Monday's Facts

In conjunction with Seams Inspired's Party, I give you my Monday Morning Facts, for what shall we say? For your enjoyment, entertainment, encouragement, curiosity, concern, comprehension, snoopiness, wonder, amusement, to tickle your funny bone, and or your inquisitiveness! 

Fact:  The last couple of days it has been very cold. You know the kind of cold where the chickens rush into KFC and beg to warm up in the pressure cooker. The kind of cold where the dogs had to start the rabbits running with jumper cables. The kind of cold where even the politicians have their hands in their own pockets.

Fact:  I have started reading George Muller's autobiography. The late Dr. D. James Kennedy wrote of this book, "Readers will find their faith strengthened, their prayer life enriched, and their ministry expanded by the life and example of this man of God." I pray that would be true for me as I read this book.

Fact:   I love fall! The leaves are turning colors and falling to the ground. I love the yellows, reds, and orange leaves! The skies are a "warm-looking" gray. The chill in the air is invigorating while brisk.

Fact:  A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver. (Proverbs 25:11, ESV)

Fact:  The Marine Corps recruiters did ship me out the day following my actual signing of the enlistment papers. They shipped me to Oakland, CA where I had to undergo a complete physical, rigourous entrance and placement testing, and swearing in. I was in Oakland for almost a week while a platoon was being collected to ship to Marine Corps Recruiting Depot-San Diego (MCRD-San Diego)

Fact:  We had had a recruit go AWOL while we were in the Holding Barracks in Oakland. It seems they issued him a tooth brush and then pulled all his teeth, then they issued him a comb and then cut all his hair off. The final straw was when they issued him a "jock-strap."

Fact:  That previous entry was just a joke.




 

Fact:  After the physical, all the testing, and the swearing in (the promise to protect the constitution and the US from all enemies foreign and domestic, etc.) we were flown to San Diego.

Fact:  The recruits that go through and graduate from MCRD-San Diego are called "Hollywood Marines." Let me tell you from experience, we who graduated from San Diego are no less Marines nor less tough than the graduates from MCRD-Paris Island, SC. We still trained under "live fire."

Fact:  I spent 13 weeks at MCRD-San Diego as a "boot," a "recruit," "lady," "maggot," and a few other labels I can't type in mixed company. You were not nor could you call yourself a Marine until you actually graduated. I was assigned to the 2nd Battalion and Platoon 2134. I remember it all so vividly to this day, some 39 years later.

 Fact:  Life as a civilian ends and life as a Marine Corps recruit begins when you step off the bus at MCRD and the Drill Instructor is yelling to get on the "Yellow Footprints." If you don't know what the yellow footprints are you were never a Marine. (I stood right there on those yellow footprints) It was a long flight from Oakland to San Diego, then a bus ride from San Diego Airport to MCRD and sometime in the middle of the night, dark, lonely, and scared - I stood there on those footprints as a 17 year old kid wondering what I had done.

Fact:  My Law and Order Season One DVD Collection showed up! It will be a Law and Order marathon weekend.