Fleet Marine Life #147 – Tactically Acquire
The Marine Corps has always been grossly underfunded. This has encouraged Marines to get what they need through less legitimate means. There is a saying that says, “Marines never steal,” which is the biggest load of crap ever. Marines don’t call it stealing, they call it some shit like, “tactically acquire.”
Everywhere you go in the Corps, you need gear watch on your shit, because someone is going to always try to steal your shit. In the Corps, if you do get your shit stolen, it’s more than likely your fault.
In the movie “Full Metal Jacket,” Private Pyle leaves his foot locker unsecured. His drill instructor sees this and says, “If it wasn’t for dickheads like you, there wouldn’t be any thievery in this world, would there?!” Kind of ass-backwards logic, isn’t it?
There’s even an entire chapter (Chap. 10) in a book on the Commandant’s reading list on stealing (First to Fight by Victor H. Krulak)! Back then Marines stole everything from lumber to jeeps. On a side note, that book is an incredibly dry book and it took me forever to read just a few pages.
Stealing doesn’t solve the problem. Bottom line is that someone else is going to be missing something. You can prevent this cycle of stealing by making your shit hard to steal.
Tactically acquiring other people’s shit since 1775.
Love that the thieving SSgt got stolen from in the end. So funny.
Plenty of thieves and liars in the Corps. I had a PFC working for me who stole a set of golf clubs out of the bed of a someone’s truck. He got caught when he sold them to a local pawn shop.
“Why’d you do it?” I asked him.
“I guess I just really wanted a set of golf clubs, sar’nt.”
“That can’t be true. You already have a really nice set of clubs. Plus,” I added, “you got rid of them.”
“Oh yeah.”
He was a royal idiot, but a minor offender. When I was a LCpl at swim qual, the MCWIS guy had us leave our gear in the locker room. Someone stole a bunch of our shit. My company CO – 1st Lt Gremlin (she looked like the sexy monster in Gremlins 2) – signed off to have the NCOs reimbursed, but wanted me to own up for being irresponsible. Later, I heard her talking to a SSgt about how she was trying to commit insurance fraud. She was in a fender bender, and was trying to see if she could parlay it into a new vehicle.
That PFC who swiped the golf clubs was a piece of shit, and he got in trouble on multiple levels. 1st Lt. Gremlin was an entire shit factory, and promoted to captain.
As they say in the Marine Corps, “There is only one original thief. Everyone else is trying to get their shit back”. I met this original thief. I kid you not, I met a major from the vietnam era who stole so much gear he built an orphanage and ran it for two years with money he got from stolen gear. Before the trucks would deliver the gear to base he would stop them and take half the stuff from the truck. This is before the days of inventory keeping en route to the base. He was crazy. He actually hit a nun at a grocery store said “She had it coming”.
One of my friends acquired a full sleeping system, another acquired two main packs and I acquired a flak jacket, sans the sapi plates (After I had my original acquired by someone else, I locked everything up and refused to give the combination to even the Guard Officer)