Category: Hard Nosed Folks Both Good & Bad
The Marine Corps is a small fighting force deep in lore, history, culture, and intricacies that can be tough to navigate. Marines can serve for years and not find their way to the bottom of Marine Corps knowledge. As such, I’ve come to learn a few things as both a Marine, and now a civilian fascinated by history and culture. These USMC facts are easily escapable for the average Marine, and these five represent an odd mixture of regulations, culture, and tactics that many, even Marines, may not be aware of.
The USMC Boat Marines
I served as a Marine infantryman for five years. I worked with weapons and line companies, I worked with LAR, Recon, Scout Snipers, and more. It wasn’t until years later I that I became aware of the Boat Marines. By Boat Marine, I mean 0312 Riverine Assault Craft Marine. The Corps dumped the MOS in 2020, but I was on active duty between 2008 and 2013 and never heard of these guys.
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USMC Boat Marines also include the defunct 0314 and the still-active 0316 MOS. 0316 is an additional MOS and supplements a traditional infantry MOS, and utilizes rubberized small crafts. The 0312 and 0314 Boat Marines operated Riverine Assault Crafts. These ruggedized patrol crafts were used in Iraq to patrol rivers and control these areas.
Boat Marines were a combined effort between the Navy and the Marine Corps and shouldn’t be a surprise. Marines are water-borne infantry by their very nature, so boats have to be a factor eventually.
Capes are allowed
Have you ever looked at the Marine dress uniform and thought, “Man, it’d look a lot better with a cape?” Of course, it would. Dress blues, a sword, and a cape sound sick. Well, boys, the USMC offers you the Boat Cloak. As far as USMC facts go, this is the most fashionable. Male Marine officers and SNCOs are allowed to wear the Boat Cloak with the Dress A or B blues uniform.
The Boat cloak features a black exterior and red interior with a soft wool-like collar and a button-down design. It’s a special order item and costs about 750 bucks to make and order. Please allow eight weeks for delivery! The Boat Cloak is rarely seen, but come blues season, at least one SNCO will pop up wearing this bad boy.
A separate fitness test for one specific role
Marine Corps Body Bearers have both the honorable and sad job of carrying Marines to their final resting place. These Marines are subject to strict requirements, including: having a first-class PFT and CFT, being between 70 and 76 inches tall, being within regular Marine Corps height and weight standards, and being a Sergeant or above.
Additionally, they have to pass a Body Bearer fitness test and maintain these weight lifting standards. Body Bearer Marines must be capable of completing ten reps of the following exercises:
- 225 Pound Bench Press
- 135 Pound Behind the Neck Military Press
- 115 Pound Strict Barbell Curl
- 315 Pound Barbell Squat
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Currently, this is the only fitness test the Marine Corps utilizes weight lifting techniques for. This has led to USMC Body Bearers being labeled the strongest Marines in the Corps. These USMC facts help me set my own goals even as a gross civilian.
We use grappling hooks
It’s true, of all the USMC facts we have, at least one makes us look like Batman. We use grappling hooks! Marines wield grappling hooks for a variety of reasons. This includes searching for improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and mines. Marines can tuck behind cover, throw and drag a grappling hook through a suspected IED area. It’s like a version of the claw game you see with teddy bears in supermarkets, but it’s for things that explode.
Grappling hooks make an appearance in urban operations and give a means for Marines to climb over walls and into windows. While it sounds like Batman, the grappling hook often gives a holding point and a little boost to the climbing Marine. You aren’t scaling up the sides of buildings like Batman and climbing multiple stories. However, an 8-foot wall or second-story window is easier to get over while wearing full gear with the assistance of a grappling hook.
The Yucca Man
Finally, we get to the story of the Yucca Man. This is likely the most widespread of the USMC facts on this list. Anyone who was stationed in Twentynine Palms knows the story of the Mojave bigfoot. According to legend, any Marine unlucky enough to find himself on watch in the endless desert of the Twentynine Palms training area may have an encounter with the Yucca Man.
