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Laundry 101

Submitted by Retired Gunnery Sgt. Thomas White

When I was a noncommissioned officer assigned to Marine Security Forces, two Marines approached me regarding their roommate. "Cpl. White, our roommate's wall locker really stinks," they said.

So that morning while holding guard mount, I decided to do a random wall locker inspection. Of course, I picked the Marine in question. When I finally arrived at this Marine's room his wall locker was A-J squared away. All of his shirts were hanging crisp, sleeves all folded together and hanging at the same height, all marked correctly, all Irish pennants removed. While confused, I looked down at the bottom of the wall locker and found the "smell" his other two roommates were talking about.

I turned to this Marine and asked, "Devil dog, what is in these two sea bags and why do they smell so bad?" The Marine replied, "Cpl. White, I have all of my dirty laundry in those two sea bags."

I have never seen two sea bags packed so tightly in all my time in the Corps. I told the Marine to empty out one of his sea bags because I was curious to see how much clothes were in this particular sea bag. The Marine was embarrassed and as red as a tomato.

The Marine looked up at me and said, "Corporal, I do not know how to wash clothes," while tears filled his eyes. I told the Marine, at 0900 you will take yourself down to the PX and buy laundry detergent and some drier sheets. At 1000 you will meet me up in the laundry room. The Marine said, "Yes corporal," and followed out his orders, while I posted and relieved my Marines.

I came back at 1000 to give this Marine "Laundry 101." The Marine told me his mother always washed his clothes and every payday, he would go out and buy new clothes because he was too embarrassed to ask his fellow Marines for help. After several hours of laundry, I returned in amazement to see piles and piles of neatly folded white and green T-shirts, skivvy drawers and one huge pile of green socks.

When it was all said and done, the Marine had enough T-shirts, socks and skivvy drawers to outfit our platoon of 60 Marines for two days. I then asked the young Marine, "Why don't you have a ton of cammies as well?"

The Marine replied "Corporal that's easy, I take them to the dry cleaners."

Guerillas

Submitted by Sgt. Patrick Devea

I was with Headquarters Battery, 11th Marine Regiment during the invasion of Iraq and the president had declared all major combat operations over. So we were receiving a convoy brief from our commanding officer, stating that if we came across any guerillas shooting at us we would stop and hunt them down.

Shortly after the brief one of my lance corporals came up to me and asked, "What did the CO mean about guerillas shooting? Does he mean there are animals out there shooting at people?"

As funny as it was, I could not believe that he didn't know (what guerillas were). It did make for a good laugh, which is just what a lot of people needed at that time.

Firing Back

Submitted by Staff Sgt. Cory Gehring

In the middle of a firefight on Route Mobile outside of Fallujah, Iraq, I had a gunner look back to his squad leader and say, "Hey, sergeant! They're shooting back!

I guess you had to be there to see the humor in it.

Bungee Jumping

Submitted by Sgt. Jake Floyd

I was deployed to the Persian Gulf with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit from 1998-1999 and on the way back we stopped in Phuket, Thailand. Prior to getting off the ship, we received our liberty brief and our "dos and don'ts." One of the major "don'ts" was no bungee jumping whatsoever – this was reiterated several times.

Four days before we were due to set sail, a room attendant from one of the local hotels found some pictures that a few Marines had forgotten. So the attendant delivered them to the shore patrol tent. Sure enough, the Marines decided to break the rules in, which the pictures revealed – naked bungee jumping.