Marine Corp Quotes

The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps!

You know, I think the main purpose of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps is to get poor Americans into clean, pressed, unpatched clothes, so rich Americans can stand to look at them.

In the simple moral maxim the Marine Corps teaches — do the right thing, for the right reason — no exception exists that says: unless there's criticism or risk. Damn the consequences.

War is brutish, inglorious, and a terrible waste... The only redeeming factors were my comrades' incredible bravery and their devotion to each other. Marine Corps training taught us to kill efficiently and to try to survive. But it also taught us loyalty to each other - and love. That espirit de corps sustained us.

You know what happens when you get out of the Marine Corps," Person continues. "you get you brains back.

Pain is weakness leaving the body.

War is life multiplied by some number that no one has ever heard of.

I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

As a civilian, I know nothing about combat, the Marine Corps experience or modern man's struggle adjusting to peace after war. I only know what's been shared with me; confidences I would never betray, nor use as details in a novel.

Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid.

The Japanese fought to win - it was a savage, brutal, inhumane, exhausting and dirty business. Our commanders knew that if we were to win and survive, we must be trained realistically for it whether we liked it or not. In the post-war years, the U.S. Marine Corps came in for a great deal of undeserved criticism in my opinion, from well-meaning persons who did not comprehend the magnitude of stress and horror that combat can be. The technology that developed the rifle barrel, the machine gun and high explosive shells has turned war into prolonged, subhuman slaughter. Men must be trained realistically if they are to survive it without breaking, mentally and physically.

The pain of discipline is nothing like the pain of regret.

Just remember,' a Marine Corps lieutenant colonel told me as he strapped his pistol belt under his arm before we crossed into Kuwait, 'that none of these boys is fighting for home, for the flag, for all that crap the politicians feed the public. They are fighting for each other, just for each other.

The cost of leadership,” explains Lieutenant General George Flynn of the United States Marine Corps, “is self-interest.

Semper Fidelis

The essence of the Marine Corps experience, I decided, was pain.

He ran as he'd never run before, with neither hope nor despair. He ran because the world was divided into opposites and his side had already been chosen for him, his only choice being whether or not to play his part with heart and courage. He ran because fate had placed him in a position of responsibility and he had accepted the burden. He ran because his self-respect required it. He ran because he loved his friends and this was the only thing he could do to end the madness that was killing and maiming them.

I think the Marine Corps has forgotten where Pavuvu is," one man said. "I think God has forgotten where Pavuvu is," came a reply. "God couldn't forget because he made everything." "Then I bet he wishes he could forget he made Pavuvu.

Judging by the hard lines of his face and the flat look in his eyes, he'd left the Marines, but the Corps hadn't quite left him.

Improvise, Adapt and Overcome" - USMC, unofficial

Show me a hero and I'll show you a bum.

I never said I hated the Marine Corps! I only said it was no place for a sensitive, civilized, self-respecting human being.

I’m not saying ability doesn’t matter. It certainly helps. But there’s something powerful about realizing that you’ve undersold yourself—that somehow your mind confused lack of effort for inability. This is why, whenever people ask me what I’d most like to change about the white working class, I say, “The feeling that our choices don’t matter.” The Marine Corps excised that feeling like a surgeon does a tumor. A

Marine Corps doesn’t much care whether you’re having a good morale day or not. You do your job, regardless. Semper fidelis. Not when-I’m-feeling-it fidelis.

Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it’s written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe. Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind. Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation’s OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live. Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age. Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific. Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label. Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine. Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie. Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work. Pronunciation (think of Psyche!) Is a paling stout and spikey? Won’t it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It’s a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict. Finally, which rhymes with enough, Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is to give up!!!

What advice would you give to a smart, driven college student about to enter the “real world”? What advice should they ignore? I’m probably hopelessly out of date but my advice is get real-world experience: Be a cowboy. Drive a truck. Join the Marine Corps. Get out of the hypercompetitive “life hack” frame of mind. I’m 74. Believe me, you’ve got all the time in the world. You’ve got ten lifetimes ahead of you. Don’t worry about your friends “beating” you or “getting somewhere” ahead of you. Get out into the real dirt world and start failing. Why do I say that? Because the goal is to connect with your own self, your own soul. Adversity. Everybody spends their life trying to avoid it. Me too. But the best things that ever happened to me came during the times when the shit hit the fan and I had nothing and nobody to help me. Who are you really? What do you really want? Get out there and fail and find out.

