How Did You End Up Joining The Corps?

[Mongoose]

Dee, it's hard for me to imagine you being stuck in a one horse town.

[Mongoose]

Groovy, man!

[cpllawson]

Bored with Life in Hamilton Ohio I had the urge to travel but no money to go far so as I made my rounds to the recruit services this marine in dress blues sez wanna see San Diego? why sign here and we,ll measure you for a set of dress blues and get you a seat on a airplane an this time tomorrow you,l be walking down Broadway in Sunny San Diego. Well there was a plane ride but NO Dress Blues only a lot of Cuzzin Marine DI ,s telling how much I was going to Hate my fate for the next 14 wks. Cpllawson

[JimEnglish]

I had just turned 19 and was living in Eugene. Things were not going well for me. I was working part time as a telemarketer and living in a motel. One morning I was wandering around the downtown area and I came upon this recruiting poster that showed a pair of Marines in dress blues. While I was looking at the poster, a voice behind me says "Those uniforms look pretty sharp, don't they?"
The recruiter invited me into his office for a cup of coffee and asked me to take a quick, 50 question test. I tough the questions were easy, but I missed one. He told me that even so, it was sill the highest score he had seen since he was assigned to Eugene. That was probably BS, but he talked me into gong down to the Federal Building and taking the ASVAB. When the results were in, he offered me a guaranteed electronics MOS and $1500 bonus when I completed school. I shipped out 10 days later. And yes, I collected that bonus (less taxes).

[cameeob2003]

In my younger years I ran with the wrong crowd. Dropped out of high school, the people I called my friends were in and out of jail. My entire situation was not in a good place. Luckily I was not one of the ones to get into any actual trouble with the cops but there were a few situations that it was just that, luck.

I had seen the commercials on TV as a kid and knew that if I was ever joining any branch it would be the Corps. To make a long story short I went to the recruiters office asked to be shipped out asap, the next day was on a plane. Looking back it was the best choice I ever made!

Semper Fi!

[USMC 2571]

Those are great stories. The paths that led us into the Corps are many and varied, but very interesting. Keep em coming. I started this thread 11-20-15 and hopefully it will keep going.

[Faydoi]

I was bored

[steel maker]

In about 1960, as a third grader in a mid-west Catholic school, I checked out a library copy of "Guadalcanal Diary" by Richard Tregaskis. I read it from cover to cover several times before reporting it lost. It is the only item I can remember stealing over the course of my 66 year life span. The book lit my fuse.

Books like "Battle Cry", "Streets Without Joy", "Hell in a Very Small Place" and the photographs of David Douglas Duncan kept the flame alive. All I ever wanted to become was a Marine.

My mother, to dissuade me, gifted a copy of Trumbo's, "Johnny Got his Gun." Its a potent, powerful, anti-war polemic and a sobering chronicle of combat's expense. I was undeterred.

As a last resort, in 1967 my parents took me from our home in Chicago to visit Uncle Marty, in Pittsburgh. Marty was a WWII Marine veteran of the Pacific Campaign. His service included a horrific ordeal on Iwo Jima. Though he never discussed his experiences, he returned from that agony a changed man; quiet, sober, serious, aged beyond his years. I did not know Marty very well. No one did. He was a Slovak immigrant and a depression era survivor long before war engulfed him.

When we arrived at his home, following some brief pleasantries, my mother said to me, "Well, John, tell your Uncle Marty what you are planning to do." I hesitated and struggled for the words to express my plan to enlist in the Marine Corps as soon as I turned 18.

When I got it out, Marty's eyes became moist. He cleared his throat, rose to his feet and crossed the room to embrace me in a warm hug. He pulled back, looked in my eyes and I could see that he was crying. The first thing he said was, "John, I never had steak until I joined the Marine Corps." He looked at me for a minute longer before hugging me again and saying, "You will never regret your decision to become a Marine."

I could go on...there were so many other triggers. My Junior year of High School was the Tet Offensive, Khe Sahn, the assassinations of MLK and Bobby Kennedy, The Democratic National Convention...all witnessed in nearly real time on the evening news. The world was on fire and I was missing it.

