I jest, but this quote kicked over my giggle box!
I ended up sleeping with 2 M16s through some of Marine combat training because they guy I shared a tent with on a few field exercises couldn’t deal with having a rifle in his sleeping bag.
PLEASE follow the above link so all Marines know I’m just joshing! (Tho if all parties are consenting what’s wrong with polygamy?)
I can’t imagine a rifle, and all its hard edges makes a terribly good bunk mate, but if you’re out in the sticks and carrying a rifle, I can think of no better place for one than in your sleeping bag (chamber empty PLEASE!). As a matter of fact in your tent-mate’s sleeping bag is a pretty rotten place because if the SHTF you’re gonna be pestering your buddy for your rifle!
Don’t be that guy!
thanks Stuart for the great quote and story! And thanks to all who served this wonderful country and maybe spent a blissful night in the woods with a rifle in their sleeping bag!
Tho if all parties are consenting what’s wrong with polygamy?
Well, I think nothing is, obviously. 😉
(The debate on which has recently <a href="http://elmoiscariot.blogspot.com/2011/07/what-are-one-and-one-and-one-and-one.htmlbecome more relevant.)
AAAAKKKK!!!! I got quoted on weerdworld! I’m totally geeking out!!!
A whole hearted thank you for the link to my humble rantings.
even if you spelled my name wrong… 🙂
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Gaahh! Fixed! Like my HTML skills on this blog, my spelling is 100% done by the machines and not the meat in front of the keyboard!
It’s true about the sleeping with your gun bit in MCT! You put it in your sleeping bag so nobody can take it while you sleep. I had to do that and I was the one with the M240G. 7.62 machine gun. Those first 10 minutes were coooooooooooooooooold! Almost as cold as the nights I anger the wife. Fortunately, machine guns are far far less dangerous.
LOL! So True! My Wife doesn’t have a safety, nor can she be “Cleared” to render her safe. Just need to take my chances! 🙂
I also imagine it keeps the action of your gun clean and free of dirt and water.
BTW what condition does the USMC keep their sleeping bag guns in? Unloaded? Condition 3?
Are you kidding? At least when I was in, they treated us like Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children. The rifles were unloaded. In fact, there was NO access to ammo at all except for one Staff Sergeant who carried the “safety rounds”, and we were never allowed to see them (lest we get funny ideas i guess). We were trusted with blanks for some of the training and we had live rounds on the rifle range but they were dolled out while we were on the firing line and only in the amounts needed for the next course of fire.
I handle more ammo on a daily basis now as a civilian (I’m a computer programmer/UNIX admin etc etc etc) with a CC than I did when I was in the Marines. I’m sure that doesn’t apply to Marines who are in one of the various war zones here and there about the world, but probably still applies to Marines (or future Marines) who are in Boot Camp or Marine Combat Training (MCT).
That thing that happened on the Army base where the bad guy started shooting and nobody was able to shoot back in spite of being soldiers because they had no weapons or ammo. I continue to be surprised that that sort of thing doesn’t happen more often. As far as our government is concerned, soldiers are property. Dangerous property. And property doesn’t have those pesky “RIGHTS” that they have to worry about when civilians are involved.
That’s one of the (many) reasons that I decided that Marine life wasn’t for me. I’m not exactly what you would call a conformist, and being treated as a generic piece of equiptment… I just never got used to that.
I do miss the Corps sometimes though.
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Yeah I’ve heard many a story to this effect. Sad really that they will train you to go into a place in the world where you will take incoming fire and expected to return fire, but they can’t trust you with live ammo?
Obviously when I teach a new shooter its with unloaded guns and dummy rounds before we go to the range and the live ammo comes out. But that’s over the course of a day, not over the course of an intensive military training.
And your reference to Ft. Hood is a real example of how this shit can get not only good people killed, but also kill and injure a substantial investment Uncle Sam has made turning an average Joe or Jayne into a fighting soldier.
This NEEDS to change.