Psychologists call it “learned helplessness” when a person believes, as I did during my youth, that the choices I made had no effect on the outcomes in my life. From Middletown’s world of small expectations to the constant chaos of our home, life had taught me that I had no control. Mamaw and Papaw had saved me from succumbing entirely to that notion, and the Marine Corps broke new ground. If I had learned helplessness at home, the Marines were teaching learned willfulness. The

Let those other women marry bankers. I've got myself a Marine.

Spooner noticed another, smaller Marine Corps tattoo encircling Marlin's ankle: Semper Fi Forever. Everywhere he went these days, Spponer witnessed America's crying need for more copy editors.

When you’re working with Army and Marine Corps units, you immediately notice a difference. The Army is pretty tough, but their performance can depend on the individual unit. Some are excellent, filled with hoorah and first-class warriors. A few are absolutely horrible; most are somewhere in between. In my experience, Marines are gung ho no matter what. They will all fight to the death. Every one of them just wants to get out there and kill. They are bad-ass, hard-charging mothers.

Semper Fi! MotherFucker!

For those of us who are not members of a biker gang or the Marine Corps, solidarity means little more than the compassionate impulse that leads us to comfort a bereft friend; for Beezer and his merry band, solidarity is the assurance that someone's always got your back.

Pain is Weekness Leaving the Body

The Marine Corps is your family too. You may not have a mother here, but you have a shit pile of fathers, uncles, and brothers.

Stay away from the Sirenas of this world and get you a plain, fat woman who thinks a hot dog and popcorn at Walmart’s is a dinner date. That’s my counsel, said Luis. Sirena she’s messed up more good men around here than Marine Corps recruiters. And she tried to kill your dog. A man shouldn’t forget who tries to kill his dog.

Huxley: "Tell me something Bryce, do you know the difference between a Jersey, a Guernsey, a Holstein, and an Ayershire?" Bryce: "No." Huxley: "Seabags Brown does." Bryce: "I don't see what that has to do..." Huxley: "What do you know about Gaelic history?" Bryce: "Not much." Huxley: "Then why don't you sit down one day with Gunner McQuade. He is an expert. Speaks the language, too." Bryce: "I don't..." Huxley: " What do you know about astronomy?" Bryce: "A little." Huxley: "Discuss it with Wellman, he held a fellowship." Bryce: "This is most puzzling." Huxley: "What about Homer, ever read Homer?" Bryce: "Of course I've read Homer." Huxley: "In the original Greek?" Bryce: "No" Huxley: "Then chat with Pfc. Hodgkiss. Loves to read the ancient Greek." Bryce: "Would you kindly get to the point?" Huxley: "The point is this, Bryce. What makes you think you are so goddam superior? Who gave you the bright idea that you had a corner on the world's knowledge? There are privates in this battalion who can piss more brains down a slit trench then you'll ever have. You're the most pretentious, egotistical individual I've ever encountered. Your superiority complex reeks. I've seen the way you treat men, like a big strutting peacock. Why, you've had them do everything but wipe your ass.

Luna was remote and ladylike. The only time anyone had ever seen Luna angry was when someone referred to her as 'African-American'. "I'm an American," she had snapped, whirling on the offender. "I've never even been to Africa. I was born in California, my father was a major in the Marine Corps, and I'm not a hyphenated anything. I have a black heritage, but I also have a white one." She had held out one slim arm and studied the color of it. "Looks to me like I'm brown. We're all just different shades of brown,so don't try to set me apart.

Everyday US Marines make possible the impossible and then go about their business like it's just the way things are supposed to be.

A Marine likes a good fight and respects a good fighter. You’ve got yourself one fine Marine for an escort and the whole Marine Corps behind you.

She had died and joined the Marine Corps. Or was God an aging general? Either way, she knew it couldn’t be heaven ’cause there was no chocolate.

All the logic seemed to be on our side. The Marine Corps seemed a madness.

The Marine Corps is the Navy's police force and as long as I am President that is what it will remain. They have a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin's.

Welcome to the real Marine Corps, a bunch of nerds on computers all day. We only go to the gym so the grunts don't eat us.

In my younger days dodging the draft, I somehow wound up in the Marine Corps. There's a myth that Marine training turns baby-faced recruits into bloodthirsty killers. Trust me, the Marine Corps is not that efficient. What it does teach, however, is a lot more useful. The Marine Corps teaches you how to be miserable. This is invaluable for an artist. Marines love to be miserable. Marines derive a perverse satisfaction in having colder chow, crappier equipment, and higher casualty rates than any outfit of dogfaces, swab jockeys, or flyboys, all of whom they despise. Why? Because these candy-asses don't know how to be miserable. The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation. The artist must be like that Marine. He has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable. He has to take pride in being more miserable than any soldier or swabbie or jet jockey. Because this is war, baby. And war is hell." Page 68

... I spent most of my [33 years in the Marine Corps] being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for [crony] capitalism.

