Author: Maximilian

When I realized today was time for Strip #51, I decided to do a tribute to my personal MOS: The 0351 Assaultman. It is kind of the odd-ball of the infantry; no one really knows what we do or how to properly employ us. As a result, we are often just turned into a rifle squad or divided to be machine-gunners (like my first deployment as a .50 gunner). Assaultman are actually quite handy, and all of them really are trained in demolitions.

I mention this because we actually had a combat engineer attachment with our battalion, all the way from Oki, when in all reality they could’ve saved the Marine Corps the cost of plane tickets and just entrusted the 0351’s with their demolition needs. Granted, perhaps we aren’t quite as deeply trained in the field as they are, but they were hardly used for that purpose anyway.

Assaultmen–or “Ass-men” as they can be known–are often given the stigma of being really smart and “nerdy” due to the higher GT score requirements to attain the MOS. A lot of the MOS training is equations relating to explosives and demolition formulas, most of which becomes forgotten in the monotony of the fleet. Regardless of how much flak we get for being useless though, everyone and their mother wants to see the SMAW in action.

To be quite blunt, I loved my MOS. I loved shooting the SMAW. Shooting the SMAW is one of the most exhilarating feelings I’ve ever experienced. The warmth of fire and flame engulfing your body, the dust and rocks swirling around you after the backblast explodes into the most powerful noise you’ve ever heard. The SMAW is a good time.

Unfortunately though, more often than not, the specificity of the MOS turns it obsolete according to the mission. In a non-kinetic environment, why do you need to blast a hole in the wall using an oval charge? Blow open a door with a linear, donut or water charge? The answer is simple, you don’t. As a result, the MOS is practically useless outside of a larger scale kinetic environment, thus making the 0351 a kind of jack of all trades in the infantry world. They usually pick up machine-gun skills, 0311 standards like proper patrolling and room clearing, and are often handed over to the Mortar teams to fill empty slots. It’s unfortunate, but makes them an all-round asset to the platoon when extra bodies are needed for just about anything.

For my beloved readers that are not in the loop; “NAM” stands for “Navy/Marine Corps Achievement Medal,” and is awarded to people who go above and beyond their normal duties assigned to them. However, the medal somehow always seems to find its way onto the chests of those closest to Headquarters or H&S Company. Even though the guys on the ground are out there everyday, risking life and limb, they are usually the last people to receive the award.

I refuse to believe that the average grunt rates a NAM every day he’s outside the wire. However, I also refuse to believe the company clerk, police sergeant, intel guy, etc.; rates the award every time he does his job. I’m not saying I’ve never agreed with the awarding of it to the less-than-salty population, but I think the system is fairly slanted in their favor.

Take a Headquarters platoon for example: every day they are in the company office, under close supervision to the top ranking members of the company. How often does the Company First Sergeant or the Commanding Officer see Lance Corporal Dipshit offer a child some water or some of his own food outside the wire? How often does even the platoon commander see it? If you’re a good squad leader, hopefully never–because no squad leader wants to have to deal with an “LT” or an “Echo-8” on any sort of a daily basis. Unfortunately, it takes something much greater for the average grunt to earn the medal than just… doing what he’s asked to do–which isn’t always the case for the other side.

Outside of that, all I really have to say is have a good weekend, and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @TLCplMax.

I decided to go in a somewhat ridiculous direction today. Lately my sense of humor has been fairly eclectic, I can’t help but feel drawn to the slightly absurd for some reason. I also really wanted to start a new “series”, one I am calling “Myths and Legends”. These of course are the Myths and Legends of the Marine Corps, the ones that you hear about every day, embedded within the culture itself.

All Marines know the name Susie Rottencrotch. If you don’t, you’ve been doing it wrong. Its just been a personal endeavor to imagine what she must look like–worn out and abused from years of plethoric amounts of cocks and semen filling the void of her hollow soul–well, her vagina at any rate.

Maybe I just have an overactive imagination, but Terminal Lance wouldn’t exist if I did not–and therefore you will all be subject to my aimless and sporadic thoughts and theories.

So after much debate I finally sunk down and got myself a Mac. I’m having quite a bit of fun learning the Mac OS, I’ve personally always been a Windows guy. With my entrance into the California College of the Arts, however, I had to make the switch. Currently, I had to make the strip on my PC since I don’t have Photoshop on my Mac yet, but I expect to remedy this soon enough. Frankly, throwing down that much on my credit card felt like I was making some kind of deal with the devil at the Mac Store, but it is a very high quality piece of equipment and worth it from what I can tell thus far. I look forward to my future exploits with the device.

