Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Happy Birthday Marines!
Happy Birthday Marines!
Jul 6, 2025 7:56 PM

Today marks the 239th birthday of the finest fighting force in the history of the world.

The Marine Corps Birthday makes me nostalgic for the good ol’ days of . . . well, okay, maybe good is too strong a word. In fact, I can’t say that I miss being on active duty (15 years was more than enough). But I do miss being with my fellow Marines.

To give you an idea of what the life of a Marine is like (and why I don’t miss it), here is a blog entry I wrote in 2004 that outlines a typical day in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program:

0550 — Wake up — Immediately regret having joined the Marine Corps.

0720 — Arrive at the base — Think to myself, “What other job would pay you to learn martial arts. I can’t believe I get paid to do this.”

0730 — Pull up to training site — Think to myself (while watching my fellow Marines put on their body armor and helmets), “What kind of job requires you to wear this stuff. I don’t get paid enough for this.”

0740 — Warm up (2 mile run and conditioning exercises) — After running while wearing body armor and a helmet I realize why Nike doesn’t produce athletic clothing made from Kevlar.

0755 — Body hardening drills — There is no pliment you can give a Marine than to say that they are ‘hard.’ Hard is a mysterious, intangible personality trait that belies definition. Hard, however, also has a ponent. In order to e hardened physically we go through a series of drills in which we: slam our femur bones together, kick each other on the side of the thigh, kick each other in the inner thighs, and punch each other in the abs. I realize, to my dismay, that I am neither hard nor hard.

0810 — Hip throws (see photo above) — Imagine being lifted three feet into the air, put in a horizontal position (with your feet slightly higher than your head), and then dropped onto a slab of concrete. That’s what happens during a hip throw. You‘re picked up and slammed to the ground. Hard. Extremely hard. “Oh-I‘m-gonna-feel-that-tomorrow” hard. The throwing part is easy; falling is the more difficult. After lots of practice, however, I was able to master the art of being thrown to the ground. Now I’m almost always able to do it without crying like a little girl.

0955 — Knife fighting techniques — After almost two hours of being body slammed, practicing knife fighting techniques was a e reprieve. I was motivated to learn such skill in case anyone ever attempts to use a hip throw on me again. I’d have no qualms about stabbing somebody over a hip throw.

1100 — Lunch — Go to Burger King. Reconsider my career choice. Ask for an application.

1305 — Front choke — We learn techniques for the blood choke which cuts off the carotid artery. Once the blood supply to the brain is cut off your opponent passes out. For some reason the only part I remember is my partner saying, “Let me know if this is too tight . . . ”

1400— Counters to chokes and holds — During this period of instruction we’re taught how to break out of a front choke, a front head lock, and a front bear hug. Now if I’m every attacked by a wrestler from the WWE I’ll know exactly what to do.

1445 — Unarmed manipulations — When I first went to Boot Camp in the late 1980s, our bat instruction prised almost entirely of ways to deliver a ‘killing blow.” In the new program the majority of the techniques consist of non-lethal ways to immobilize our opponent. The U.S. has the most lethal military in the history of the world and yet we go out of our way to reduce the number of casualties that we inflict. That’s just one more reason I love my country.

1515 — Weapons of opportunity — The Marine Corps Martial Arts Program’s slogan is “one mind, any weapon.” If we don’t have a rifle, bayonet, or knife handy we can always pick up a stick and whipthe enemy. That’s much easier, though, if the enemy also has a stick rather than a rifle, bayonet, or knife.

1545 — Bull in the Ring — Our class consists of eighteen Marines ranging in age from 18 to 45. For the final event of the day we form a circle with one Marine in the center. One by one, a Marine runs toward the man in the center who uses a hip throw to toss them aside. This is repeated until he throws every man in the circle. We each take our turn, throwing and being thrown. We toss seventeen men and seventeen men toss us. By the end I’m wondering why I didn’t join the Air Force.

1630 — Prepare to Leave I cringe after hearing my instructor say, ‘Be prepared for tomorrow. It won’t be as easy as it was today.”

1700 . . . 5 p.m. — Conversation with my wife:

My wife: ‘How was your day.”

Me: “It was fine.”

My wife: “Anything interesting happen.”

Me: (pause) “Nah, not really . . . “

More MCMAP Videos (Although it should go without saying, do not try any of these techniques on your own.)