There is more to military units than hardware. There is the character of the unit’s personnel: their strengths, experience, and knowledge, their ability to get along and work together amid the horrors of the battlefield. There is an almost undefinable quality. That quality is the Marine Corps’ secret weapon. Their edge. That quality is their ethos.

There are no heroes Only those that accomplish incredible feats Under incredible amounts of pressure

Those who do not appreciate the soldiers and instead pompously talk about peace, should try to live a single day without the soldiers.

All right. They’re on our left. They’re on our right. They’re in front of us, they’re behind us. They can’t get away this time’.

To be or not to be wasn't the question meant; it was the secret answer hidden in riddled defense.

From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, We will fight our country’s battles in the air, on land and sea. First to fight for right and freedom, and to keep our honor clean, We are proud to claim the title of United States Marines. —Marine Corps Hymn

Shouldering the duffel bag with the Marine Corps bulldog, Old Man knocked Jan's photo off the bed table. He turned to stone staring down at the photo. His face then splintered into hurt. Tears seeped into his eyes. He grappled for the nearest bedpost and slumped forward on extended arms. His shoulders jerked and head sagged a little while his heart broke. Old Man cried the mute cry of men of his generation.

During Basic, sometimes you're so tired you can't even get up to piss. You're pushed beyond whatever limits you had set for yourself. You realize that your body can do things that you never imagined. But there are times when you don't think you can go on, and that's when your brother is there to lift you up and push you forward. He yells encouragement when the drill sergeant's yelling obscenities. You know that if you're ever caught by the enemy, your brothers will never stop looking for you. If you're hurt they'll help heal you. The Corps is a unit of many, not one, but dozens, thousands even, who have your back. You can smite one Marine, but a thousand will rose up to avenge him.

Gentlemen,” he said. “The Marine Corps loves you. Because the Marine Corps loves you, it has gone to considerable effort and expense to provide you with a healthy, nutritious breakfast. The Marine Corps expects you to eat the healthy, nutritious breakfast it has provided for you.

Harry Truman, after all, in conjunction with Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, radically cut back American arms following the end of the Second World War. Johnson himself wished to dismantle the Marine Corps and felt nuclear weapons had made all such conventional arms unnecessary.

The marine corps teaches you how to be miserable. This is invaluable for an artist. Marines love to be miserable. Marines derive a perverse satisfaction in having colder chow, crappier equipment, and higher casualty rates than any outfit of dogfaces, swabjockies, or flyboys, all of whom they despise. Why? Because those candyasses don't know how to be miserable. The artist committing himself to his calling has to be miserable. The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not, he will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation. The artist must be like that marine: he has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable. He has to take pride in being more miserable than any soldier, or swabbie, or desk jockey, because this is war, baby, and war is hell.

Because, sir, the United States Marine Corps is a forward-thinking organization, and they anticipated Earth would be invaded by aliens, leaving a major force trapped offworld to develop its own independent economy,” Rivera said with a deadpan expression. “My master’s degree is in management; economics was my undergrad major.

I actually shivered at the insincerity that gripped me as I spoke these words: their falseness was shameful. I was sure my coolness would return. I'd just been caught with my guard down. But at the moment I was in shambles. Walking along the deck (adopting my old casual swagger), I jollied up the troops with small talk, put on a frozen grin, and kept murmuring to myself with rhythmic fatuity: You love the marine Corps, it's a terrific war, you love the Marine Corps, it's a terrific war...

Colonel Shoup, who wore a mask of dust and dirt like every other marine on the island, summed up the situation that afternoon: “Well, I think we’re winning, but the bastards have got a lot of bullets left. I think we’ll clean up tomorrow.”57 He was plainly exhausted, having slept not at all the previous night. He was still bleeding through his bandage. His report to General Julian Smith would enter Marine Corps lore: “Casualties many; percentage of dead not known; combat efficiency: We are winning.

The Marines have landed and the situation is well in hand.

The mind of the writer invite readers to new worlds, where their darkest fears and greatest joys explode into a tapestry of emotions.

In life, one can choose to go up, down, or standstill. I choose to move up.

