Dear Ma and Pa,
I am well. Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer the Marine Corps beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before all of the places are filled.
I was restless at first because you get to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m. But I am getting so I like to sleep late. Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot, and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay. Practically nothing.
Men got to shave but it is not so bad, there’s warm water. Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc., but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie and other regular food, but tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit by the two city boys that live on coffee. Their food, plus yours, holds you until noon when you get fed again. It’s no wonder these city boys can’t walk much.
We go on ‘route marches,’ which the platoon sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it’s not my place to tell him different. A ‘route march’ is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks.
The sergeant is like a school teacher. He nags a lot. The Captain is like the school board. Majors and colonels just ride around and frown. They don’t bother you none.
This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing. I keep getting medals for shooting. I don’t know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don’t move, and it ain’t shooting at you like the Higgett boys at home. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don’t even load your own cartridges They come in boxes.
Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be real careful though, they break real easy. It ain’t like fighting with that ole bull at home. I’m about the best they got in this except for that Tug Jordan from over in Silver Lake . I only beat him once.. He joined up the same time as me, but I’m only 5’6′ and 130 pounds and he’s 6’8′ and near 300 pounds dry.
Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before other fellers get onto this setup and come stampeding in.
Your loving daughter,
Alice
Thanks Gene
That was good. We need folks like that leading our troops as well.
Yep, pretty much.
USMC, 1976-2000.
She’s a tank!
Love it!
Made me laugh, thanks Gene.
Gene: do you ever post comments?
That’s funny, but if she thinks she’s so gung ho, she should try to get into the special ops. Their training is more along the lines of hauling an unconscious ally 30 miles (or the equivalent weight), practicing for stealth missions by staying in the same place for an entire week, no sound or anything (if you take a dump, you give away your position, or if you eat anything that makes the slightest noise), or treading water for hours on end with your arms AND legs bound… with your full special ops suit and backpack weighing you down. Then there’s the Green berets, who (from what i’ve heard) stealth in behind enemy lines and train natives to betray their country in favor of the US. I saw a documentary on them on the Discovery channel and a former green beret was talking about a time when he and his group of 5 other berets were ambushed behind enemy lines, and them, with the combined weapons of their 6 persons, held off the enemy long enough for a chopper to come in and save them.
…..Then theres the BLACK ops… which the government won’t actually admit exists. Anyone here played that tom clancy game, Splinter Cell? Black Ops laugh at those games and wish things were that easy and simple. They’re the modern ninjas.
It’s a….. J-O-K-E !
Sorry, didn’t mean to rant. ^_^