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BobbyDWV
02-06-07, 06:57 PM
I joined the corps last July. Ever since I have pretty much excelled in everything I have done. My only problem is that I cant adjust to being away from home. I have a girlfriend, a big family and alot of good friends back at home and I just cant quit thinking about them. Im in 29 Palms for Com school right now, which is all the way on the other side of the country from my home state. My question is, how did you guys over come homesickness when you were new marines?

Thanks in advance.

PFC Davis

10thzodiac
02-06-07, 06:58 PM
I joined the corps last July. Ever since I have pretty much excelled in everything I have done. My only problem is that I cant adjust to being away from home. I have a girlfriend, a big family and alot of good friends back at home and I just cant quit thinking about them. Im in 29 Palms for Com school right now, which is all the way on the other side of the country from my home state. My question is, how did you guys over come homesickness when you were new marines?

Thanks in advance.

PFC Davis

I just had me one good cry http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/17.gif !

DWG
02-06-07, 07:20 PM
Ignore 10Z; his family sold him to the Corps when he was 16 and the gypsys nor the circus would take him! It's just part of growing up and getting used to being out on your own. They used to tell us to get involved in church or youth groups (little league, stuff like that). I never tried it but I didn't come from a close family. You're a Marine for cripes sakes, you'll adapt and overcome!

:D :thumbup: :cry:

10thzodiac
02-06-07, 07:24 PM
If you think I was bad, we had this kid in Okinawa that cried his-self to sleep every night. The guys use to throw those cheap flimsy 3RD MARDIV mattresses on top of him to muffle the crying so they could sleep.

Just when you thought you seen (heard) everything...

The1stSgt
02-06-07, 07:25 PM
Homesickness is a common occurrence.

However, some individuals have more of a time of it than others. It can get bad enough that it effects a Marine's performance of duties and can require a psychological assessment. If the conditions is bad enough, an individual could be diagnosed with an adjustment disorder. Severe cases involve depression, substance abuse, and suicidal ideations or attempts.

Write home frequently, but don't call home frequently. Call your girlfriend no more than once a week and your folks once every two weeks. If you want to write them every day, then write them. Don't focus on how homesick you are, but rather focus on how much you love them and how excited you are about your new experience in the Corps.

Keep yourself busy with healthy activities during your off duty hours with sports, hobbies, working out, off duty education, church attendance, writing, reading, praying, drawing, playing a musical instrument, etc., etc.

You need to adjust to being away from your family and you will over time. Just focus on your job as a Marine and participate in healthy off duty activities. It'll get better.

Just be thankful that you are homesick. Some Marines came into the Corps with no family to be homesick for.

MacAngus
02-06-07, 07:31 PM
Hey bobby i was in the stumps for my whole 4 years except deployments around the world. I've got some advice I was in your position i'm from the east coast and it was a big change. I don't wanna be harsh but i'm going to be because i lived what you're going through.1st get rid of the girlfriend I had the same g/f since middle school allthe way through high school I missed out on alot in my 1st year in the corps because she didn't want me going out drinking what a stupid move. Get together with some other jarheads take a ride to laughlin nevada or LA or Vegas and party like marines know how to with out having to put up with nagging. You will get used to being out of mommy's nest when you are having a great time on the weekends and 72's and 96's with your fellow marines. Keep in touch with your friends and family but try not to be the kid crying on the phone at the barracks. It helps if you study hard at your mos school and party on the weekends get out and see all the places besides that **** hole of a town 29 palms. Don't mope around because you're there for a year addapt and overcome don't let the bastards grind you down I know it's hot and depressing there. Ileft there 2 years ago and will never go back. Just remeber this is proboly going to be the most fun part of the corps if you get out. It changed for me when I got invited to go to lake havasu for spring break after that i couldn't be found on or near the base any weekend in the next 4 years. I hope I helped a little. Stick in there and try and take a cab and some marines out this weekend things will change for the better.Let me know how things are going.

10thzodiac
02-06-07, 07:32 PM
Tijuana use to work for me http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/04.gif

Loved Okinawa, I could fall in love with five different women in one night for ten bucks http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/27.gif thata make you forget about being homesick !

SkilletsUSMC
02-06-07, 07:33 PM
I joined the corps last July. Ever since I have pretty much excelled in everything I have done. My only problem is that I cant adjust to being away from home. I have a girlfriend, a big family and alot of good friends back at home and I just cant quit thinking about them. Im in 29 Palms for Com school right now, which is all the way on the other side of the country from my home state. My question is, how did you guys over come homesickness when you were new marines?

Thanks in advance.