The natives of the area have long told stories about these desert bigfoots and their spread to the Marine Corps. I think it’s due to two main reasons. First, these stories are fun to tell new Marines and work them up a bit before sending them out for some night guard duty or road guard position.
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Second, training at Twentynine Palms for a battalion level combined arms exercise (CAX)/Mojave Viper training event will exhaust the Marines. It’s made to simulate a month at war, and Marines are constantly training and dealing with the desert heat, endless training operations, and sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation and exhaustion can cause hallucinations, and I’m willing to bet some exhausted Marines have had some visual and auditory hallucinations.
On my first deployment, I remember many nights on post after a 24-36 hour operation guarding the base and having a healthy amount of hallucinations.
USMC facts, myths, and beyond
America needs an Army, an Air Force, and a Navy, but America wants a Marine Corps. The Marines have long held the heart of the American civilian. A mixture of glory and capability mixed with a perception of a plucky underdog gives the Marine Corps a completely different cultural impact. Part of that impact is the unique culture, roles, and capabilities the Marine Corps has. These small USMC facts are only part of a much richer culture, so sound off below on your favorite USMC facts that we might not know.
“Guns aren’t radically deadlier than they were 50 years ago, but our sick culture is.”
While humanity has been fallen since Eden, the past 50 years have seen countless indicators of exponential cultural decline, not the least of which have been falling marriage rates and skyrocketing numbers of children who are denied the chance to live with both their mother and father.
We’re also seeing a pandemic of mental illness, which the years of mental angst and isolation caused by Covid school closures will certainly only worsen.
Americans are losing interest in the purpose and community that faith and church offer, losing respect for the sanctity of human life, and losing sight of the notion that a higher moral good exists than immediate self-gratification.
Instead, we live under a cultural ethic that idolizes the indulgence of selfish desires even up to the point of taking the life of another.
Delbert Waldron III, “Bert” to those that knew him, was the most accomplished U.S. sniper during the Vietnam conflict. Adelbert originally joined the U.S. Navy in 1953 where he served for twelve years and left as an E-5 in 1965. In 1968 Sgt. Waldron enlisted in the US Army as a Sergeant and headed to Vietnam as part of Company B, 3rd Battalion, 60th Infantry of the 9th Infantry Division. Sgt. Waldron qualified as an expert marksman and was sent to the now famous 9th ID sniper school that was run in country by the Army Marksmanship Unit (AMU) with the support of the 9th ID commander, General Julian Ewell. Once graduated, Sgt. Waldron then found himself back working with the Navy in the Mekong Delta in the brown water ‘Tango Boats’ and PBRs. It was in this very hostile area that Sgt. Waldron operated as a sniper.
At the end of his tour in mid 1969 the 36 year old Sgt. Waldron had 109 confirmed kills, highest among all U.S. servicemen during the Vietnam conflict. Sgt. Waldron primarily used the M-21 SWS during his time as a sniper and on occasion would use a starlight equipped M-14 or M-21 for nighttime operations. General Ewell also credited Sgt. Waldron with making a single shot confirmed kill at 900 yards from a moving Tango Boat. Adelbert ended his tour in Vietnam as a Staff Sergeant E-6 and had been awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, a Presidential Unit Citation, and two Distinguished Service Crosses.
After his time in Vietnam, Sgt Waldron taught at the US Army Marksmanship Unit before leaving the Army in 1970. He worked with several questionable contractors and eventually he divorced as well. Staff Sergeant Adelbert Waldron III died on October 18, 1995 in California at the age of 62. Not much else is known about Sgt. Waldron or his military career, which was the way he wanted it. He did not publish any books or do lectures and refused many requests for interviews, he simply did not want the notoriety for what he did. Notoriety or not, he was an excellent sniper.
CBP officer Jacob Albarado runs into Uvalde school with barber’s shotgun to save daughter
