Etiquette

[Don Scott]

Former Marine. I attended a USMC Mess Night. What is etiquette regarding thank-yous and the like?
Don

[awbrown1462]

Don what is a Former Marine

[BauerBrat]

Don what is a Former Marine

Only one I know is Murtha, sorry he's an EX Marine. Not familiar with the terminology "former Marine"

[Don Scott]

Sorry, but when I set my Profile, Former Marine was an option, so I thought maybe it was proper in this forum. Forgive me.
Don

[awbrown1462]

I dont think he is real or needs to fill out his profile a little

[awbrown1462]

this is why I said the above post Don

About Don Scott <DL class="list_no_decoration profilefield_list"><DT class=shade>Rank <DD>E-1 <DT class=shade>Year Entered Marine corps <DD>1969 <DT class=shade>Year Exited Marine Corps <DD>Still in Service </DD></DL>

[Don Scott]

Okay, I'm on it. Need answers quick. Just joined the site. I'll fill out the details of my profile this afternoon.
Cut me some slack, guys.
Don

[BauerBrat]

Sorry, but when I set my Profile, Former Marine was an option, so I thought maybe it was proper in this forum. Forgive me.
Don

Don with all due respect do you know how to fill out your profile? Some new members don't. Click on your screen name Don Scoot and look for profile, and simply fill it in as much as you want. We get lots of posers on here

[Don Scott]

Okay, I've filled in the profile.
Can anyone help me with my question?
Don

[BauerBrat]

Okay, I've filled in the profile.
Can anyone help me with my question?
Don


I doubt it......:D

Seriously there is one person, a woman Marine, Softballcatch who can probably help. She's very active in such things. She's not on line now but I'll send her a PM for you. In the meantime perhaps a kind soul will lend some help


BTW welcome aboard Don

Semper Fi brother :thumbup:

[USNAviator]

Okay, I've filled in the profile.
Can anyone help me with my question?
Don


Don

I will send PM to softballcatch and see if she can help out. If not perhaps she knows someone who can

Fair Winds

[USNAviator]

Don

Message sent, she's usually on around 17:00 or so.

[Don Scott]

Thank you very much.
Don

[SgtJane08]

Just a suggestion, Don, but you might call HQMC and speak with someone there. I for one always tried to avoid very formal occasions, so I'm not one who could help, but HQMC would be your best bet. My experience from working in admin is that they are very helpful or know where to refer you to.

[Lisa 23]

Don Scott.......this is about the best advice you're going to get. <br />
I do know in order to wear the Marine Corps uniform, you have to comply with the weight and grooming standards of todays Marine...

[Don Scott]

Thanks for the reply. I attended the function this past Monday evening. A good time was had by all.

My question is what is expected following Mess Night by way of thank-you's to the organization or the individual members who made it possible for me to attend.

Don

[Lisa 23]

Just curious....what was the function you attended, and what was the name of the organization who made it possible for you to attend?

[Don Scott]

Naval Justice School, Newport, RI - Mess Night.
Don

[USNAviator]

Naval Justice School, Newport, RI - Mess Night.
Don

Beautiful area, graduated from the War College in '87. Spent part of last summer sailing in Narraganset Bay.

[SGT7477]

Okay, I'm on it. Need answers quick. Just joined the site. I'll fill out the details of my profile this afternoon.
Cut me some slack, guys.
Don
Marines never cut any slack, Semper Fidelis Brother.:D

[Rocky C]

I Love Rhode Island :)

[R Landry]