When I turned 18 in the spring of 1969 I entered boot camp. One night in July our DI brought in an old television set and set it up on a foot locker out on the company "street". We boots crowded around it as he tuned in a snowy image of Neil Armstrong's first step on the moon. We were all stunned. None of us had any idea that a lunar mission was underway...we were simply trying to get through boot camp. After the reward of seeing that historic moment on television SSgt Stanley had us pay for the privilege by calling out in unison, "Congratulations Neil." We watched the setting moon and it did not respond. We were compelled to continue calling out congratulations until there was a sign that Neil heard us. No sign being forthcoming, we shouted and squat-thrusted well into the night.

Uncle Marty was spot on. I have never regretted my life as a Marine and a Marine veteran. The GI Bill allowed me to go to college. Lessons learned in the Marine Corps guided me through a very successful career and continue to inform me in a very satisfying retirement.

Semper Fi.

[jerryd6818]

No high lofty ideals for me. I had no desire to be "the best" and didn't have a family role model. My dad never served and my uncles who were in WWII were all Army. I had never considered becoming a Marine and really had no plans for the rest of my life.

It was the fifth year of high school for Fred, the guy I ran around with and neither of us had enough credits to graduate. I hated school and had no intention of going back for a fifth year so in May, on senior skip day, we drove up to Decatur, IL and went to an early showing of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence. We were supposed to be looking for work but in 1962 there was no work to be had in Decatur or at least that's the excuse we used for going to the movie instead of checking around.

After the movie, while walking down the street, we passed the recruiting office, stopped and looked in the window. I had a grade school friend (in Indiana) who had joined the Corps the year before and I was impressed by that but when I thought about it, I usually considered joining the Navy for the travel. Quite frankly, I never really gave it a lot of consideration so Fred and I had a short discussion (very short), went inside and the first and only one we talked to was the Marine Recruiter. I was still 17 so had to have the signature of my parents but that was no problem because my dad who was a General Baptist preacher thought I was on the highway to hell, going down hill and gathering speed. Of course they signed.

We signed up for a three year enlistment, under the delayed entry program but the delay was only a few weeks. Just enough time for a trip to St. Louis for our physical and a trip "down home" for one last visit with relatives before we boarded a 707 headed for San Diego.

My life has been a series of unintended consequences and the Marine Corps was the first. Except while on active duty, I've never had a single regret about joining the Corps. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I've ever made. The training I received during my enlistment (Basic Electronics and Radar Repair) helped provide me with employment for my entire working life.

[b2542]

just followed in my dad's footsteps. He was a WWII Marine.

[USMC 2571]

Great stories

[Mongoose]

They are all good memories. All good stories.

[Kegler300]

My parents couldn't afford to get me a haircut ... sent me to San Diego. The rest is history.

[Vineyard]

OK. So there I was. All ready to join the Navy and see the world and have adventures. I made an appointment with the Navy recruiter in Bend, Oregon. I was totally ready to sign the dotted line that day. I showed up to our appointment and he wasn't there. No sign telling me when he'd be back. I wait around for a few minutes. Then decided sense the Marine Corps office door was open, I'd go in there and ask when he'd be back. I stick my head in the door and this Gunny sitting behind the desk says "This is the Marine Corps. Get the F**K in or get the F**K out.
Well, I was 20 and I'd be damned if someone was going to talk to me like that. That's just not how it worked. I went in. And the biggest, most muscular person I had ever seen stands up and greets me. A month later I found myself in MCRD San Diego getting screamed at.

Best choice I ever made was to walk into that office. Oh the adventures I had.

[montana]

A friend of mine a year older then me was trying to get into the air force ...asked me to go along with him ...was in Butte Montana...about 150 miles from here ,,, while he was in taking tests a Marine recruiter came and sat by me and started telling me a bunch of great stories.. When my friend was threw the recruiter walked with us to my friends car....told him thanks but I wasn't interested....a year later I turn 18 and have to go in for pe induction ....guess who..he remembered me and spent quite a bit of time with me...even walked me to the buss for the trip home...in sayin god by I laughed at him and told him he was wasting his time,,,I had no desire to joine the Marines...one year later...taking test after induction fiscal ...I see two legs step up in front of the desk I'm sitting in...as I look up slowly I see two hands on hips....looking up farther I see that same Marine recruiter with the biggest **** eating grin on his face...tells me " congratulations,, you have just volunteers to join the greatest fighting force the world has ever known" and that is how I was drafted into the US Marine Corps