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View Full Version : WTH Is An ega?



GyG1345
01-09-03, 10:49 AM
What The Hell Is An EGA? (http://www.angelfire.com/ca/dickg/usmcemblem.html)

The above webpage came about as the result of an article in Leatherneck a couple years ago regarding the observance by a former Marine Corps Sergeant Major that it was becoming common among new Marines to refer to our Marine Corps Emblem as an ega.

I must admit that up to that time I was myself beginning to use that term, at times, also.

The article by the SgtMaj made a lotta sense, and I decided to check myself and return to the correct term (Emblem), and I also went ahead and put up this humble website example on the subject.

Some of the URL/Links on that site may now be dead, as always happens sooner or later--I hate to use links on my pages anymore as this always happens--the only alternative I can see is to cut-n-paste the website rather than link it, but then owners of such pages generally don't mind your linking to them but are not altogether receptive to anything else.

Semper Fidelis,

DickG

Red Dragon
01-09-03, 11:16 AM
From what I seen and read on different Marine sites, somebody got real lazy and shortened the Eagle, Globe and Anchor our beloved ensigna of our beloved Corps. At the same time by shortening it they have lost the true meaning of it.

Red Dragon aka HL

GyG1345
01-09-03, 11:33 AM
I think it was beginning to be used in catalogs of Marine Corps gear and listed items in shortened form. Even now on the Net you will see items for sale w/ega listed, etc.

There has always been the tendency to abbreviate anything and everything. Even more so military terms.

The use of the pay grades, e.g. that E-5, that E-4 for the actual rank title of Sergeant and Corporal is a classic example/case in point, I think.

Understandably, this grew from the big restructuring of the enlisted rank structure of 1959. Prior to that I never heard anyone referred to by a paygrade, but only by rank.

The changeover involved all the old rank titles changed into new paygrades; and to complicate matters more, the old ranks were continued along with the new ranks together in a transition period of several years. As a result, we had two corporals (both in paygrades E-3 and E-4) and also two sergeants (both in paygrades E-4 and E-5, etc.). Even further, the old ranks were used with the word "Acting in fron of the old rak, Cpl, Sgt,SSgt, etc. Then, for a while, they added the paygradr (e.g. E-4, etc.) at the end of the rank title--this went back and forth for a while too.

Consequently, it was just less complicated for some to start referring to Marines in whatever their paygrade was at the time.

Well, it has been some forty years since the transition period for the rank changeover ended, but the use of paygrades vice the rank title still prevails to a great degree among Marines--Marines who wern't even born forty years ago in most cases! Think of that.

firstsgtmike
01-09-03, 01:54 PM
I apologized once. And once is enough!

GyG1345
01-09-03, 02:01 PM
Yep!