Introduction
Except for the annual celebration of the Marine Corps Birthday, no social function associated with the smaller of America’s naval services is more enjoyed, admired and imitated than the mess night. Early in 1977, the headquarters of the III Marine Amphibious Force on Okinawa organized a mess night to honor its popular commanding general, Major General Joseph Koler, Jr., on the occasion of his detachment. Planners eschewed any notions of turning the evening’s merriment into one of Bacchanalian revelry, and instead pursued a program to highlight our rich martial traditions. Appropriate reference was made during the evening to the history of the other armed services, and thus the assembled Marines paid deference to the senior officers of the Army, Navy and Air Force in attendance. Used to such affairs, most of the Leathernecks who participated remained nonplussed if not bemused by the lack of post-dinner high jinks and the heavy weight of so many senior officers. But one participant, the commanding general of Kadena Air Force Base, departed the evening visibly moved by what he had witnessed. The following day, General Koler’s aide-de-camp received a telephone call from his counterpart at Kadena: “Driving home from your mess night last night, the general remarked ‘that was the best affair I’ve ever attended; you call the Marines and find out how it’s done—and we’re going to have one just like it.’”
Most Marines likely shared the Air Force general’s sentiments following their first mess night; I know I did. By the time I entered The Basic School (TBS) in 1963, a mess night for each class had become an institution. We even had a class on the subject, and I recall our company executive officer’s wry admonishments concerning such taboos as loosening one’s tight collar or imbibing to the point of passing out at the dinner table. He devoted several minutes to explain the requirement for bladder control and the planning that accompanied it. We learned that the bugle call “last call for the head” just prior to marching into dinner was perhaps the most important musical accompaniment. Whatever else we might have learned from the company executive officer’s class on mess nights, the requirement to remain at the table once dinner had begun appeared absolute.
The post band played and we marched into dinner adhering rigidly to custom and tradition. Our presence seemed to indicate formal initiation into the ranks of such icons as John Quick, Dan Dailey, Smedley Butler, John Lejeune and Chesty Puller. Just as the company executive officer explained, we ate and drank our way through a multi-course dinner conforming strictly to custom and tradition. Stewards filled our wine glasses when appropriate, and the serving and removal of courses evolved with the panache of a sunset parade at “Eighth and Eye.” When we uttered that last toast, “to the Corps,” all the aches and pains of the endless days and nights in the field, the bruises and sore muscles from the obstacle course and the drudgery of classroom lectures melted away. No veteran of Belleau Wood, Saipan, or Frozen Chosin could have been more proud to be a Marine. The evening reached its climax for many of us as we joined our seniors at the bar, snifters of brandy in hand. Some of our instructors had served in both World War II and the Korean War. Like a mess night should be, it was an evening to remember.
In the years following my own Marine Corps career, the institution of the mess night (or a Dining In or similar affair at which spouses attend) waxed and waned. Perhaps the exigencies of the Vietnam War precluded serious attention to formalized eating and drinking. I recall a rather formal dinner at An Hoa in late 1968, held to honor the departure of the regimental commander. But except for a token glass of fizzy wine and a slight improvement over the rations usually offered each evening, nothing appeared to suggest a mess night. Between Vietnam tours, I served with the Marine detachment in a heavy cruiser. While the Navy conducts mealtimes in the wardroom with far more rigidity and ceremony than the other services, nothing I witnessed during that tour even remotely resembled a mess night or a formal dinner.
By the 1970s, the institution of the mess night began to creep back into our professional and social lexicon. Marines, it appeared, wanted to dress up and “eat and drink by the numbers,” all the while reminding themselves of the hallowed traditions, customs and rich history of their Corps. Sometimes, the conduct of such affairs became excessively spirituous or bordered on the insubordinate. A friend reported the officers of one battalion in our regiment conducted a “mess night in the field” during maneuvers. Like those of us with the 5th Marines at An Hoa a decade before, these officers had their token cup of sparkling wine and a plate of whatever the battalion field mess was serving for supper. As the chilly desert wind blew sand across the improvised table, the officers of this unit conducted the affair with considerable sang-froid without the regimental commander ever knowing of it! A contemporary reported that, following a mess night held on Okinawa in the immediate post-Vietnam era, an outraged battalion commander held a mess night every night for a week following the unprofessional and ungentlemanly conduct of his officers at the original gathering; apparently by evening number seven, they “got it right.”
