Fleet Marine Life #105 – Take This
This is a continuation of comic #103.
The longer you wait until you get out of the Corps, the worse off you’ll be in the future. The higher ups tell you things like “you won’t be able to get the same kind of job security out in the civilian world,” and things like, “You’re not going to make it out there! Stay here!” Sure it’s great that you get paid for doing nothing most of the time and you can’t get fired for it, but is it really worth trading your freedom and liberty for this?
The skills you are likely to gain in the Corps won’t have much value outside the Corps. With the skills that I’ve received from the Corps, the best civilian job that I could get will probably involve a lot of cleaning because that’s what the Corps has taught me to do.
If you end up staying in the Corps for too long, you’ll end up getting out as a grumpy old man who can’t do anything else other than yell at people and have trouble spelling many 5 letter words. That’s why you see retired Sergeant Majors hanging around outside certain PXs and yelling at junior Marines. In a way, the Marine Corps creates dependency.
The more you re-enlist, the more the Marine Corps has you by the balls. You have to break the shackles as early as you can and not re-enlist. Get out, get an education, get a good job and live a good life.
Sucking it the fuck up since 1779.
Laughing my ass off at this comic. So great.
I got out after one enlistment. Went to college, was a stay-at-home dad, then got 1 job, left for another. 9 months into that one, I gave notice and took 3 months off just working weekends. It was great. After 30 months at my next job, I took 6 weeks off. In my current position, they asked if anyone wanted to volunteer for a 2 month furlough – my hand shot up like a rocket, and I’d only been here 6 months.
Why? Because, fuck it. I’ll make the money and take the time to be with my kids. The key is to buy a house you can afford without a job for a bit, and not have car payments.
I got out after one enlistment. Should I have stayed? Maybe..Then again, I could be dead by now or severely fucked up in the head. I didn’t want to be that retired SGTMaj that hangs around base all day because this is ALL he knew.. Fuck that.
After a lot of ups and downs in my years after departing the suck, and I mean a LOT, I’ve landed a steady secure job, married and most of all, I have my self respect, dignity and humanity back, which the Corps tried so desperately to wrest away from me.
When I tell people I left the Corps after 8 years they say “You were almost halfway there. Why didn’t you just stay in for the full 20 and get retirement?” And I say “Obviously you weren’t in the Marines because that would’ve been a LOOOOONG 12 years.” It’s sad really. So many things to love about serving, but SOOOOO many assholes to ruin it. I got out at 25 years old and have tripled my salary in 15 years with the same company. So fuck that retarded 1st Lt and Gunny at Quantico that thought I was a shitbag (even though I had already earned Marine of the Quarter in Oki, meritorious Cpl and came out 3rd in my NCO school class). I bet the LT is a shift manager at McDonalds and the Gunny is dead from an overdose. Turds with rank.
Lol..True
The road to becoming an institutionalized man. Hey, wait a minute, isn’t this the process convicts go through?
I’ve thought about it and I’m inclined to say that the Marine Corps is similar to the prison system. Convicts go to prison and don’t get reprogrammed to be better citizens. They get trained to become better criminals. Then they go off into the real world and they automatically believe that their best option is to go back to being a criminal because it will be all they know. They get caught and the cycle repeats.
In the Marine Corps, the system does not reprogram you to be better citizens. They teach you how to be a Marine and nothing else. If you try to get out, you’ll automatically believe that the best option is to just simply go back to being a Marine because it will be all you know.
In both cases, the systems force the people to become dependent on it. The sooner you can break from the system, the better.
Amen. Back in the day the lifers earned respect, but with the way the Corps is run today, I almost feel pity for those who stay in. Almost. They say we can’t hack it in the corps, but I look at it as they can’t hack it in the real world. I have a theory that most lifers are those kids in high school who got bullied. They got bullied and beat up in school so they join the military, pick up rank and take out their rage on the next generation of marines.