In other news, I’m putting on my civilian weight. Apparently not PT-ing and taking late night trips to IHOP and the like is bad for your health. Who knew? I won’t have gym access until I start school so I’ll just have to “rough” it out until then (as rough as eating pancakes can be, I know).

Well, until next time gents. I hope you all had a good 4th of July!

I hate seeing soldiers in the airport. I think all Marines do. There’s something about seeing them in their digital ACU’s that just pisses the average Marine off. I could go into how much they look like a tool, and how much dick they suck and so-forth. The real reason, however, is that we envy them. We envy the way they can wear a comfortable outfit to the airport and still get free beers and bumps up to first class. Unfortunately for us, we don’t get that luxury–as we’re limited to wearing service and dress uniforms out in public. I think if Marines could wear cammies to the airport, you’d see it a lot more often; and it has nothing to do with motivation or pride in the uniform or any of that bullshit–it has to do with getting free drinks.

Anyway, I don’t have too much to say on the subject.

In other news, I got an email from a certain Michael Fay containing photos of Marines currently in Afghanistan. Mike spent a month with my former unit this summer. I will post them up tomorrow, it is past 4am and I need my beauty sleep.

Goodnight!

Come on, Lieutenants, you had it coming. Throughout my 4 years I always tried to find out what my Lt’s majors were, I always thought it was interesting to see what kind of people were drawn to the Commissioned side of the Corps. It turns out, Lieutenants can be just about anything prior to getting commissioned. One of my favorite Lieutenants was actually a forestry major, which I always thought to be somewhat eclectic in the context of joining the Marines.

Anyway, this isn’t a bash on the officer/enlisted system in place. In all honesty, I more or less understand the system to be necessary–having an educated person in charge of a larger group of undereducated makes sense. Obviously there’s exceptions to every rule, but the logic at least makes sense. What most people have against Lieutenants and officers boils down to the simple–but endless–argument of experience versus formal education.

This isn’t really something I care to address right now, but maybe I’ll care to in a future strip. In any case, I’ve never been the Marine that hates officers. Pissed at them once in a while, of course, but like I said: I more or less understand the system to be necessary.

I don’t have a whole lot more to say on this right now. In other news, make sure you’re following me on Twitter @TLCplMax

I’d like to take a moment to honor a couple of Facebook fan photos here.

Where did they get the M1 Garands?** (Edit: turns out these are Springfield 03’s) In any case, solid work! I always love seeing the creative ways people are making Lance Corporal chevrons. As long as it doesn’t involve ANY sort of vandalism or other damage to government property, I’d love to see it.

Here’s another good Lance chevron that made me laugh. Glad to see some Lances doing what we do best… cleaning shit up.

Anyway, that’s all I got for you gents. For your weekend libo brief I’ll just say what my old Co. 1st Sgt used to tell us:

If it looks like shit, smells like shit, then it’s probably shit. Don’t be the one to step in it.

I’m sure before the war started, going to far away lands for training and exercises was considered hard as fuck. Personally, however, I was never impressed with these tales of absence and excursions. I don’t mean to imply that Iraq and Afghanistan are the only hard places available within the last 20 years–in fact we had a fairly prominent member of our unit who was involved in a conflict in Haiti long before Iraq broke out, where he earned his coveted Combat Action Ribbon. To say that these two locales are the only places that Marines are involved in conflict is a daft understatement, and I fully understand that.

However, heroic expeditions to unknown wars usually wasn’t the case when you find out why and how your senior leadership had managed to skate out of combat zones for his entire enlistment.

In fact, even as I was leaving the Marine Corps, in 2010, there were SNCO’s that I had encountered that had yet to go overseas in support of the war. At all. I won’t discount the idea that the Marine Corps needs SNCO recruiters and DI’s and whatever-the-fuck-else people do outside of the fleet–but when the nation is at war, how do you be in the Marine Corps and not go to war?

It really did shock the hell out of me coming into the fleet, where I naturally assumed all of the 03XX SNCO’s had already been–when I came to find out it was only my Senior Lance Corporals (I still consider that a real billet) that had any real trace of salt on their collars. And please, don’t take this strip as a bash on recruiting or any other B-Billet. I actually ran into my recruiter in Iraq–in Sahl Sinjar of all places–on my 2nd deployment.

