this site, so I don’t mind the newfound reverence. There are still many out there decrying the entrance of women into the infantry as part of a long debate spanning a few years now.

For my part, I think we’re well past the point of debate, so long as the rifles stay pointed in the correct direction.

The Boot Band Rule is infamous for allowing you to get away with things you otherwise wouldn’t.

It’s not gay if you have boot bands on.

Well, okay, it lets you get away with gay stuff. Why though? Well, there comes a time in every Marine’s career when he has to make a decision about how much of his sexuality he’s willing to let go of in order to stay warm in the field or otherwise do basically anything that involves being an enlisted Marine. Let’s be real here, most of the things you do will be extremely gay.

When the boot bands are on, anything and everything becomes encased in a strictly professional context.

If you’re wondering how Abe broke the desk… Well… Marines are gonna Marine I suppose.

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On an unrelated note, I want to give a quick plug for mine and Duffel Blog’s new joint podcast, After Action! TL and DB have teamed up (me and Paul Szoldra) to talk about the news of the day, it’s some pretty fun stuff and you should check it out and subscribe here.

Twentynine Palms is an easy target when it comes to describing somewhere miserable. However, this isn’t to say that there aren’t other places in the Corps equally as miserable, it’s just that some are more subtle about it than others. In the words of the great Michael Caine:

“I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible.”

Camp Lejeune remains one of the only bases I’ve never visited, but I’ve heard that Jacksonville puts the township of Twentynine Palms to shame when counting meth addicts per capita. Every base has some miserable little town outside of it that exists solely to house BAH dwellers, barber shops and shady car dealerships to cater to the Marine population, and Lejeune is no different.

Jacksonville is, from I’ve heard, the worst of them.

Believe it or not, most Marines would even place Twentynine Palms on their wishlist ahead of Camp Lejeune (unless they stem from the area). It shares a lot more in common with Twentynine Palms than you would initially think. The weather is shit and miserable, being offensively humid in the summer and bitingly cold and wet in the winter. Like Twentynine Palms, it is fairly isolated from anywhere actually cool. However, Twentynine Palms even gets an advantage here by being relatively close to Los Angeles and Las Vegas (within a 3 hour drive), making weekend excursions fairly easy. There is no such luxury for Camp Lejeune, existing alone in the swampy armpit of east North Carolina.

Maybe it’s just because I’m a west coast native, but I’ve always thanked the gods I never ended up in such a place.

Catch up on more posts about how miserable Marine Corps life is by clicking the social media buttons below and following!

There’s a somewhat dubious amount of commitment involved in being a Marine. The standard contract is 4 years, though many are 5 depending on what MOS you choose. As are most things in the military, this contract is very one-sided, and it’s not you that gets the final say in anything. It may as well be a sheet of paper that states:

UNCLE SAM OWNS YOUR ASS FOR 4 YEARS, SIGN AND DATE HERE:________________

Unlike most occupations, you can’t quit if you decide it doesn’t suit you. At best, you can ride out your 4 year commitment and give your career planner the finger when it comes time to think about reenlistment. If you choose not to show up, because maybe it’s just not for you, you’ll be sent to prison. It raises the interesting question of how many people would willingly subject themselves to the Marine Corps lifestyle if they weren’t legally bound to it.

My guess is not many.

Imagine you meet up with a girl (or boy) on Tinder, you’ve never met them before but they had a solid profile. You know what I mean; not too creepy, clear photos, one photo with a puppy or some shit, with a bio that reads like a relatively sane person.

You meet up at your local bar and you hit it off well enough. She seems great, but you’re aware you’ve only known her for 45 minutes. Anyway, the mood is right so you decide to take her back to your place. Things get hot and heavy on the couch, and she gets up to the bathroom to freshen up before what is bound to happen next…

…She comes back with a 4 year relationship agreement.

Yeah that’s basically what joining the Marine Corps is like. It’s quite a gamble really, and 4 years is a significant chunk of life to give to pretty much anything… Though I’m sure your recruiter convinced you it wasn’t.

I’ll admit, I stole this joke from my old CBRN officer, but in reality it’s hardly a joke at all.

The new Cold War just got a lot hotter over the long weekend, as people stumbled back into work today to find that North Korea has been cooking up quite a shit storm by successfully testing a hydrogen bomb. Needless to say, I’m sure a lot of active duty and IRR Marines have been tossing and turning at night wondering if this thing is about to kick off.