Life had a way of exceeding your every expectation.

We must therefore be prepared to cope—even better, to thrive—in an environment of chaos, uncertainty, constant change, and friction.

In practical terms, this means that we must not strive for certainty before we act, for in so doing we will surrender the initiative and pass up opportunities.

The first requirement is to establish what we want to accomplish, why, and how. Without a clearly identified concept and intent, the necessary unity of effort is inconceivable.

The task describes the action to be taken while the intent describes the purpose of the action.

Intuition is nothing more than a person’s sense about a situation influenced by experience and knowledge.

Vigorous public ball scratching is common in the combat-arms side of the Marine Corps, even among high-level officers in the midst of briefings.

If and American flag had been waving behind her, she'd have looked like a very sexy Marine Corps recruiting poster. The few, the proud, the cottontailed.

  The Marine Corps teaches you how to be miserable.   This is invaluable for an artist.

The Marine Corps teaches you how to be miserable. This is invaluable for an artist.

This country has not seen and probably will never know the true level of sacrifice of our veterans. As a civilian I owe an unpayable debt to all our military. Going forward let’s not send our servicemen and women off to war or conflict zones unless it is overwhelmingly justifiable and on moral high ground. The men of WWII were the greatest generation, perhaps Korea the forgotten, Vietnam the trampled, Cold War unsung and Iraqi Freedom and Afghanistan vets underestimated. Every generation has proved itself to be worthy to stand up to the precedent of the greatest generation. Going back to the Revolution American soldiers have been the best in the world. Let’s all take a remembrance for all veterans who served or are serving, peace time or wartime and gone or still with us. 11/11/16 May God Bless America and All Veterans.

I was raised in the Marine Corps and I was taught as a boy that you feed your own men before you feed yourself. It was my belief then, and it remains so today, that my platoon who loves and respect me will slaughter your platoon that hates you. But here is the great lesson I took from the plebe system—it let me know exactly the kind of man I wanted to become. It made me ache to be a contributing citizen in whatever society I found myself in, to live out a life I could be proud of, and always to measure up to what I took to be the highest ideal of a Citadel man—or, now, a Citadel woman. The standards were clear to me and they were high, and I took my marching orders from my college to take my hard-won education and go out to try to make the whole world a better place.

Marines do not hesitate in combat. If the Corps has a defining philosophy, that’s it. In war, when the enemy is foolish enough to show himself, marines go right at him and kill him, risks be damned.

In 1950 a Marine Corps officer was still an officer, and a sergeant behaved the way good sergeants had behaved since the time of Caesar, expecting no nonsense, allowing none. And Marine leaders had never lost sight of their primary—their only—mission, which was to fight. The Marine Corps was not made pleasant for men who served in it. It remained the same hard, dirty, brutal way of life it had always been.

I mean-- no offense, Leonard, but you really don't like to climb ropes, and get into the Marine Corps, and kill your countriy's enemies, do you?" I said that it wasn't one of the big goals of my life. "Well, maybe you'd like me to get you into this corrective gym class, where you can study toe dancing, and grow up to be a little Commie, sissy boy," Mr. Jerris said. I told him I would like that just fine…

You see, in the Marine Corps, they teach you that if you’re going to carry or use something, you need to do so responsibly. So, if you’re going to deploy tear gas, you have to spend some time in a gas chamber finding out just how bad it sucks. Same thing with tasers, and hell, if it didn’t cost so much to train new Marines, they’d probably test rifles out on you, as well. My beloved Corps can be a bit thick headed about things like that.

The essence of the problem is to select a promising course of action with an acceptable degree of risk and to do it more quickly than our foe. In this respect, “a good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.

And when I started at NYU and I met all those kids right out of undergrad, I thought, Hell, yeah, I’m a fucking Marine. Some of them, highly educated kids at a top five law school, didn’t even know what the Marine Corps did. (“It’s like a stronger Army, right?”) Few of them followed the wars at all, and most subscribed to a “It’s a terrible mess, so let’s not think about it too much” way of thinking. Then there were the political kids, who had definite opinions and were my least favorite to talk to. A lot of these overlapped with the insufferable public interest crowd, who hated the war, couldn’t see why anybody’d ever do corporate law, didn’t understand why anyone would ever join the military, didn’t understand why anyone would ever want to own a gun, let alone fire one, but who still paid lip service to the idea that I deserved some sort of respect and that I was, in an imprecise way that was clearly related to action movies and recruiting commercials, far more “hard-core” than your average civilian. So sure, I was a Marine. At the very least, I wasn’t them.