PFC Davis

Read lots of books, spend more time learning your MOS, Lift weights, tip back a few with your school buddies, Meet a Girl out in town, Read more books, Stay away from negative Marines, buy an Ipod, go running....

ANYTHING you can do to keep a positive outlook and take your mind away from being away helps. You will be in the fleet soon, and it will begin to get better eventually.

Here are things you SHOULD NOT DO! Buy tons of useless junk, Hang out in town where the druggies are, eat nasty food, waste ALL of your libo getting smashed, get attached to a girl out in town, dwell on how much you miss home, or hate the Marine Corps... Remember, you are the low man on the totem pole right now. You are SUPPOSED to hate it. As time goes by you will have done more and rate more, and it all becomes gravy. Next thing you know you will be old and grey with a red USMC hat, posting messages on leatherneck.com about how much you miss the Corps, and how "back in your day......"

If you get stationed out in Camp Pendleton and need someone to show you the good spots, or a ride or anything, hit me up, and Ill see what I can do.

Good luck Marine

10thzodiac
02-06-07, 07:41 PM
Good post SkilletsUSMC

I just PMed Bobby, but would like to share this with all of you too.

You are normal

<HR style="COLOR: #ccccff" SIZE=1><!-- / icon and title --><!-- message -->Bobby,

You are lucky, I didn't have the girl back home or much family or friends that really cared.

I had my [breakdown] cry, right after I realized I was stuck in a world of s-hit and my former girlfriend http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/07.gif was going to marry a classmate (Marine in Hawaii) and I couldn't get home to stop her because they were sending me Comm school again (2531/2511).

They lasted 4 years and two boys. She's a multi-millionaire in Hawaii now and recently told me if I left my wife of 42 years and got back with her she'd give me the best sex I ever had http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/11.gif

Oh yeah, good thing they sent me to school, she was pregnant http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/34.gif !

Stay low,

SF

Richard

SkilletsUSMC
02-06-07, 07:46 PM
She's a multi-millionaire in Hawaii now and recently told me if I left my wife of 42 years and got back with her she'd give me the best sex I ever had http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/11.gif

wife of 42 years.... http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:AYUndebmIyHgNM:http://www.lawandjustice.org.uk/scale.gif multi milionare

Damn... BIG delema...:D

SkilletsUSMC
02-06-07, 07:48 PM
Damnit picture wont work...

MacAngus
02-06-07, 07:53 PM
10th zodiac is right .Remeber buy me drinkie how bout the banana show that made me forget about home for sure.Oki was great it was great at gate 2 street and fujiyamas and (sinville)kinville.

10thzodiac
02-06-07, 07:56 PM
wife of 42 years....http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:MMWn5sG8cLIlLM:http://robinstephensesq.com....multi milionare

Damn... BIG delema...

No, not really !
check the date:


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The1stSgt
02-06-07, 07:56 PM
Next thing you know you will be old and grey with a red USMC hat, posting messages on leatherneck.com about how much you miss the Corps, and how "back in your day......"

Skillets, you got me pegged.

DWG
02-06-07, 08:00 PM
One common thread in all these posts-every damn one of us was homesick at some point and to some degree! It is normal (sometimes even 10Z is right-damn rarely, but sometimes) Just hang in there!

SkilletsUSMC
02-06-07, 08:03 PM
Skillets, you got me pegged.

Last Friday, I escorted some 1MARDIV Old Corps Marines arround camp horno. It was a blast! We even had a peleliu vet there.

10thzodiac
02-06-07, 08:10 PM
One common thread in all these posts-every damn one of us was homesick at some point and to some degree! It is normal (sometimes even 10Z is right-damn rarely, but sometimes) Just hang in there!

Better be careful, I'm being told that allot lately, pretty soon I'll have to switch sides if you guys keep it up, that is, so we won't bore each other to death with amens... http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/24.gif

10thzodiac
02-06-07, 08:13 PM
Last Friday, I escorted some 1MARDIV Old Corps Marines arround camp horno. It was a blast! We even had a peleliu vet there.

My second cousin (same surname) is a Peleliu Vet (Marine Search-lights WW II) lives in Southern Illinois, his son was a Marine too.

crate78
02-06-07, 09:21 PM
Maybe I was abnormal, but I don't recall ever being homesick. I had too much wanderlust in me. All my life I've had a problem with the horizon. I want to see what's on the other side of it.

