Author: Maximilian

I’ve always had a personal disdain for the sausages served in tray-rat breakfast. After the first time biting into the over-processed, foul tasting entity I vowed to never again submit myself to their tyranny. I was first exposed to these horrifying sticks of meat during training on the big island of Hawaii, or PTA as the base camp is known. During this time, while standing around in circles talking to eachother, it became a sort of inside joke that they were actually manufactured by Yoda himself.

You can see here, him stealing the sausage out of Luke’s MRE:

Yoda actually operates a sausage-factory on the top of highest peak of the Big Island of Hawaii, where a conveyor runs between plethoras of defecating felines.

Long story short, I don’t eat the tray-rat sausages. Neither should you.

While my mother has never gotten a high and tight, I have noticed an overwhelming wave of motivation fall upon my loved ones. Like some kind of illness, the motivation takes many forms, usually more severe than anything I’ve ever displayed. I’ve never worn a shirt with a giant EGA or brandished anything overtly “USMC”, but that hasn’t stopped any of my family members. Somehow even when all you can think about is an EAS date or changing out of cammies, all your family wants to do is surround you with “oorahs” and watch war movies with you when you come home on leave.

I wanted to include another panel of a family dog with a high and tight, but three panels is sometimes limiting.

Outside of the infantry (and even in it, some could argue), not all Marine Corps MOS’ are treated equal. It is a complete fallacy to say that there aren’t any cool POG jobs, I used tank crewman in this example; but there are many non-infantry jobs that one could consider badass. Obviously, there are also many POG jobs that one would not consider badass, which I’ve exemplified here with IPAC. Though, frankly, I think the lamest POG job I’ve ever heard of is the 1171 Water Tech. When I first heard a Marine say to others, “they call us water-dogs!” I literally shuttered in disbelief that the Marines could possibly have a job that lame.

Sorry, 1171’s, but it’s not the first time I’ve made fun of you.

As some of you may be aware, tomorrow is actually the 1 year anniversary of Terminal Lance. Can you believe that? One year ago I was at my home in Hawaii, up til the wee hours of the morning getting ready to officially launch Terminal Lance. No one knew about it. I remember literally walking around the barracks in KBay, putting up fliers that read, “You Can’t Spell Disgruntled without Grunt” with the site’s URL on it. The following was small at first, not more than a couple hundred hits a day during the first few weeks. I remember when I broke 1000 pageloads in a single day, I thought I was on top of the world! Now, Terminal Lance averages over 100,000 pageloads every day and is ranked in the top 50,000 websites in the US (that’s good). Doing a little bit of Alexa research, I found that Terminal Lance is actually now one of the top military webcomics on the entire internet.

I couldn’t have done it without you all, the readers of Terminal Lance. Whether you were here from the beginning, or you’re just now joining us; let me say from the bottom of my heart:

Thank you for making Terminal Lance what it is today.

Well tonight is New Years Eve, try to make the best of it. I don’t want to repeat myself from the Christmas update, but do your best to have fun, no matter where you are. Yeah it sucks being away, but it can be fun!

When I was in Iraq in 2007, we spent Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years in country. I made it back about a week before Valentine’s Day, so that was nice. On New Years eve, I was standing in line at the phone trailer in South Camp, Camp Fallujah. At the stroke of midnight, the sky beyond the HESCO barriers lit up orange, and in front of me arose a massive fireball. While I was deciding whether or not I should shit myself or run, the sound wave hit the trailer and the area. Dust was knocked off its rest, the phones cut out, and everyone ducked for cover. Someone came running out of the nearby gym, “Is everyone okay?!” he asked me. I told him everyone was fine, and realized the explosion was far enough away to not hurt anyone. Here’s what it looked like:

I managed to run back to my can and grab my camera to snap this dark, blurry photo of the mushroom cloud.

Apparently, EOD had decided to detonate a midnight 500lb bomb in celebration of New Years.

Anyway, stay safe this weekend and have a Happy New Year!

This is the final part of the “Gift of Giving” series. I felt like a third piece was necessary to cap it all off. You can interpret the use of the Clone-a-Willy™ however you want. Did the Lieutenant use it on his wife? Did he use it on himself? Did he use it on… someone else? I’ll let you be the judge of that.

In the meantime, I hope you all had a good Christmas, I know I did. My wife got me the new Call of Duty so I’ve been catching up on that, along with Gran Turismo 5.

I still have another couple of weeks to laze about while I wait for school to start back up. If you haven’t been keeping up, make sure you check out the newsstand edition of the Marine Corps Times for exclusive Terminal Lance comics that you won’t see on the site! There’s not quite as many cartoon-dicks, but just as funny nonetheless.

