This is why Americans are the deadliest fighters on earth.
I met a priest yesterday who just got accepted to chaplain school in Newport. I asked him the obvious question: Marines or Navy?
Navy, he said. His face fell a little. He told me he could never be a Marine because every Marine is a rifleman, and as a priest he can’t carry a weapon.
He’s hoping to get assigned to a Marine unit anyway. All chaplains are Navy officers, so that’s the only door in.
I laughed. I feel a little bad about that.
Then I explained to him what “Devil Doc” means. The Marine Corps doesn’t have medics. They use Navy Corpsmen.
I told him: when you get out to the fleet, find a Marine sergeant with a couple of Purple Hearts and tell him Devil Docs “aren’t real Marines.”
Be prepared to duck.
Marines are violently particular about who gets to wear their uniform. Navy Corpsmen and Navy chaplains who have eaten dirt alongside them in combat qualify. Full stop.
My dad was Air Force. Not even Navy. I remember going to VFW halls with him as a kid. Someone would ask him what service, he’d say Air Force, and the room would chuckle a little. Then they’d find out he was a medic, and the air in the room changed. Something close to reverence.
Dad hated being honored. He had one line he used to deflect it:
“I didn’t do much. Save your praise for my cousin the PJ.”
That always broke the ice.
PJs are the Air Force special operators who go into hell to pull downed pilots out.
They will take casualties and are prepared to die to rescue a single pilot or crewman.
The math doesn’t math out. Why would any combat force take multiple casualties to rescue one air force jet jockey?
What the padre is about to learn is that the military has a hierarchy that has nothing to do with rank, and nothing to do with the service stitched on your chest.
Have you deployed?
Have you seen combat?
In every firefight there are men who move toward the guns and men who hang back. And when the guy at the tip of the spear is pinned down, bleeding, with rounds cracking past his head, there is exactly one word he screams into the radio.
“Medic.”
Here is the catch, and it is the whole reason America fights the way America fights.
That Marine is willing to push forward into fire BECAUSE he knows the Corpsman is coming. He knows the medevac birds will land in the hot LZ.
He knows the Devil Doc will drag him out by his plate carrier if it comes to that.
And, if the medic can’t help, if he has what Dad called “injuries incompatible with life,” he knows that chaplain will crawl on his belly to administer last rights and deliver him to heaven.
The F-15 pilot punching out over enemy territory knows the same thing. He knows the PJs will move heaven and earth to reach him, and turn whatever is shooting at him into a smoking crater of hell on earth on the way in.
This is the quiet math underneath American violence.
Our warriors are the fiercest on earth not because they are more aggressive, not just because they are better trained, or better equipped, though they are all of those things. They are the fiercest because they know, in their bones, that when they key the mic and call for help, help is coming in hot.
Take that away, and you don’t have the U.S. military anymore. You have a security force.
We saw that post on full display to the world the last couple of days. The destruction left behind in the wake of that extraction has left the IRGC and Basij forces stunned and shaken - much like after we extracted Maduro. I wonder if some of the same "weapons" were used. No man left behind.
A bit of a personal anecdote if you will indulge me. During the Vietnam war I was stationed in north of England for a brief tour. The children of WWII vets would talk about how their fathers would say, "Never pick a fight with a Yank" (American). "They are the toughest, meanest SOBs on the planet. They will kick your ass until you can't stand up, then pick you up and kick your ass some more". We never had any trouble with British street gangs if we were in uniform.
During WW2 there were pitched street battles between US GI's and British Tommies and commandos, mainly over the way the GI's treated the black GI's. The black GI's joined in the fighting with the British soldiers, this was rife in the west country towns. Some returning black GI's named their new daughters Devon and Somerset as they were treated so well when there.
I was Army, they'll talk all that smack in the Marines but it was us who landed during D-Day.
I'd trust an Army SPC any day before I'd trust a LCpl (terminal lance) who failed his ASVAB.
I'm just talking shit, one team, one fight.
I don't care if you were a Coastie, you're still one of us Veterans.
It gives me the chills, that’s why when I was a young woman I love the military guys, never got married but I could with some guys and I didn’t which sometimes I regret. I still love the military guys.
Why do we have to use Catholics in everything. Satanic infiltrated sect. The military would never use just a non denomination christian pastor. Its always a priest. Catholicism is Satan's church.
This is why Americans are the deadliest fighters on earth.
I met a priest yesterday who just got accepted to chaplain school in Newport. I asked him the obvious question: Marines or Navy?
Navy, he said. His face fell a little. He told me he could never be a Marine because every Marine is a rifleman, and as a priest he can’t carry a weapon.