Two weeks after our daughter graduated from college, she loaded up her car and moved 1200 miles to DC to build a career. If she was ever homesick, she never let on.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not putting down anyone who ever was homesick, that's just the way it's been in our family.

crate

Quinbo
02-06-07, 11:19 PM
Homesick is material.
It was almost a ritual... 2 weeks in the field and the main topic on day 12 was food.... how we would eat a giant steak and come back for seconds.... day 13 the entire conversation would shift from food to a bed with a pillow instead of a hole in the ground with a gas mask wrapped in a poncho liner..... day 14 .... everyone was talking about a real porcelein place to plant an MRE and a real tub bath or even a hot shower.....then

Well fellas we are gonna be here another two weeks so....
The conversations would shift to ... no doggone mail and this chow stinks and whah whahh wah and boo hoo hoo.

Simple to think of something that makes you smile .... Go recite SMEAC to your sergeant ... he will smile even though he would like a giant steak and ask for seconds then a hot tub bath and sleep on a real pillow.

10thzodiac
02-07-07, 01:47 PM
10th zodiac is right .Remeber buy me drinkie how bout the banana show that made me forget about home for sure.Oki was great it was great at gate 2 street and fujiyamas and (sinville)kinville.

BC Street, Four Corners and Futenma http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/07.gif

Once when visiting Oki (as a civilian) one of my son's HS buddies was stationed in my old outfit. I gave him a call and talked to the duty and told him I was Captain so-and-so and I wanted to talk to Joe G.

When he came to the phone even though I used my real name he thought I was some Marine Captain http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/18.gif probably still in shock from boot camp.

I told him I was up at the Okinawa Sheraton (not far from Zukeran) and my son's older sister was bored and if he would take her clubbing.

They hit all my old haunts http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/11.gif

Footnote: Joe, when he graduated HS neither his mother or father came and we sorta filled in a little to take their place. Did you ever see a kid walk home from HS graduation alone, people suck. Joe later used steroids for body building and wound up having to get a pacemaker in his twenties.

drumcorpssnare
02-07-07, 02:59 PM
Even our beloved "Chesty" Puller was homesick once in a while. He wrote to his wife often, and it was rare if he didn't mention missing her and the kids.
Life's rough sometimes...but you're a US Marine! You'll make it.:thumbup:
drumcorpssnare:usmc:

WalkingMan
02-07-07, 05:50 PM
I joined the corps last July. Ever since I have pretty much excelled in everything I have done. My only problem is that I cant adjust to being away from home. I have a girlfriend, a big family and alot of good friends back at home and I just cant quit thinking about them. Im in 29 Palms for Com school right now, which is all the way on the other side of the country from my home state. My question is, how did you guys over come homesickness when you were new marines?

Thanks in advance.

PFC Davis

I think I stopped feeling homesick in bootcamp, about the time my girlfriend sent me the Dear John Letter.

I stopped thinking about home at all by the time I hit the bush with a grunt company in Viet Nam.

I think it might be tougher nowadays, because communicating with the people back home is so much easier than it was in the 1960's.

crate78
02-07-07, 08:45 PM
You're probably right, Robert. Back then , we were no where near as connected to the home front as service personnel are now. We had our lives to live and the folks at home had theirs.

In 1956 I was on an aircraft carrier in the Suez Canal area when we heard a blurb on the ship's radio that half of Milford, Nebraska had been wiped out by a tornado. It didn't say which half, what direction it went, or any other details. Back then, the only way a phone call was possible was through the Red Cross in an emergency--and there was no emegency on my end.

After a couple of days, I figured no news is good news. I got a letter a week or ten days later from my parents saying the tornado didn't come within five miles of them. Nowadays, there would have been phone calls and emails while the sirens were still going. Not that that's all bad, it's just a different lifestyle.

crate

Ignition
02-07-07, 11:30 PM
you see this thing called jim beam..... let me introduce you to him.

He fuels most of 29 palms.



LOL!

10thzodiac
02-08-07, 08:26 AM
Jim Beam fueled HQ Platoon B-1-11 in Pendleton 1962. As soon as the decks were clear [E-5 and above] our squad bay became a hillbilly bucket of blood barroom. Broken jaws, up all night were the norm.

It finally culminated with the Provost Marshall sending in an army of MP's to break it up. There were feathers knee deep from the all night drunken pillow fights. The firing platoons even joined in that night, the whole ****** battery was up for grabs, LMAO http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/18.gif, later one of the FDC corporals got locked up breaking a MP Lieutenants jaw in the Philippines, we had some hard drinking kids.

Sorta makes me homesick for the good ole days http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/17.gif is 64 to old ?

sdk87to91
02-08-07, 02:04 PM
Get XM radio and it is feels like always being at home. ( I wonder if it works in Iraq?)

I loved the stumps because I was there on a deployment from El Toro where the city was getting me down.

MacAngus
02-08-07, 02:41 PM
Bobby does a big woman named kiki still work at the px in the stumps she worked in the little side of the px? She was always nice to us