If you haven’t received your refund from PayPal, shoot me an email and I’ll get it to you. When I sent the initial wave of refunds, some of the e-checks hadn’t cleared yet and I wasn’t able to refund the money at the time. Let me know and we’ll straighten it out.

I’ll give you a hint:

It’s a dildo.

A green-dyed Clone-A-Willy™ to be exact.

Anyway, I don’t have a whole lot to say about this strip, but I will say that I do plan on doing a third part to this next week. Stay tuned for that.

Today is Christmas Eve, with tomorrow obviously being Christmas. No matter where you are: CONUS, Afghanistan, Oki, Hawaii, etc… just remember to try and enjoy it. I spent a Christmas in Iraq in 2007, so I know how it can be–it’s never a good time to be deployed. Regardless, just be grateful for whoever is around you, whether it be your fireteam or your biological family. A lot of the time all Marines have is each other, and it’s up to you to make the best of it.

So I say to you, Merry Christmas and good night.

‘Tis the season, gents. The gift of giving is the best gift one can get! I hope this strip gives someone a good idea for a Christmas present. If you’d like to know where to get a Clone-a-Willy™, look no further than here. If not to prank your platoon commander, then at least for that girl back home you talk to sometimes when you’re drunk and on leave.

Typically, I’m not a huge fan of doing multiple part strips with webcomics, simply because I believe that doing so could potentially alienate new readers. However, I suppose there’s nothing wrong with doing it sparingly–as long as each strip is funny.

Who knows, maybe the Lance Corporal will pick something else to give to his Platoon Commander? I guess you’ll have to wait until Friday to find out!

I would like to take a moment to thank everyone for their support regarding the Toys for Tots issue. I have received many sympathetic emails about it. I appreciate the support, but lets not let the situation drag on. Next season we will find another charity, one that won’t turn down your money for politics.

Look forward to Friday for the thrilling conclusion!

I’m sure all of those that donated to the Terminal Lance Toys for Tots fundraiser have noticed by now that their money has been refunded to them. I’m also sure that all of you are wondering why I did this. Well, I am going to tell you, because you have a right to know the details of what happened.

The fundraiser went live last Friday, within 48 hours we raised over $2,000 for the Toys for Tots charity. On Sunday, however, PayPal flagged the account because it was receiving a lot of money very quickly. When they realized it was for a charity, they told me they require legal proof that the money is actually being raised for a charity–and not for my own sinister purposes. This is a security measure on behalf of PayPal to make sure your money is being kept safe. Now, all that was required to lift the limitation was a letter from Toys for Tots faxed to them, authorizing us as a legitimate fundraiser on behalf of Toys for Tots.

So, I figured hey, we had already raised $2,000, there’s no way Toys for Tots can turn us down now. I sent an email to the VP, Bill Grein, whose contact info is the only one listed on the http://toysfortots.org website. I didn’t hunt this guy down, his info is publicly listed on the website and is the only point of contact for the organization with an actual name. I explained in detail the situation to Bill, even encouraging him to watch the video I posted to raise funds for them. This is the response I got back:

Dear Mr. Uriate,

While we appreciate your success in raising funds for Toys for Tots, we have not changed our minds and we cannot tell PayPal that you are an approved fundraising agent for the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation.  I’m sorry if this places you in an awkward position.

Best regards,

Bill Grein

VP, Marine TFT Foundation

Well, it does place me in an awkward position, Bill. Over the course of the last week, we raised over $3,000 in support of Toys for Tots. In support of a good cause, turned down because of useless politics–irrelevant of the fact that there are kids out there depending on people like my readers, who donate to causes like this. It is very awkward, Bill.

On Bill’s behalf though, I understand his point of view: legally there’s no obligation or motivation to authorize me as a legitimate fundraiser for Toys for Tots. However, I would think $3,000 to charity would be a good thing.

I was left with a few options. My first thought was to close the donations and dump what we had raised on Toys for Tots. I learned today I couldn’t do this however, as I called PayPal and asked if that would be possible, but they told me that since the account was already under scrutiny, a large transaction like that would almost surely be intercepted by PayPal’s security. If no more action was taken before tomorrow, the money would have been placed on restriction for 6 months in some kind of PayPal limbo–unable to go anywhere. My next option, find a different charity to give the money to. Why couldn’t I do this? Because the money was collected under the idea that it was going to Toys for Tots. I am not so bold as to make decisions with your money, on your behalf. Donating to another charity would be lying to you. As well, there just wasn’t time to find another organization and have them authorize the account with PayPal. So, I had to make the call to refund all of your money.

And thus it is that I spent the last 4 hours clicking through PayPal’s slow, slow website and crappy interface to make sure that all of the money was properly refunded.

As disappointed as I am with the situation, I want to say thank you to everyone that donated. The fact that we raised so much, so quickly, really goes to show the quality of your character–and I’m extremely proud to call you my readers.

