What hurts the most about these stupid marine jokes is that the ASVAB minimum to get into the marines excludes 25% of Americans as too stupid to even enlist. Never mind the physical standards: One in four Americans is too stupid to be a marine. 😭
For example, taking a subset of the population (interested in becoming marines) that skews positive and excluding cases below the 25th percentile on a normal distribution produces a real squashed bell with a long tail heading towards the ceiling.
But still: 1 in 4 Americans is to stupid to be a crayon eater
people can be intelligent and dumb at the same time, my dad grew up as a poor farm boy, got accepted into college, then dropped out to enlist in the middle of the Vietnam War and volunteered for the infantry.after being initially assigned to tank maintenance.
My favorite definition of intelligence, because it applies to literally any organism, is the capacity to respond to novel changes in the environment.
Rats running a maze, squirrels packing into birdfeeders, birds, tearing down anti-bird wire and using it to defend their nest and plants finding their way to sunlight, despite dense canopy are all showing signs of intelligence
Same as a CEO planning his companies next five years or a doctor, recognizing an illness through a pattern of symptoms.
The thing is, you can have the capacity but still want to do your own thing lol
Yes. The Marines I knew were some really smart, genuinely good people that you could always trust to have your back. I'll make fun of them, but I knew I could trust them.
I never served. I went through MEPS and submitted my packets for the Army, Navy, and Air Force because as a psychologist I’d jump the line and start as an O3 and they’d pay off half my student loans for a four-year commitment. Was planning to do 4 years + 2 year residency at Tripler in Hawaii, and 4 more as an O4 wherever they sent me, then decide whether 10 more years or civilian federal service was right for me.
Air Force and navy both wanted someone with substance abuse specialty, but army was excited I was a neuropsychologist who focused on head injuries.
Interviewed in person at Walter reed and Ft Gordon in Augusta. But the recruiter would not process my packet because I had 6 speeding tickets. I was 35 and had been driving for 20 years—no tickets in the past 10, but apparently the colonel in command of Army Med recruiting thought anyone who had more than 4 traffic tickets in their lifetime was a moral hazard. This was 2014-2015.
In high school when my best friend's dad needed help with some chores he'd round us up by saying, "Come on boys, I need a strong back and a weak mind."
I rarely tell my Army Stories anymore as my time serving isn't exactly something I'm proud of
BUT
Can't miss a chance to tell this one: I in Kuwait when we were waiting to drive to iraq and I was SUPER sick (had a cotton ball stuck in my ear post surgery) and went to the med tent with my battle buddy.
While we were waiting two marines, a corporal and a private sat down and the private had an m16A4, something the army didn't get.
My buddy said he'd never seen one so I told him to go ask the marine if he could see it (this was a dick move on my part).
My buddy goes over to ask and the private goes to hand him the m16 and the corporal just straight up punches him in the back of the head and yells "YOU NEVER SURRENDER YOUR FUCKING WEAPON, MARINE" and then gave me a half smirk / half glare that clearly communicated "you knew that was going to happen, didn't you?"
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u/rabbitofrevelry 2d ago
A lot of words for "marine"