He’s hoping to get assigned to a Marine unit anyway. All chaplains are Navy officers, so that’s the only door in.
I laughed. I feel a little bad about that.
Then I explained to him what “Devil Doc” means. The Marine Corps doesn’t have medics. They use Navy Corpsmen.
I told him: when you get out to the fleet, find a Marine sergeant with a couple of Purple Hearts and tell him Devil Docs “aren’t real Marines.”
Be prepared to duck.
Marines are violently particular about who gets to wear their uniform. Navy Corpsmen and Navy chaplains who have eaten dirt alongside them in combat qualify. Full stop.
My dad was Air Force. Not even Navy. I remember going to VFW halls with him as a kid. Someone would ask him what service, he’d say Air Force, and the room would chuckle a little. Then they’d find out he was a medic, and the air in the room changed. Something close to reverence.
Dad hated being honored. He had one line he used to deflect it:
“I didn’t do much. Save your praise for my cousin the PJ.”
That always broke the ice.
PJs are the Air Force special operators who go into hell to pull downed pilots out.
They will take casualties and are prepared to die to rescue a single pilot or crewman.
The math doesn’t math out. Why would any combat force take multiple casualties to rescue one air force jet jockey?
What the padre is about to learn is that the military has a hierarchy that has nothing to do with rank, and nothing to do with the service stitched on your chest.
Have you deployed?
Have you seen combat?
In every firefight there are men who move toward the guns and men who hang back. And when the guy at the tip of the spear is pinned down, bleeding, with rounds cracking past his head, there is exactly one word he screams into the radio.
“Medic.”
Here is the catch, and it is the whole reason America fights the way America fights.
That Marine is willing to push forward into fire BECAUSE he knows the Corpsman is coming. He knows the medevac birds will land in the hot LZ.
He knows the Devil Doc will drag him out by his plate carrier if it comes to that.
And, if the medic can’t help, if he has what Dad called “injuries incompatible with life,” he knows that chaplain will crawl on his belly to administer last rights and deliver him to heaven.
The F-15 pilot punching out over enemy territory knows the same thing. He knows the PJs will move heaven and earth to reach him, and turn whatever is shooting at him into a smoking crater of hell on earth on the way in.
This is the quiet math underneath American violence.
Our warriors are the fiercest on earth not because they are more aggressive, not just because they are better trained, or better equipped, though they are all of those things. They are the fiercest because they know, in their bones, that when they key the mic and call for help, help is coming in hot.
Take that away, and you don’t have the U.S. military anymore. You have a security force.
Holy Wow. Your words, the behind-the-scene- picture, brings tears to my eyes. And swells my heart with Pride and JOY.
Me, too. I am sooo proud of our US Military.
WWG1WGA.
So true.
Nice post. Thanks.
We saw that post on full display to the world the last couple of days. The destruction left behind in the wake of that extraction has left the IRGC and Basij forces stunned and shaken - much like after we extracted Maduro. I wonder if some of the same "weapons" were used. No man left behind.
Can't wait to find out... hopefully we will.
Great post Sunny...I upvoged and reposted it!
A bit of a personal anecdote if you will indulge me. During the Vietnam war I was stationed in north of England for a brief tour. The children of WWII vets would talk about how their fathers would say, "Never pick a fight with a Yank" (American). "They are the toughest, meanest SOBs on the planet. They will kick your ass until you can't stand up, then pick you up and kick your ass some more". We never had any trouble with British street gangs if we were in uniform.
During WW2 there were pitched street battles between US GI's and British Tommies and commandos, mainly over the way the GI's treated the black GI's. The black GI's joined in the fighting with the British soldiers, this was rife in the west country towns. Some returning black GI's named their new daughters Devon and Somerset as they were treated so well when there.
Love this
This gets the blood pumping. Great post.
I was Army, they'll talk all that smack in the Marines but it was us who landed during D-Day. I'd trust an Army SPC any day before I'd trust a LCpl (terminal lance) who failed his ASVAB.
I'm just talking shit, one team, one fight. I don't care if you were a Coastie, you're still one of us Veterans.
It gives me the chills, that’s why when I was a young woman I love the military guys, never got married but I could with some guys and I didn’t which sometimes I regret. I still love the military guys.
The Regiment of Gurkhas has entered the chat.
Why do we have to use Catholics in everything. Satanic infiltrated sect. The military would never use just a non denomination christian pastor. Its always a priest. Catholicism is Satan's church.
You are obviously not familiar with military chaplains. Please stop talking.
Im not. Are they priests/catholics