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Amazon tribal chief: Liberation theology sustains primitive economy
Pope Francis greets indigenous representatives in Puerto Maldonado, Peru, Friday, Jan. 19, 2018. Standing with thousands of indigenous Peruvians, Francis declared the Amazon the “heart of the church” and called for a three-fold defense of its life, land and cultures. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) As the Synod of Bishops from the Amazon continues to make headlines, many are curious about the contents of its ing report. According to Pope Francis, the synod’s goal is “to identify new paths for the evangelization...
Drucker on private property and the modern corporation
This is the sixth in a series of essays on Peter Drucker’s early works. Peter Drucker recognized the revolutionary aspect of the corporate form. The older corporations wielded something close to sovereign authority as they essentially ruled the territory wherever they traded and planted. Other corporations followed by exploiting natural monopolies such as bridges and utilities. But the new corporation, the corporation of the modern era, is a different sort of thing. Modern corporations arise when individuals delegate their private...
Acton publishes detailed exposition of the Catholic view of poverty, inequality, and wealth redistribution – in French
Some passages of the Bible tell the rich to weep and wail because of their wealth. But these verses can mislead Christians whose attitude to wealth is not deeply rooted in the Christian church’s 2,000-year-long balanced view, according to a new, French-language article published on the Acton Institute’s Religion & Liberty Transatlantic website. This article is part of the Acton Institute’s ongoing effort to reach the 275 million people in the world who speak French as a native language. mentary...
What Elizabeth Warren could learn from Emmanuel Macron
A cartoon published just after the fall of the Berlin Wall showed two travelers moving in different directions, one personifying former Eastern Bloc nations and the other the NATO allies: The two met as the former Warsaw Pact countries rushed away from socialism and the West hurried toward it. Soon, those characters could symbolize France and the United States. Indeed, today, our two nations could be represented by two specific people: Emmanuel Macron and Elizabeth Warren. James C. Capretta of...
Liberation theology never really went away says Samuel Gregg
October 27 marked the close of the Synod of Bishops on the Amazon, a summit organized to foster conversation on pastoral ministry and ecological concerns in the Amazon region. Although the synod report has not been released yet, many predict that it will reflect just how deep the roots of Marxist liberation theology — or ecology — have grown in Latin American Catholicism. In an article published at The Catholic World Report, Samuel Gregg writes that following the collapse of...
The uncertain future for free markets in America
A week ago I participated in a panel for the Philadelphia Society on “Conservatism and the Coming Economy.” During the Q&A, I was asked about the future of economic freedom specifically regarding our two major political parties. I had briefly touched on this in my remarks, and though I noted that current trends do not look good, I believe that support for liberty requires the virtue of hope. First, the current trend: On the one hand, while President Trump is...
How leftist populism is crushing freedom in Bolivia
As we’ve seen in countries like Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua, Latin American left-leaning populists are quite content to work in democratic systems—until, that is, those systems start delivering results which they don’t like. The same dynamic is now unfolding in another Latin American country. Evo Morales has been President of Bolivia since 2006. A strong admirer of the late Hugo Chavez, Morales stood for a fourth five-year term on 20 October, having unilaterally abolished term-limits, despite voters rejecting his bid...
On being wrapped up in books
Last night I gave an address at The Grand Castle in Grandville, Michigan on the occasioning of its library opening. I spoke on the importance of books and libraries. As the Librarian and a Research Associate at the Acton Institute it is a topic of professional interest but is also an abiding private passion. Managing the library and doing editorial work on publications means that I deal in books from their conception to natural death, from womb to tomb as...
Festal economics: How the market empowers celebration
With the end-of-the-year string of holidays fast approaching, we already see decorations and supplies showing up in stores, whether for Halloween, Thanksgiving, or even Christmas. Most people would likely peg me for a bit of a holiday Scrooge. When es to Advent, for example, I’m critical of some of the consumeristic excess and the disruption of the liturgical calendar. I consider Advent a penitential season of fasting and abstinence—not exactly things we’d associate with Black Fridays and Cyber Mondays—and I...
Celebrating ‘intrapreneurship’: The power of employee-innovators
In our pursuit of economic prosperity and progress, we tend to focus heavily on the role of the entrepreneur—and rightly so. Many of the world’s most transformative discoveries e from people willing to take significant risks and endure painful sacrifices to bring new enterprises to life. When es to our theology of work, our focus tends toward much of the same. Indeed, from a Christian perspective, the call of the entrepreneur provides a uniquely vivid example of how our economic...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved