Author: Maximilian

**UPDATE**

The winner’s name is Sean Elliot.

There were a lot of great submissions to the Comic Strip Contest. Unfortunately, there can be only one winner, the honor of which goes to the forum user treeflower. (I will update with the user’s actual name when I receive the info.)

I had no official criteria for choosing a winner, but ultimately this strip’s simple but effective artwork combined with a great punchline added up to being a strip that I ultimately enjoyed the most. It was a hard decision, but I appreciate everyone’s submissions and effort. I wanted to put up some additional strips that were good. I can’t put them all up, but here are 4 other entries that are worth mentioning:

Seeing some Marine wives around base is always good for a laugh.

Irony is never lost in the Corps, even on deployment.

I think all of us had this problem… unless you were one of the short guys. As someone that’s 6′ even, it was something I remember quite fondly.

I actually was planning on doing a strip on this subject, looks like someone beat me to it!

If you would like to see the rest of the entires, please feel free to visit the thread on the Forum here.

Overall I thought the entries were great, and I was surprised to see 3 strips about Drill Instructors. I suppose it makes sense, after all, boot camp is the one thing that all Marines actually have in common. They are a universally recognized aspect of Marine Corps culture, regardless of rank or MOS.

Anyway, thank you to everyone that submitted a strip! Congratulations to forum user treeflower! This was definitely a fun thing, perhaps something that could happen again in the future…

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter! A great place to keep up on things like Taco Bell’s Chalupacabra.

This strip is about Halloween… not Butter Bars…

Srsly…

Okay, well, it’s not my fault that 2nd Lieutenants are such easy targets. I don’t mean to resort to such simple poo-flinging humor, but I wanted a reason to do a Halloween strip–as well as show someone dress up like a giant boot.

Anyway, I hope all of you had a good Halloween this weekend. I celebrated last weekend, actually, and dedicated last night to being on trick-or-treater duty. Though I had a wealth of candy and sweets awaiting their migration into the bags and ultimate digestive tracts of ghoulish children–I was more surprised than disappointed to say that we didn’t get a single trick or treater on this spooky night. I guess kids just don’t have fun like they used to. I recall my younger days of Halloween quite fondly, dressing up as some grotesque creature and going door to door in search of sugary delights.

Of my 4 Halloweens in the Marine Corps, two were spent in relative freedom. The other two, the first being in Camp Pendleton while I was at SOI. The 2nd being on my first Iraq deployment. Neither of the latter were anything memorable, just another day at work if anything.

Anyway, I don’t have a whole lot to say about the strip. The continuing conflict of enlisted versus officer will always exist. I don’t really pride myself on taking sides, but humor is humor.

In site news, we’ve gotten some great submissions to the Terminal Lance Comic Strip Contest! If you want to submit a comic, tomorrow is the last day! Remember, the winner will receive an autographed Terminal Lance print. All contest submissions must be submitted to the Terminal Lance Comic Strip Contest thread in the forum. Click the link to take you to the official thread, which also explains the rules. As well, you can view other members’ submitted work.

Gunny R. Lee Ermey is easily the most famous and well known Marine on the planet. I found it strange that in one of the new Geico commercials they actually refer to Mr. Ermey as a “Drill Sergeant”–which, as any Marine can tell you, isn’t what we call our Drill Instructors. To someone who is not a Marine, this may seem slightly diminutive. To which I will say, you have probably never seen what happens to a recruit when they make the ill-informed mistake of using the words “Drill Sergeant” in recruit training. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t personally care. I find it to be a rather small distinction myself–but as a Marine of real life I find it to be one of those things that sticks out like a nude in the city. Simply hearing or seeing “Drill Sergeant” immediately strikes some kind of error in my brain. I don’t want to notice it, I don’t care to notice it, but I can’t help it.

The point though, Mr. Ermey is probably well off enough that he wouldn’t care. As a Drill Instructor himself, I’m sure he noticed the quip more than anyone–but I doubt he cared to see his pride over the numbers on his bank statement.

For what it’s worth, the commercial is actually pretty funny. I commend Mr. Ermey on his post-Marine Corps exploits. He has managed to turn his enlisted career into a lifetime of success and steady income with the likes of Full Metal Jacket and his other film and TV endeavors. Mail Call was always entertaining. His cameo appearances in movies and TV shows have successfully made him the legend that he is. While I won’t expect that most Marines will become famous actors, I think it is worth noting that life does in fact exist outside of the Marine Corps.

As a recent EAS’er, I am noticing a common trend amongst other EAS’d Marines. Many can’t find jobs, can’t seem to make it using the GI Bill and thus try to squeeze their way back into the Corps. It is as if you were on a bus, became offended by something and stood up and yelled at everyone on it because your stop was coming up. You tell everyone to fuck off, you scream obscenities at them and raise your hands in foul gestures of discontent. You walk off the bus, take one step out and realize it’s the wrong stop. Awkwardly, you turn around and get back on the bus, hoping everyone has forgotten the hatred you just displayed on their behalf.