Anyway, in other news, Terminal Lance is now on Twitter! Unfortunately the names “Terminal_Lance” and “TerminalLance” were already taken, so I had to take a slightly more personal approach with it. Feel free to follow my tweets @TLCplMax.

Oh, and something hilarious I saw on the Facebook fan page:

I still think it’s funny.

Outside of that, the print sale went well. I’ll let you know when I have another set available. Until next time, have a great week and get something done!

Well this is a pretty easy subject, I suppose. Everyone knows the guys that go out and spend all of their money on any new piece of gear they can find. Anything that makes them look like someone out of a videogame or some BLACKHAWK! ad in Leatherneck Magazine. It’s the stuff that usually no one needs, but somehow it always finds it’s way into the hands of the guys who go outside the wire the least–if at all.

I remember traveling extremely light on a daily basis. My flak had nothing more than 6 standard issue magazine pouches, my IFAK, and an extra pouch for my NVG’s and related gear. Granted, I was mounted, so I kept my water in the truck via Nalgene bottle (cause only boots use canteens); as well as any extra flares or whatever I needed for daily turret-use.

Regardless, even on the ground, you can always tell the saltier Marines from those who wish they were. Marines who have been around know what they need, and tend to carry only that.

On a matter of personal opinion, I think one of the worst decisions a commander (company, battalion or otherwise) can make is creating an SOP system for the flak accessories (besides the IFAK, obviously). The flak is the one piece of gear that absolutely needs to be customized for comfort and practicality. For some reason, Lieutenants seem to think that grenade pouches are the coolest thing in the world, when in practice no one ever really uses them (grenades are a pain to get in or out of those issued ones).

Anyway, another slightly late update. I’ve become a night owl of sorts lately. I haven’t been around Portland the last couple of days but look forward to me scouring the 24 hour cafes and diners writing the next Terminal Lance.

Until next time, motivators.

Military wives are a great thing, however, when a wife takes her husband’s rank into her own sense of worth–it makes them not so much. I’m sorry wives, but you’re not the rank of your husband. You’re not a Marine, you have no authority over Marines or any of their wives based on your husband’s rank.

While I fully support women taking a personal investment into their husband’s professional life, I believe some dependents need to reconsider their mindsets. Many people have suggested I do a strip addressing this subject–I also considered doing one of the “wives rank structure;” and how the high ranking wives tend to hold themselves in higher regard than the lower ranking spouses. Ultimately I decided this was more cruel and to the point, however.

Outside of that, I don’t really have a whole lot to say on the subject. Really, truly though: no one cares.

In other news, the prints are almost entirely gone and will be up for another 24 hours. As of press time, one more remains of Strip #3, and 3 more remain of Strip #17. Speaking of Terminal Lance merchandise, I recently acquired the Terminal Lance hooded sweatshirt from the store. I must say, it is actually quite comfy and warm. I am enjoying it quite thoroughly, and highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good hoodie.

I’m very well considering doing a special edition type of thing soon. I mentioned it in the Facebook fan page earlier this week, and am scrambling through ideas. I’m not sure how I intend to implement this idea yet, or in what format and context, but I plan to do something soon when I get a chance to sit and really work. I’ve had a few ideas in mind, long before I even started making this strip. In fact, I’ve had Terminal Lance in mind years before I actually went live with this.

Initially, Terminal Lance was actually an ongoing story with recurring characters. Ultimately I scrapped this idea, and went with a dual-weekly bite of three-panel Corps jabs to satiate my need for quick wit. Really, if you look at all the strips you’ll see only one recurring character, the dark haired Marine, who is more or less modeled after yours truly. In all honesty though, Terminal Lance is often times very quick and dirty. If you look to strip 15, you’ll see a more traditional piece of art by me, what I typically will do when I have more time to devote to these things.

In any case, I would like to do something more involved in the future. Perhaps I will sketch up some character designs and put together some stories. We’ll see.

On an unrelated note, I’d like to congratulate all of the many civilians who have just graduated college this year. Of these to include my sister, Gayle Uriarte, who acquired her BFA yesterday from the University of Oregon in Eugene. It is strange being able to actually attend these events, as the last 4 years have kept me a minimum of 2,700 miles away at best. I am enjoying it though, I almost forgot what it’s like to be involved with my own family. I’d also like to give a shout out to the Marines in Afghanistan right now, to include 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines. Keep up the good work and stay safe out there.