I’ll admit, it’s refreshing to have someone outside of the middle east for once trying to kill us. However, engaging in a modern war with nuclear options on the table isn’t something that rests easy on anyone’s shoulders, and we should all be hopeful that the rhetoric dies down sooner than later.

Regardless, I’m sure a lot of Marines are counting the days left on their contracts with a sweat on their brow.

If you have any other questions about the technique illustrated in this comic, just form a school circle around the duck and he’ll explain in further detail.

Texas loves the military. The state of Texas supplies the United States Armed Forces with about 10% of its total personnel, making your odds of running into a Texas Marine pretty significant during your active duty time.

Every platoon has at least one (if not more), and they’re always the most obnoxiously proud people you’ll ever meet. Dallas Cowboys and Texas state flags decorate their rooms, their liberty attire consists of cowboy hats, boots and large buckles (making them quite the odd man out in places like Southern California or Hawaii). However, they’re as lovable as they are loud, always gracing us with a twang in their voice and a pride matched only by each other.

I had the great fortune of visiting Texas during my book tour and some other travels after I got out of the Corps, and it has quickly become one of my favorite places. The people were always wonderful to me and Whataburger is pretty legit. It’s because of this that my heart goes out to all of those affected by the devastation of Hurricane Harvey, and I took the opportunity today to donate $100 to Team Rubicon to support their efforts in the disaster. I encourage everyone to help in whatever way you can, and even if you can’t give much, every dollar counts.

If you’re not familiar with Team Rubicon, they’re an organization that gathers some truly great veterans and puts them to work assisting in disaster relief efforts all over the globe–from rescuing to rebuilding. Find out more about them here.

Leave it to the Marine Corps to take one of the nicest places in the world and turn it into one of the most miserable locales I’ve ever had the displeasure of visiting.

Pohakuloa Training Area (colloquially known as PTA), is the largest training area in the Pacific, offering Hawaii Marines a chance to shoot some of their bigger and badder weapons for a couple of weeks each year. Anybody that was infantry or arty from MCBH Kaneohe Bay (yours truly) has been here, and as a denizen of both, I can tell you that it’s profoundly worse than the ubiquitous Camp Wilson of Twentynine Palms.

For the most part, you won’t spend a lot of time at the actual encampment of PTA, as most of your short time on this terrible volcanic rock will be spent sleeping in the dirt out on the ranges. With that said, with the lack of the constant Marine presence you find at Camp Wilson, the PTA camp is minimally staffed and largely miserable. A singular, dank little MCX store exists with limited hours of operation, and good luck standing in line at the shitty little pizza shop when your entire company is given liberty for the night.

Of course, this isn’t even going into the depressing, black landscape you’ll spend your nights in. Down Saddleback Road, you’ll find a plethora of large ranges for Marines to attack. You’d think Hawaii would be a nicer place to shoot than Twentynine Palms, but I would trade the heat for the constant rain any day of the week.

Don’t think that these ranges are immune to the powers of a range-stopping endangered animal like the Mojave Desert Tortoise, either. While short on boxed reptiles, the island is home to the Hawaiian state bird, the Nēnē. Should one of these endangered geese fly into your platoon’s range time, you can expect at least a few hours of ceasefire while the game warden tries to figure out how to remove the bird without disrupting it.

If you’re a Hawaii Marine and you’re on your way to PTA in the near future, I wish you the best of luck. God hath forsaken these lands, and you will need it.

The firewatch list is a necessary evil of each night a platoon spends in the field. One must be on firewatch at all times, and the smartest Marines know that first and last firewatch are by far the best slots on the list. Opposite of this, the middle and second-to-last spaces are by far the worst.

If you have first or last firewatch, it simply means that you either go to bed an hour later than everyone else or wake up an hour earlier. This is great, because the extra hour at night can be used to get your gear in order for the night. The morning just as much, since it gives you a leg-up on everyone else by already having your boots on when Reveille sounds.

The middle is the worst, because it interrupts your entire night, giving you only a few hours of sleep on each end. Second-to-last watch is a cruel joke, given only to the Marines you hate the most. Always be wary of boot Marines that volunteer to take charge of a group of boots. They usually have the sharpest skates, since leadership roles often involve less physical work than that of subordinates.

To abruptly change the subject, I’d like to give a huge thank you to the USMC Combat Correspondents Association for bestowing upon me their prestigious Denig Award in San Diego on Wednesday for my work with Terminal Lance and The White Donkey. It was truly an honor and I had a great time hanging out with all of the Marines that attended the event.

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