These Marines that were so happy and content to EAS find themselves in a rut, unable to compete with the wailing job market at the time and force themselves back into service. If you are a Marine finding yourself in this boat–or on this bus–I must implore you: take a step back and examine your situation and your options. The police force is not your only option. If they won’t hire you, go back to school and get a degree in Criminal Justice, then go back and apply. The GI Bill is there for a reason, take advantage of it. You couldn’t ask for a better time to EAS with the Post 9/11 GI Bill ready to take care of you.

An education is your best bet in this economy. After all, not all of us will end up famous like Gunny Ermey.

On a site note, I would like to remind you all that there’s currently a contest going on to submit your own personal Terminal Lance strip! The deadline for submissions is November 3rd, you must register on the forum and post it in the Terminal Lance Comic Strip Contest thread. The winner will receive a free Terminal Lance print autographed by me and will have their comic strip put up on November 5th for the Friday comic strip!

You must create this comic strip! This is not for submitting ideas for me to make, this is your opportunity to draw your own comic strip with a joke for the world to see.

The deadline is November 3rd for submissions!

With that I bid you all farewell and have a good weekend.

Oh boots… There is something magical about them, so saturated with opinions they think are their own. The ever-revered high and tight I’m sure served its practical purpose at some point in the war-laden culture of the military. It is also true that it is an easy to maintain haircut that has hygienic qualities associated with it. However, it looks absolutely ridiculous as a real solution to a head of hair. Even when you’re overseas, you’re better off just buzzing the entire scalp completely than wearing this absurd ‘do.

The High and Tight itself carries with it a kind of strange physical representation of how motivated one is. Nipples turn into Eagle, Globe and Anchors and farts sound like the Marine Corps Hymn. It is as if the very spirit of Chesty Puller and Smedley Butler are manifested in this grotesque molestation of one’s own body of hair. I may remind you motivators though, that Chesty Puller did not wear a high and tight:

Nor in fact did Smedley Butler:

Really, this practice of a “real Marine” haircut is a strange ideal–one that is not seen in most commonly known ideal Marines. And yet still, it is the motivators that carry this flaccid tradition to heart.

The Marine Corps is possibly the only place that uses hairstyles as a gauge for how much one is capable. Those who see a Marine wearing a high and tight think of him as being responsible, motivated and “squared away”. Those without–such as those like myself who regularly rocked the medium and low-reg haircuts–are often seen as being “shitbags” or quite literally less responsible because of their hair. Bottom line, one’s hair does not gauge how well he can perform his job. A high and tight does not equate to performance or responsibility–it really just equates to you looking like an asshole.

So come on, you’re not fooling anyone. Get rid of that silly haircut, Marine.

I always wondered what it must be like for the average Staff NCO, higher ranking enlisted having to salute butter-bar Lieutenants with no experience whatsoever. I know that normally the focus of Terminal Lance as a comic is on the Lance Corporal of the Marine Corps; however, you don’t need to be a Lance Corporal to be a Terminal Lance. Some Staff NCO’s are inherently more grounded in common sense and practicality than others, it is the ones that worry more about your hands being in your pockets than common sense that give the senior enlisted a bad rep. For those Staff NCO’s that are tried and true Terminal Lances, the haters will hate. After all, haters gonna hate all those Terminal Lances of the Marine Corps.

I always wondered what this must be like though. I myself had trouble saluting butter-bars that had been in for less time than myself–and I got out after 4 years! Boot lieutenants are a special creature, they have done nothing but feel completely entitled to everything. A shiny collar is all that separates them from the enlisted boots that police call your barracks parking lot at 5am every morning.

It is, after all, as the old adage goes:

What is the difference between a Private First Class and a 2nd Lieutenant?

A PFC has been promoted once.

I wanted to take a moment to share this image from the Terminal Lance Facebook fan page, uploaded by Dana Katz:

I just thought it was funny, as well as a nice homage to my home state of Oregon. Terminal Lances are amongst the entire Marine Corps, from all over the country, in every base known to Chesty Puller. Know someone that hasn’t seen Terminal Lance? Get them up to speed quick!

In terms of religious experience, Bootcamp is probably one of the most intense places that hopeful Marines can find themselves. For whatever the reasons, recruits tend to undergo a kind of extreme religious epiphany as soon as they step on those yellow footprints. Gone are their old ways of sinful heathenism, now they are acolytes of God–warriors of the Lord himself… that is, until they discover that epic amounts of alcohol can replace their voids of faith on the weekends once they hit the fleet.

I recall quite vividly the amount of recruits that attended the church masses, or even underwent baptism in front of an applauding audience of likeminded recruits. Like it is so true for many, religion in the Marines tends to only belong where its needed. During the stressful culture shock of recruit training, Marine recruits find solace in faith otherwise left alone. I myself succumbed to this endeavor, though stemming from Jewish background brought me to synagogue on Fridays instead of church on Sundays–which actually worked out great, because I still got to chill out on Sundays like everyone else.

Rarely when a chaplain or otherwise offer an infantry Marine a religious service will he take it, once he’s succumbed to his new culture of fleet-hood. The average Lance Corporal is more likely to attend the the omelet line at the chow hall on a Sunday than he is church. Some Marines remain devout Christians and otherwise–but for the majority: if you didn’t already regularly attend church, the Marine Corps probably isn’t going to change that, despite whatever religious events unfold at the Depot.