I found myself surrounded by really old veterans wearing hats that said, "Retired Marine - SEMPER FI." These hats didn't appear to fit on their heads, but instead seemed to hover over them. At one point, I mistakenly tried to take the last box of crackers that a veteran also wanted. He started yelling, "I ran away from home at seventeen, lied about my age, and joined the Corps! I fought in World War II, Korea, and NAM! I have no cartilage in my right knee! It's bone-on-bone, but every morning I run six miles! I did not sacrifice my knee for this country to come here today and have you disrespect me at the commissary. Oooh-RAH!" I dropped the crackers and walked away.

As he looked,she did the same.So far she'd always seen him partially clothed,but now...The top part of one arm was a complete sleeve of interwoven Celtic designs that were so beautiful and intricate she could only imagine how long it had taken the artist to tattoo them.On his lower forearm was a Celtic cross with a circle around it and what looked like names scripted parallel to the circle.She'd noticed part of it before but hadn't wanted to stare at him.Now she was looking her fill.On his other upper arm he had the Marine Corps eagle,globe and anchor.

Hanna started to laugh uncontrollably. "Now," Bobby told her, "say, 'I'm a dying cockroach.'" Again Hanna stopped and rolled over. "Do what?" she asked. "You were doing good, Girl. Don't stop. Please don't stop. Quick, get back on your back." It was his patience with her that finally convinced her to go on with the foolishness. "That's it. Wiggle. Wiggle. Now, say, 'I'm a dying Cockroach.'" "I cant." "Yes you can. Say it. Say it." Hanna started laughing so hard she could not stop. "I'm a dying cockroach." she managed to say. "I'm a dying cockroach, " Bobby repeated. "Say it again. Say it over and over. I'm a dying cockroach, I'm a dying cockroach. Say it." "I'm a dying cockroach," Hanna began. "Keep wiggling. Wiggle. Wiggle. I'm a dying cockroach." "I'm a dying cockroach. I'm a dying fucking cockroach!" Bobby spent nearly half an hour putting Hanna through the exercise he had experienced in the Marine Corps. He was satisfied when finally she began to scream uncontrollably as she flailed about the floor hysterically in absolute absurdity. Tears were pouring over her face. It was then that Bobby fell over her and began to hug and hold her and kiss her cheeks. "You did it!" Girl, you did it. See?" After she came back to her senses and calmed down, Bobby explained why he put her through the ordeal. "How do you feel?" he asked her. Hanna smiled and said. "Weird. I made a fucking fool of myself." "Great," said Bobby. "That was the point. See, you got outside yourself. You lost your ego." Hanna was starting to understand. "I did, didn't I? I let go. I honestly let go of everything. I didn't care. I didn't give a shit for nothing. It felt great. Shiiiitttt!" she screamed into her hands. "I'm a fucking dying cockroach. And I don't give a shit about nothing." "Anything," Byron said from the kitchen.

Saul Alinsky, the radical organizer and mentor of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, used to ask his new followers why they wanted to become community organizers. They would respond with idealistic claims that they wanted to help the poor and oppressed. Then Alinsky would scream at them like a Marine Corps drill instructor, “No! You want to organize for power!” That’s the way the SDS radicals at the University of Texas approached the abortion issue—as a means to power, or, in Margaret Sanger’s words, to remake the world. As a writer in the 1960s radical SDS publication New Left Notes put it, “The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.

When the first contingents of U.S. troops were being sent to Saudi Arabia, in August of 1990, Corporal Jeff Patterson, a twenty-two-year-old Marine stationed in Hawaii, sat down on the runway of the airfield and refused to board a plane bound to Saudi Arabia. He asked to be discharged from the Marine Corps: I have come to believe that there are no justified wars. . . . I began to question exactly what I was doing in the Marine Corps about the time I began to read about history. I began to read up on America's support for the murderous regimes of Guatemala, Iran, under the Shah, and El Salvador. . . . I object to the military use of force against any people, anywhere, any time.

Gary Klein is a renowned and expert researcher on decision-making and cites the following aspects that experts have the ability to see which novices do not.196 1. Experts see patterns that novices do not detect. 2. Experts see anomalies—events that did not happen. 3. Experts see the big picture (situational awareness). 4. Experts create opportunities and improvisations. 5. Experts have the ability to predict future events using their previous experiences. 6. Experts see differences too small for novices to detect. 7. Experts know their own limitations. With an understanding of the differences between the experienced and the novice, we can begin to design a plan to overcome the shortfalls. Fortunately, understanding that it isn’t a “matter of intelligence, but a matter of experience” means that we can systematically set about gaining the experience necessary.

Better and Stronger

The gunnery sergeant didn’t crack a smile at the radio intercept of Faith’s concept of a backup plan, an intercept that had caused Commander Bradburn, skipper of the Dallas, to literally fall out of his command chair laughing. Sands managed to watch the video stone-faced as she boarded the Voyage and began her “fifteen minutes of mayhem,” set in the video to the tune of Chumbawamba’s Tubthumping. He managed to keep a straight face the third time she popped back up like a jack-in-the-box after being dogpiled by zombies. He held it in during her overheard running commentary as the rest of the Marines, even the NCOs, started rolling on the deck. It was when she got the Halligan tool stuck in a zombie’s head and overbalanced that he snorted. When she unstuck her bent machete and it caught a male zombie in the groin he started laughing out loud. When the, admittedly not petite, girl stuck a boot knife in a zombie’s eye then threw him over the side, tears started running down his face and he completely lost his composure as a senior NCO of the United States Marine Corps.

In my younger days dodging the draft, I somehow wound up in the Marine Corps. There's a myth that Marine training turns baby-faced recruits into bloodthirsty killers. Trust me, the Marine Corps is not that efficient. What it does teach, however, is a lot more useful. The Marine Corps teaches you how to be miserable. This is invaluable for an artist. Marines love to be miserable. Marines derive a perverse satisfaction from having colder chow, crappier equipment, and higher casualty rates than any outfit of dogfaces, swab jockeys or flyboys, all of whom they despise. Why? Because these candy-asses don't know how to be miserable. The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation. The artist must be like that Marine. He has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable. He has to take pride in being more miserable than any soldier or swabbie or jet jockey. Because this is war, baby. And war is hell.

For over two weeks, the defenders of Wake Island held off a vastly superior force of Japanese ships and troops, inspiring the whole nation with their plucky spirit and sacrifice. Unfortunately, Navy leaders at Pearl Harbor, struggling to protect what was left of the shattered Pacific Fleet, canceled a relief mission, allowing the island and its defenders to fall without support. Wake damaged the long-standing trust between the Corps and the Navy, a memory that still rankles Marines and shames sailors.

Condition Black. Condition Black is characterized by when a person’s heart rate reaches a point that is counterproductive (above 175 beats per minute) and that person begins to lose awareness of the surroundings. A person in Condition Black can no longer cognitively process information and may completely shut down.7

The combat profiling threshold is called the Combat Rule of Three: When you observe three anomalies or indicators, you must make a decision. Do not wait for more information. Three indicators are enough information with which to act. Does this mean that you must have three anomalies to make a decision? No. In some situations, one anomaly or indicator is sufficient. For instance, following the usual rules of engagement, if an individual exhibits a hostile act or hostile intent, one indicator is enough. Someone presenting a weapon in a hostile way toward a Marine on patrol or cop on the street is all it takes to engage that individual with deadly force.

This is just one version of how the world of successful people actually works. But social capital is all around us. Those who tap into it and use it prosper. Those who don’t are running life’s race with a major handicap. This is a serious problem for kids like me. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of things I didn’t know when I got to Yale Law School: That you needed to wear a suit to a job interview. That wearing a suit large enough to fit a silverback gorilla was inappropriate. That a butter knife wasn’t just decorative (after all, anything that requires a butter knife can be done better with a spoon or an index finger). That pleather and leather were different substances. That your shoes and belt should match. That certain cities and states had better job prospects. That going to a nicer college brought benefits outside of bragging rights. That finance was an industry that people worked in. Mamaw always resented the hillbilly stereotype—the idea that our people were a bunch of slobbering morons. But the fact is that I was remarkably ignorant of how to get ahead. Not knowing things that many others do often has serious economic consequences. It cost me a job in college (apparently Marine Corps combat boots and khaki pants aren’t proper interview attire) and could have cost me a lot more in law school if I hadn’t had a few people helping me every step of the way.