On that note, I bid you all a good workweek. Get some work done, you nasties.

A slightly late update on my part, due to the fact that I spent all night creating the new forum and exporting all of the databases from the old forum to the new one. I would like to throw out there that I loathe web-making of any kind; probably why I always preferred Captain America over Spider-Man. Really though, websites just aren’t my thing, which may seem odd for someone who runs one.

In regards to the strip, I recall frequenting the MWR quite a bit when I was in Iraq the first time. I was surprised making phone calls was even possible, but I always hated the complete lack of privacy. Not necessarily for my sake, but for those around me who aren’t quite as quaint as I am with their conversations.

The MWR and AT&T Call Centers were always a place you could find entertainment; if not for the activities they provide, then by the conversations you’re forced to listen to from the Marines surrounding you. The warm, greasy phones hastily wired to ply-wood walls and desks bring back fond memories of late nights in Camp Fallujah. Well, fond in retrospect anyway, at the time they were just as miserable as anything else in Iraq usually is.

Strange how you never saw officers or SNCO’s at the call centers… Oh wait, no it’s not; our platoon sergeant and commander had their own satellite phones they used to call home every night for free while we paid exuberant amounts of cash to call home.

Anyway, in site news: THERE’S A NEW FORUM! If you don’t want to participate, you’re more than welcome to lurk the threads to see what Marines are talking about. Interesting things come up, as well as interesting people. The new forum is SMF run, which is a much better set up than BB Press, if you ask me. I originally went with BB Press with the idea of integrating my blog with the forum user database. I ultimately decided against that idea, but kept the old board around for a while. It was passed due for a change, and I’m happy with the results so far.

In other news, there’s only a combined 8 prints left of #3 and #17. I don’t expect them to last much longer, I sold 10 in the first hour I had them up. People have been asking me if I can hold them. I don’t mind the idea, but unfortunately I have to give them to whoever pays for them. If you pay for it, I’ll hold it as long as you want, but I can’t hold one without receiving payment.

Anyway, it’s almost 0600 PST. I haven’t gone to sleep yet because of the forum and the strip. Oh the things I do for you, my beloved readers. I’m going to commence rack ops at this time, I bid you all a good morning.

Though it may seem like going from song to pubic arson is slightly far-fetched, I may remind you that Marines are a very special kind of animal. As well, when a Marine is bored, the final step of boredom is always something involving the genitals. Lighting one’s pubes on fire isn’t just something I made up either, this actually happened at least three times that I can recall while on my first Iraq deployment. These are the sorts of things you can’t really make up.

But, point being: when it comes to Marines, all paths eventually lead to the genitals.

Bored Marines are some of the most entertaining people on the face of the planet. Where else can you watch a common conversation turn into a wrestling match? Or watch common conversation turn into someone getting the tan-belt choke hold until they go unconscious? Or watch common conversation turn into genital injury? If I miss anything about the Marine Corps, it’s seeing what absurd and ridiculous things come of Marines with too much time on their hands.

In site news, stay tuned this week for some new prints going up on eBay. All of them are high resolution prints, on high quality glossy paper–all hand-signed and numbered by myself. Stand by for that, I’ll let you know via Facebook and the News post of the site when they go up.

Anyway, if I may segue way onto something completely unrelated–I’d like to mention a book self-published by a close friend of mine. Her name is Renda Dodge, and her book is called Inked. It has absolutely nothing to do with the military, but it is a great book by all means. If you’re from the Pacific Northwest, you’ll find it especially good since that is where it takes place. I am mentioning it because I genuinely think it’s a great book, I read the whole thing from front to back before she published it (while on my 2nd deployment, actually) and I couldn’t put it down.

The book is about a girl named Tori, who like many Marines, is covered in many tattoos. The tattoos are a way of keeping track of all of the impacting events on her life that have made her who she is. The story itself is a very rich, emotional and compelling tale. She is a very real girl, her mother is stricken with disease and she goes back to her small home town to take care of her in her last bit of time. All the while, she is uncovering events from her past that have been long forgotten. I was enthralled by Renda’s writing style, which is a very gripping form of up-front realism that delves deep into the mind of the protagonist.

Anyway, I know this has nothing to do with the Marine Corps or the military. If it makes you feel any better, I read it in Iraq, so that sort of makes it military-related (not really); but it really is a great book, and you should definitely check it out.

With that, I bid you all adieu and goodnight.