This is largely overdue, I had originally intended to do this strip back when I got promoted–but other ideas ultimately were more interesting to me at the time. This is hardly a secret that I’ve been promoted–I actually found out from another Marine who saw it on MOL, author of Castra Praetoria, my old company 1st Sgt: First Sergeant Burke.

It is rather ironic, that they would promote me, the creator of Terminal Lance. The reason? Another example of the broken cutting score system intrinsic to the Marine Corps.

In any case, it does me no good at this point. It’s not like I’m getting paid more; there are no more responsibilities to be trusted to me. I had no pinning ceremony, no formations on my behalf. Just a random email from an old member of my former battalion. It was the Corps that had the last laugh here, promoting the creator of Terminal Lance–of all people–I’m sure someone behind a desk had a laugh about it.

I’m kind of running on fumes right now, so I will leave you all with that. Have a good weekend, and I will see you next week.

The phenomena associated with birthdays in the Marine Corps is second to none. Mention it’s your birthday, someone else’s birthday–even your mother’s birthday–and you will be literally physically assaulted. The birthday in the Marine Corps is a dangerous time, lay low for the day and hope no one remembers tomorrow; lest ye find themselves in a world of angry, blind rage. In a way, this angry hurricane of fist and contusion is the Marines’ way of showing their affection for their fellow companion.

I recall my 21st birthday. October 11th, 2007–Iraq. While I assure you my beating was substantial, I remain confident that it was ultimately out of affection.

In site news, the prints of Terminal Lance #59 are sold out! The prints sold pretty quick, it was a good one. Aside from that, things are well in the world of Terminal Lance. I would like to add that I appreciate all of the emails I get on a daily basis, I try to respond to them but often times I do forget–but do know that I get them and read them all!

Did you catch that? Yes, the reason I am putting up a birthday-themed strip today is because… well… today is my birthday. (Well, as I write this at least–I understand many of you won’t see this until Tuesday Oct. 12th.)

If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go run for cover now. Can I at least get a headstart…?

It is an unfortunate reality that us Marines live in. The less we’re around females, the hotter every female becomes. As a result, those of us that had the misfortune of visiting POG-centric bases such as al Asad found ourselves somehow surrounded by attractive females on a daily basis. How could this be? Are there really that many hot female Marines?

No.

Well, there could be I suppose, but it is when you return home that you realize the average nature of most females within the Marine Corps. This strip isn’t designed to be sexist, as I’m not claiming the majority of male Marines are anything special to look at either, and in fact I’m sure “Deployment Goggles” actually go both ways.

In site news, I am sold out of the “Knife Hand” prints. They sold pretty quick, to which I was certainly delighted. Not as delightful, however, is the fact that PayPal has been having some internal problems. For those of you that ordered the prints, I assure you that all of them have been shipped as of today–however PayPal’s shipping section is currently not working for me. Thus, I haven’t been able to send shipment notifications to you fine individuals.

In other noteworthy news, I am changing my major from illustration to a dual major: Illustration and Animation. It’s twice the work, but I may as well get all I can out of the GI Bill! Speaking of GI Bills and such, I know it is a very complicated subject and many service-members have a lot of questions about it. I would like for Terminal Lance to be a haven not only for good Marines, but for those of you who have also made the journey to the other side. If you have questions about the GI Bill or other VA benefits, feel free to browse the forum and possibly ask your question there. If I can’t directly answer it, there are many veterans just as qualified as myself posting as well. Check out the GI Bill thread here.

Another issue I’d like to address: I occasionally post photos submitted from the Facebook fan page. Please note, however, that I am not responsible for any trouble you may find yourself in–should some SNCO of the butthurt tribe decide to get upset at the internet that day. I will advise you, do not post anything that could get you in trouble. It should be common sense, but you’d be surprised.

With that I bid you all a good weekend, stay safe and have fun.

I don’t personally dip; however, it has always boggled my mind how people who are addicted to such vices can go to the field every week and forget to bring the very substance they covet so dearly. It seems like every time we were in the field, a severe shortage of tobacco products occurred almost immediately upon arrival. Marines skulked the formation of packs waiting for someone to pull out a can, a carefully selected bum akin to a vulture, circling its dead or wounded meal before landing and taking.

My vice? Caffeine. I accounted for this, however, and would bring strategically placed caffeinated items such as gum or energy “shots” along with me. It’s not hard to plan for, typically you know how long a field op is going to be and, as any good Marine should, plan accordingly to what they may need. Perhaps dip should be placed on the gear list, in order to remind those otherwise incapable of reminding themselves.

No matter the suggestions, there will always be those that forget to bring their tobacco. When asked why they forgot it, they almost always reply, “I gave it all to other people.”

Similar, then, is the idea that there are no thieves in the Marine Corps–just those trying to get their shit back.

As for my obligatory random nude Marine in body-armor theme we apparently have going now–I will leave you with this image posted by Sam Dreyer: