Practical Jokes

Some jokes are less practical than others

My wife was recently regaling me with the antics of our cat. At one point she said, “He’s just dumb, kind of like a young unseasoned Marine.”

As the senior enlisted advisor to company and battalion commanders I became well acquainted with dumb, young Marines. Salty or unseasoned, the inventory of Marines who do stupid things is long and disastrous. Many Marines get together and tell stories which famously begin with, “This is a no-$#!#er!” Company 1stSgts and Sgts Major get together and tell stories which begin, “We had this one &#$%ing idiot…”

There’s the run of the mill stupidity which causes young jarheads to marry a local stripper. You know her, the one all the Marines in the barracks know by the stage name “Buttons.”

There are the brain surgeons who have never managed money in their lives. In modern times this takes the form of Marines who have new car payments nearly equal to their monthly pay. In my day it was Marines who repeatedly bounced checks. When you tried to explain to them they didn’t have any more money to spend they’d looked perplexed, hold up their check book and exclaimed, “But I’ve still got checks!”Practical jokes gone awry.

Marines love to prank one another. I’ve seen Marines sign each other up to receive samples from the Pantyhose of the Month Club. They’ve packed their buddies cigarettes with loads of tiny explosives. My own diatribes about the amount of junk food Marines consumed once prompted my SNCOs to fill my desk with twenty-six pounds of candy. Bless their hearts.

Then there was the Marine with the Chemical Biological Incident Response Force back in 2005 or so. Knowing safety was a paramount concern, this Marine donned his chemical protective overgarment to include field protective mask, suit, rubber boots, and gloves. This is known as MOPP 4, the highest level of Mission Oriented Protective Posture designed to protect troops from battlefield concentrations of chem/bio agents. Our hero was not taking any chances.

He proceeded to acquire a pillow case and headed out into the woods. There he managed to capture a skunk. He promptly headed back to the barracks and thew open the door to his buddy’s room. Hurling the skunk filled pillow case within, he firmly shut the door again. This is all kinds of funny, but also against good order and discipline.

I am told at the NJP the CO lauded his use of safety equipment in the execution of his prank. We’ll never know if it actually mitigated any of the punishment though.

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