All you up and coming FLEET Marines

[mrbsox]

What is Sea Duty like ??

Buy a STEEL dumpster, paint it gray, move your family in for 6 months

Ask ALL of the neighbors you don’t like to live with you

Route ALL plumbing and wiring on the interior exposed walls of your house

Take every electronic component of your mega dollar Surround Sound system apart, attach a ground wire to the chassis boards, and tape it back together

Mount a fluorescent light under the coffee table, and lay there to read

Keep ALL of your worldly possessions in a 1 cubic ft ‘gym’ locker, and a sea bag

Require every member of the family to be QUALIFIED to run appliances, ie washer, vacuum, can opener…

Put your lawn more in the center of the house, and run it 24/7 for the proper noise level

Put ‘machine oil’ in the humidifier, and set to HIGH

Paint your house every 2 months

Overhaul EVERY appliance and electric tool you own every week

Mount your ‘rack’ within 8 inches of the ceiling so you have to get out and back in to turn over

Have your kids (on fire watch) shine a light in your eyes every 2 hours and say “Sorry, wrong rack”

Promise your family Steak for dinner, make them wait for an hour

‘SORRY, WE’RE OUT OF STEAK’. Serve half cold hotdogs

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, turn the water heater up to 300 degrees. Tuesday and Thursday turn it off.

You old Salts... enjoy the memories !!! :marine:

[snipowsky]

lmao@mrbsox! TRUE TRUE!

[HardJedi]

very funny. :D

[Phantom Blooper]

So you want a taste of the 'deployment experience'? Here's a checklist of things you can do right in your own home:


1. Sleep on a cot in the garage.

2. Replace the garage door with a curtain.

3. Two hours after you go to sleep, have your wife or girlfriend whip open the curtain, shine a flashlight in your eyes and mumble, "Sorry, wrong cot."

4. Hang a green plastic sheet down from the middle of your bathtub and move the showerhead down to chest level. Keep four inches of soapy cold water on the floor. Stop cleaning the toilet and pee everywhere but in the toilet itself. For a more realistic deployed bathroom experience, stop using your bathroom and use a neighbor's. Choose a neighbor who lives at least a quarter mile away.

5. When you take showers, wear flip-flops and keep the lights off.

6. Every time there is a thunderstorm, go sit in a wobbly rocking chair and dump dirt on your head.

7. Put lube oil in your humidifier instead of water and set it on "HIGH" for that tactical generator smell.

8. Don't watch TV except for movies in the middle of the night. Have your family vote on which movie to watch and then show a different one.

9. Leave a lawnmower running in your living room 24 hours a day for proper noise level.

10. Have the paperboy give you a haircut.

11. Buy a trash compactor and only use it once a week. Store up garbage in the other side of your bathtub.

12. Set your alarm clock to go off at random times during the night. When it goes off, jump out of bed and get to the shower as fast as you can. Simulate there is no hot water by running out into your yard and breaking out the garden hose.

13. Once a month, take every major appliance completely apart and put it back together again.

14. Use 18 scoops of coffee per pot and allow it to sit for five or six hours before drinking.

15. Invite at least 185 people you don't really like because of their strange hygiene habits to come and visit for a couple of months. Exchange clothes with them.

16. Have a fluorescent lamp installed on the bottom of your coffee table and lie under it to read.

17. Raise the thresholds and lower the top sills of your front and back doors so that you either stumble or hit your head every time you pass through.

18. Keep a roll of toilet paper on your night stand and bring it to the bathroom with you along with your rifle and a flashlight.

19. Go to the bathroom when you just have to pass gas, "just in case."

20. Wash only 15 items of laundry per week. Roll up the semi-wet clean clothes in a ball. Place them in a cloth sack in the corner of the garage where the cat pees. After a week, unroll them and, without ironing or removing the mildew, wear them to professional meetings and family gatherings. Pretend you don't know what you look or smell like.

21. Eat a single M&M every Sunday and convince yourself it's for Malaria.

22. Demand each family member be limited to 10 minutes per week for a morale phone call. Enforce this with your teenage daughter.

23. Sandbag the floor of your car to protect from mine blasts and fragmentation.

24. While traveling down roads in your car, stop at each overpass and culvert and inspect them for remotely detonated explosives before proceeding.

25. Fire off 50 cherry bombs simultaneously in your driveway at 3:00 a.m. When startled neighbors appear, tell them all is well, you are just registering mortars.

26. Spread gravel throughout your house and yard.

27. Make your family dig a survivability position with overhead cover in the backyard. Complain that the 4x4s are not 8 inches on center and make them rebuild it.

28. When your 5-year-old asks for a stick of gum, have him find the exact stick and flavor he wants on the Internet and print out the web page. Type up a form and staple the web page to the back. Submit the paperwork to your spouse for processing. After two weeks, give your son the gum.

29. Wait for the coldest/ hottest day of the year and announce to your family that there will be no heat/air conditioning that day so you can perform much needed maintenance on the heater/ air conditioner. Tell them you are doing this so they won't get cold/ hot.

30. Go to the worst crime-infested place you can find, heavily armed, wearing a flak jacket and a Kevlar helmet. Set up shop in a tent in a vacant lot. Announce to the residents that you are there to help them.

[HardJedi]

also pretty good Blooper

[caryverell]

I still feel most comfortable smelling cotton canvas tarp / tent treated w/ water repellent as it heats up mid morning. I still would just asoon have a glass of bug juice as a coca cola. I still wake more often due to strange silence than an assortment of obnoxious sounds. It's like the previous submission - my oath had no expiration date. It just does not stop. Thankfully we tend to remember the good rather than the bad. As for the grumbling, go ahead, you've earned the priveledge.

[TracGunny]

Here's my contribution to the Fleet experience:

http://www.leatherneck.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15183

Warning: it is a LONG read...

Disclamer: I ain't no accomplished writer...

[cjwright90]

LMAO-I was only on the water for 4 days and saw much of this!

[DSchmitke]

I remember them well brings back some good & bad times.