Almost two decades after my first mess night, I attended my last. Ironically, it was held at TBS, but much, if not everything, had changed. The young lieutenants appeared to have been primed, not with instruction on the rich tradition they were about to witness, but with admonitions concerning the potential lethality (figuratively and professionally) of alcohol abuse. The base band of my days as a young officer had disappeared; only a bugler and a drummer appeared. The latter summoned us to dinner with a short selection; perhaps it was “officers’ call,” “adjutant’s call,” or some such. The young officers appeared not nearly as excited as my class, long since retired, and seemed to view the affair as simply another evolution in their passage through TBS. One young officer informed me that his platoon, through the gentle beguilement of the platoon commander, had vowed to rise at 4:00 A.M. the following morning for an “extra” running of the Physical Fitness Test (PFT). Arugha!
The menu reflected a parsimonious adherence to custom and tradition, and a rigid adequacy of food and drink. The soup course had disappeared over the years, while the fish course remained only as a small seafood cocktail drowning in catsup. A traditional prime rib came as overcooked roast beef, and the lone drummer made his only appearance of the evening to escort the token meat course to the president of the mess for approval. Stewards served a salad next, groaning under a heavy layer of bleu dressing, followed by coffee and dessert—a gooey slice of cheese cake smothered with syrupy, cherry sauce. Cigars appeared and the president of the mess lit the smoking lamp; however, ashtrays had not been provided. It didn’t seem to matter because most of the young officers snuffed out their cigars into the uneaten cheese cake after a few token puffs. I observed more than one lieutenant bring out his container of chewing tobacco—arugha!
A musical accompaniment to the dinner came from the TBS Chorus, the drummer and bugler of the mess intoned: “gentlemen, please join me at the bar.” It proved to be the shortest gathering recorded at any mess night. The guest of honor had not even departed when a sizeable portion of the lieutenants—presumably those earmarked to take the PFT before sunrise the following morning—disappeared. Those officers and guests remaining quaffed their brandy or diet soda and departed. Sadly, the young officers of this TBS class had not attended a mess night.
A variety of stimuli have provoked the preparation of this study, not the least of which are the disappointing mess night witnessed that evening at TBS. As the primary organizer of the mess night in Okinawa, previously mentioned, I received the advice and encouragement of any number of staff officers in our headquarters. These helpful inputs usually came accompanied with the loan of a dog-eared pamphlet, adorned with a unit’s crest, that were provided as souvenirs at earlier mess nights. As I read them over, the historian in me became increasingly challenged: the narratives appeared to have been copied from the same source. Even the errors in grammar continued faithfully from pamphlet to pamphlet! Constant reference to the origins of our tradition of the mess night to “Eighth and Eye” intrigued me. I vowed to research and write on the subject.
A subsequent tour in the Washington, D.C. area allowed me to pursue this goal. Finding little or nothing on the subject at the Marine Corps Historical Center, except for the dreary and plagiarized materials that I already read, I was advised to telephone Colonel Robert D. Heinl, Jr.: “He knows everything about the subject,” was the sage advice. As predicted, the eminence gris of Marine Corps history steered me in the correct direction. He advised I ignore the claims our mess night tradition originated at “Eighth and Eye.” An article in the Washington Evening Star, appearing on the occasion of the demolition of the old Center House in 1908, prompted later readers to suggest that perhaps something like mess nights occurred there. But a careful reading of the oftcited piece makes no such claim:


Tales are told of nights of revelry, when the wine flowed and souls of great men, freed from the cares of state, allowed their with and spirit to soar unhampered while gracing the officers’ mess beneath the beams of the old house. The rafters which once rang with the laughter of Presidents now lie in grim disorder…
Most important, Colonel Heinl suggested I contact General Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr. Following that lead about the British mess nights in China, I corresponded with Lieutenant General Victor H. Krulak and read Brigadier General Robert C. Williams’ charming memoir. Finally, Colonel Heinl recalled mention of affairs vaguely similar to a mess night at the turn of this century in the personal papers of senior officers, maintained at the Marine Corps Research Center. The stimulus for such an inquiry had languished for a decade or more, clues had been provided by the Marine Corps’ most eminent historian and it appeared as if I had appeared as if I had to accept my own challenge. In response to my essay on mess nights, appearing in the Marine Corps Gazette in 1979, General Shepherd commented: “I trust your article will influence commanding officers to revive the Marine Corps mess night, so much enjoyed by their predecessors and of value in promoting comradeship among officers on a post or organization.”