3 Marines face charges of adultery, marrying for financial gain

[Sgt Leprechaun]

Good rant. Seriously. But this issue has been an issue (queer or not) since the 'marriage trend' of Marines began in the mid-1970's. Heck, your post could have come direct from the pages of "Leatherneck" mag in 1979....or Navy Times (no MC Times back then) circa 1988....or MC Times circa 1999. It's the time honored bivtch and one that, believe it or not, most SNCO's and Field grade officers happen to AGREE with.

But, officially, prohibiting marriage by LCpl's and below was actually contemplated in the early 1990's, and the hue/cry/rage/howls effectively shut it down and darned near ended a General's career who decided to speak frankly about it.

The thing is, all these policies about BAH/Comrats/whatever, are not set by HQMC....they are set down by DoD and sometimes, higher than that. Thus the USMC has little choice in how they are actually administered. You walk into Admin with a marriage cert, bingo/bango, it's a done deal and hardly any questions are asked. Been that way since at LEAST the 80's. Although, back then it wasn't uncommon for CO's to DENY marriage requests to LCpl's. It didn't mean much as they would then request mast and get approved but it did happen.

Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF): The single Marine in the barracks will ALWAYS get hosed in some form or another. Just the way it is. The way to escape some of that is to make rank. The other way is to...get married. Stupid but true.

[SirRoundSound]

Well, it at least takes a little of the sting away to know that Marines marrying for the benefits isn't as recent a phenomenon as I had thought.

And I guess deep down I know that there's no way Marines will stop getting married on a whim. It doesn't take much time in service to recognize that Marines making stupid life choices is like a constant law of physics, and without it, the whole space-time continuum would be thrown out of balance. Or at least Jacksonville landlords would have a tougher time finding young Marines from whom to extort BAH.

I guess I'm at least satisfied that, in this case, justice was done to three Marines who knew that what they were doing was wrong.

[Sgt Leprechaun]

And many times....that's all you get out of it....watching someone else get the green weenie for trying to out green weenie the Corps. You'll eventually lose THAT game every time!

[Old Marine]

SirRoundSound:

Been that way since I became a Marine. There was a period when I was active that married non NCO's did have to participate in the weekly field day's. It's the nature of the beast.

[Sgt Leprechaun]

Gunny, I remember that as well, having to come back to the barracks an supervise field day LOL. I didn't really have that much of an issue with that particular item, though, since it sort of falls under 'taking care of your troops', (so that some divkhead deck NCO or Police Sgt doesn't hose 'em).

[MOS4429]

Quite the rant, SRS. You make some valid points, and not to make light of it, some of what you said made me laugh.

It happens all the time, and I feel like it's one of the biggest, most unfair, most ignored problems in the Marine Corps today. (I'll pause now for you salty old dogs to jump down to the quick reply so you can grumble about how back when you were a Lance in 1775, you only made $50 a month, uphill, both ways, in the snow, living in a squad bay made of plywood stuck together with chewed up MRE gum... moving on)

...but last but not least not having to field day.

We've even talked about what being married would be like a couple of times. Why don't I marry her? I feel like I'm too young. I'm only 20 and she's only 19, and I feel like I'm not old enough to make such a mature and important decision.

And no one does anything to fix the problem.

So the single Marine has two choices:

In '85 I had a Sgt WM come to me to "confess" her dastardly deed. She married for convenience a Cpl in order to get the benefits (back then called BAQ, VHA, Comrats). There was nothing that could be done about it. It was a moral fraud because there was no love that existed and they did it to get money, and that was it. Quite frankly, in the case at hand, legally there is but one crime, and that is the two lesbians, one a Marine, living together. It will be interesting to see if the prosecutor can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there is a crime committed by the male Marines who married the lesbians. Not living together as a man and wife isn't a crime. I knew a number of married Marines in that situation. Adultry in the Marine Corps is a crime, yet rarely prosecuted - for obvious reasons.

But I hear your frustration. I was p****d at the WM and Cpl who made a mockery of marriage, but wasn't a thing I could do about it.

BTW, we did stick plywood together from chewed up MRE gum. We did it with gum and that crud they called fruit cake from sea rats! Didn't have MRE's till later around early 80s.

And on the field day, I know what you mean. Thursday night field days sucked, but I got news for you, when you do get married, I don't know that your sweet wife is gonna want to do all of your field days for ya!!

Too young at 20 and 19? Maybe. I got married at 20, and she was 19, but I was also an E-5, so yeah, I would say you are presently showing wisdom by waiting at least until you are an NCO. But barring that, once an NCO, can you apply for BAQ or whatever you call it and move off base? We could in the 70's and 80s, but things change and have no idea what the policy on that is today.

And you are right, nobody does anything to fix the problem, and that's probably cause nobody has come up with a solution yet that is doable. As you are learning the problem has been around for 30+ years.

Yeah, your choices are limited. Grin and bear it, move out, get rank and move out or get rank, married and move out. But just a word to the wise, getting married to move out means you will only inherit new challenges, and it will not resolve the problems you face. Crap, I was married in 81 and in 84 went to Oki unaccompanied and had to live in the barracks again and field day!

[Old Marine]

I believe that if you have living space in the barracks, then you should participate in the field day festivities on Thursday evenings.

Lance Cpl. Joe Sheet The Rag Man who is married doesn't tell you how he runs things around his quarters. I'm betting he runs the vac, swabs the floor, dusts off the pictures, laundry, dishes and maybe even does a little stew burning. You have to remember not a whole lot of these girls cook these days.