Deux matelots s'étaient noyés, leurs corps n'avaient jamais été retrouvés et ils étaient allés rejoindre la foule des marins qui errent au fond de la mer, se plaignant entre eux de la lenteur du temps, attendant l'appel suprême que quelqu'un leur avait promis en des temps immémoriaux, attendant que Dieu les hisse vers la surface et les attrape dans son épuisette d'étoiles, qu'il les sèche de son souffle tiède et les laisse entrer à pied sec au royaume des cieux, là, il n'y a jamais de poisson aux repas, disent les noyés qui, toujours aussi optimistes, s'occupent en regardant la quille des bateaux, s'étonnent du nouveau matériel de pêche, maudissent les saloperies que l'homme laisse dans son sillage, mais parfois aussi, pleurent à cause de la vie qui leur manque, pleurent comme pleurent les noyés et voilà pourquoi la mer est salée. (p.199)

Like many in his generation, Billy had grown up playing first-person-shooter video games. He decided to take that experience a few steps further and resolved to join a SWAT team and shoot bad guys for real. He visited the local police station to find out what requirements and training were necessary to become a SWAT team member. He found out that the process was a lot more involved than he expected. He first needed to attend a police academy and become a police officer. Afterwards he would have to work his way onto a SWAT team over time. There were no guarantees. During his visit to the police station he learned that many SWAT members were former Marine Corps snipers. During that same visit the cops ran Billy’s plates through their criminal database and learned that he had outstanding warrants for speeding tickets. They unceremoniously arrested him and tossed him into jail.

Maybe we should consider this for a second. Maybe, instead of surrendering the fight because a Marine made a mistake, maybe we should train Santiago. What do you think, I'm just spit-balling, but maybe we, as officers, have a responsibility to this country to see that the men charged with its security are trained professionals. Maybe we have that responsibility to other members of the Corps. Yes, yes, I'm certain I once read something like that. See, and now I'm trying to think about how I'd feel if some Marine got hurt or killed because a Pfc. in my command didn't know what the fuck he was doing. And I'm trying to think about how the other members of his unit might feel, putting their lives in the hands of a man they can't count on...and this brief meditation has brought me around to thinking that your suggestion of transferring Private Santiago off base, while expeditious, and certainly painless, might not be, in a manner of speaking, the "American Way".

Ah. Better and better. “So you’re here virtually alone, with no money, despite your claim to have a rich father and a certain station in society.” He fished for more information. “You expect me to believe that the daughter of a wealthy ship company owner-who would be taught to keep quiet, do as she is told, and respect the proprieties-would go sailing across the ocean in search of her fiancé, looking for him in a brothel, attacking the first gentleman who dares to question-“ “Oh, for pity’s sake,” she snapped. “I told you why I did all that.” “Besides,” her companion put in. “Uncle Adam isn’t…wasn’t like other rich gentlemen. He started out a soldier in the Marine Corps. He never put on airs. Always said he was born the poor bastard of a servant, and he’d die the rich bastard of a servant, and that was better than being a rich ass.” She groaned. “Freddy, please, you’re not helping.” “So you see, sir,” Freddy went on, to Oliver’s vast amusement, “Mop-Maria isn’t like other women. She’s like her father. She doesn’t listen to those who tell her to sit still and keep quiet. Never has.” “I noticed,” Oliver said dryly. It was a point in her favor.

Rather than inserting more Marines and engineers to harden and defend the American Embassy—thus sending an unequivocal message that such an assault against American sovereign territory in the heart of Tehran would never be tolerated again—the bureaucrats back at the White House and State Department had panicked. They’d reduced the embassy’s staff from nearly a thousand to barely sixty. The Pentagon had shown a similar lack of resolve. The number of U.S. military forces in-country had been drawn down from about ten thousand active-duty troops to almost none. The only reason Charlie had been sent in—especially as green as he was—was because he happened to be one of the few men in the entire U.S. diplomatic corps who was actually fluent in Farsi. None of the three CIA guys on site even spoke the language.