If you still feel strongly about donating to Toys for Tots, I implore you: go to their website and make a donation.

So again, I say thank you to everyone who participated, and I apologize for the inconvenience. I will post the bloopers video anyway, after I edit it, for shits and giggles.

As for the comic:

I realize TSA has been all over the media lately, but really I just thought of this based on my own experiences in airports. You’d think military personell in uniform would have an easier time, but alas, it proves to be a hassle no matter what you wear or who you are. No matter how many times your stack shows them you’ve been on the other side of the planet on their behalf, some overweight douche-bag with a lot of power will tell you to drop your pants and grab your ankles.

This is really more of a jab at how dumb Marines are than it is a jab at the Navy. Lets be honest here, any Marine who says they’ve never accidentally saluted a sailor is lying, or a boot. It happens. Hell, I’ve accidentally saluted other enlisted Marines with worn out rank. Even further, Marines have accidentally saluted me! It happens.

In a world where you’re literally on edge–two-four-seven–for the likes of those shiny collars; on standby for the moment you need to spring that trusty knife-hand forward of your cover’s brim and offer some half-assed greeting to satisfy some butterbar’s ego–it’s hard to not be paranoid and a little trigger happy about it. Now, it doesn’t happen often, but the Navy uniforms don’t help.

Seriously–shiny rank? On a Marine base? You’re just asking for trouble.

In site news. The fundraiser is still going on! So far you, the readers of Terminal Lance, have raised over $2,000! I must say I am quite impressed. If we keep this up I will try my best to put up some extra stuff for you! This week is kind of crazy for me being finals week at my school, but I will do my best on the weekend at least to get some bonus content up for you all. The fundraiser itself is going great, sans a couple of snags on the PayPal side, but those are being worked out as we speak.

The Donation box accepts PayPal accounts as well as credit cards, without having to sign up for an account. I am not handling any physical money or checks for security reasons–I don’t want any part of that stuff. The transfer to Toys for Tots on December 20th will be directly to their own PayPal account, so as to make sure there is nothing in between your money and Toys for Tots.

But anyway, we’re doing fantastic! Keep it up!

Oh and before I forget, make sure you check out the Marine Corps Times newspaper for a special print edition of Terminal Lance! That’s right, Terminal Lance is officially legit. 8)

Before I talk about the strip, I’d like to take a moment to talk to you about our Toys for Tots donation drive.

This video was created with the sole purpose of raising funds for Toys for Tots. If you do not trust me with your money, I fully encourage you to donate to Toys for Tots directly at their website here: http://www.toysfortots.org/

Note: I’m working on a way to get the current fundraiser amount visible to all of you.

You can donate on the right side of the page, you will see donation options in different denominations. I’m only accepting PayPal donations so that I can easily transfer the money to Toys for Tots come December 20th.

As I explained in the video, I sent an email out to a representative of Toys for Tots about coordinating a fundraiser. He told me that while he holds no qualms about the comic, he didn’t want Toys for Tots affiliated with us due to its crass nature. I understand, however, Terminal Lance gets thousands of readers every day, almost all of them from the military. Now, I’m closing the donations on December 20th because I’m not 100% sure how they’ll want to put the money to use–but I wanted to give them some time to buy toys if that’s what they plan to do with it.

The beginning of the video is kind of brash, but it’s meant to be funny and to encourage you to want to donate–even if for some reason you hate children, you should want to prove a point.

There was a lot more to this video, and it was trimmed down considerably to remain on point. If we raise a formidable amount of money for Toys for Tots come Dec. 20th, I will upload the outtakes/bloopers reel for all of you to see as a treat.

So bottom line, don’t take the video as anything other than what it is: my effort to encourage you all to donate in support of Toys for Tots. Remember, 100% of all the donations made will go directly to Toys for Tots on December 20th, 2010. In addition to the donation drive, I will see what can be done this week to raise more money for them. Perhaps an exclusive strip to encourage you to donate? I may possibly sell some prints this week as well, with the proceeds going to Toys for Tots. Stay tuned and I’ll keep you all updated.

As for the strip, well, I always thought the chow hall guys’ golden rank was slightly absurd. I always wondered what it would be like to wear them, like some kind of Legend of Zelda abode. I’m sure you all remember the gold cartridges of yore, blowing in them to get them to play in your old, dirty NES.

Oh and for those of you living under a rock, Terminal Lance has officially joined up with the Marine Corps Times starting next week. Look forward to exclusive content each week in the Marine Corps Times!

Check out their official blog post here!

And lastly, but certainly not least, I’d like to give a special thanks to Adan Pulido, an 0311 OIF/OEF veteran-turned-film-major at SF State for helping me with this video, in just about every aspect.