Qualities such as honesty, determination, and a cheerful acceptance of stress, which can all be identified through probing questionnaires and interviews, may be more important to the company in the long run than one's college grade-point average or years of "related experience." Every business is only as good as the people it brings into the organization. The corporate trainer should feel his job is the most important in the company, because it is. Exalt seniority-publicly, shamelessly, and with enough fanfare to raise goosebumps on the flesh of the most cynical spectator. And, after the ceremony, there should be some sort of permanent display so that employees passing by are continuously reminded of their own achievements and the achievements of others. The manager must freely share his expertise-not only about company procedures and products and services but also with regard to the supervisory skills he has worked so hard to acquire. If his attitude is, "Let them go out and get their own MBAs," the personnel under his authority will never have the full benefit of his experience. Without it, they will perform at a lower standard than is possible, jeopardizing the manager's own success. Should a CEO proclaim that there is no higher calling than being an employee of his organization? Perhaps not-for fear of being misunderstood-but it's certainly all right to think it. In fact, a CEO who does not feel this way should look for another company to manage-one that actually does contribute toward a better life for all. Every corporate leader should communicate to his workforce that its efforts are important and that employees should be very proud of what they do-for the company, for themselves, and, literally, for the world. If any employee is embarrassed to tell his friends what he does for a living, there has been a failure of leadership at his workplace. Loyalty is not demanded; it is created. Why can't a CEO put out his own suggested reading list to reinforce the corporate vision and core values? An attractive display at every employee lounge of books to be freely borrowed, or purchased, will generate interest and participation. Of course, the program has to be purely voluntary, but many employees will wish to be conversant with the material others are talking about. The books will be another point of contact between individuals, who might find themselves conversing on topics other than the weekend football games. By simply distributing the list and displaying the books prominently, the CEO will set into motion a chain of events that can greatly benefit the workplace. For a very cost-effective investment, management will have yet another way to strengthen the corporate message. The very existence of many companies hangs not on the decisions of their visionary CEOs and energetic managers but on the behavior of its receptionists, retail clerks, delivery drivers, and service personnel. The manager must put himself and his people through progressively challenging courage-building experiences. He must make these a mandatory group experience, and he must lead the way. People who have confronted the fear of public speaking, and have learned to master it, find that their new confidence manifests itself in every other facet of the professional and personal lives. Managers who hold weekly meetings in which everyone takes on progressively more difficult speaking or presentation assignments will see personalities revolutionized before their eyes. Command from a forward position, which means from the thick of it. No soldier will ever be inspired to advance into a hail of bullets by orders phoned in on the radio from the safety of a remote command post; he is inspired to follow the officer in front of him. It is much more effective to get your personnel to follow you than to push them forward from behind a desk. The more important the mission, the more important it is to be at the front.

Okay, try this, ma’am,” Januscheitis said, setting down a shot glass with a clear liquid in it. “What is this?” Faith said. She sniffed it and her nose wrinkled. “Seriously? A Marine has to drink?” “Not has to, ma’am,” Januscheitis said. “Just interested. And it’s chilled vodka. Try it.” Faith tossed back the drink as the assembled group watched with sneaky smiles. “Okay, that’s not bad,” Faith said, shrugging. “No reaction at all?” Paula said, looking shocked. “No coughing? No choking?” “Was there supposed to be one?” Faith asked. She picked up the bottle, poured another shot and tossed it back. “There, happy?” “Try this one… ” Sophia said, carefully, sliding across a shot of dark liquor. “Ick,” Faith said. “That’s not so good. What was it?” “Twenty-five-year-old Strathsclyde,” Sophia said. “Which is?” Faith asked. “Scotch, ma’am,” Januscheitis said. “Good scotch.” “Tastes like piss,” Faith said. “Not that I’ve ever drunk piss. Okay, what else you got?” Thirty minutes later there were a dozen bottles on the table and Faith had had at least one shot from each. “Okay, rum’s pretty good,” she said, smacking her lips. “Not as good as Razzleberry tea but not bad.” “She’s not even slightly drunk?” Derek slurred. He was, for sure. “Isn’t it supposed to be doing something by now?” Faith asked, taking another shot of 151. “I mean, I’d just finished seventh grade,” Faith said. “I’ve been to, like, two school dances! I’m never going to get to go to prom… ” She took another drink and frowned. “That sucks. That’s one of the reasons I hate fucking zombies. I’m never going to get to go to prom.” “Marine corps ball, ma’am,” Januscheitis said. He’d stopped drinking when the LT started to get shit-faced. Which had taken enough straight booze to drown a Force Recon platoon. “Way better than prom.” “Really?” Faith said. “Really,” Derek said. “Marine Corps ball is like prom for Marines.” “Christ, it’s coming up, isn’t it?” Januscheitis said. “Time’s sort of gotten to be one of those things you forget.” “We gonna have one?” Derek said. “Bet you,” Januscheitis said. “Gunny will insist. Probably use the Alpha or the Money.” “That’d be cool,” Derek said, grinning. “Use the Alpha. Marine Corps ball on a megayacht captured from zombies? I can dig that. Besides it’s more trashed out. You know how ball gets… ” “Semper fucking Fi,” Faith said. “I get to go to prom.” “We’ll make sure of it, ma’am,” Januscheitis said. “Great!” Faith slurred. “So why do I gotta puke?