From:owner-johnny at charm.net
To:johnny at charm.net
Cc:
Date: 03/18/2002 01:23:24 PM
Subject: Re: USMC thievery


3/18/02 11:10:42 AM, Weldon Michael Goree <exit_pursued_by_bear at yahoo.com>
wrote:

>
>
>Ms. Davis wrote:
>> I suspect they get those extra toes from Army men
>> who have carelessly left
>> their toes sitting in their boots, outside their
>> tents, after they turn in
>> for the  night
>
>In my five years of association with the Marine Corps,
>I have stole anyone's toes. I have, however, been
>ordered to "find" 20 steaks and 30 pounds of shrimp in
>a poorly-watched Army freezer.
>
>One of the many sayings I've run across in the Corps
>and really liked was "Every unit needs one thief. And
>only one." That person is, usually, the supply clerk
>or the rations clerk (I was the latter). It's all
>oddly reminiscent of that bit in the Republic about
>the just man being a sort of thief.
>
>Plato has seemed to shadow me throughout the Corps. My
>second week in boot camp I was clearing the drill
>instructor's office/bedroom and let my gaze fall a bit
>too long on the "Four Great Dialogues of Plato" on his
>desk.
>
>"You eyeballin' my Plato, maggot?"
>
>"No sir! This recruit was not eyeballing, sir!"
>[recruits must refer to themselves in the third
>person, but, unlike "Full Metal Jacket", only the last
>words out of our stinking filthy sewers needed to be
>"sir", not the first and last words]
>
>"The unexamined life is not worth living, recruit. Do
>you know who said that?"
>
>"Socrates, sir!"
>
>"Oh I guess you think you're pretty smart, huh,
>college boy?"
>
>"No, sir! This recruit only knows that he knows
>nothing!"
>
>Luckily he didn't know any of our names yet, so I
>could escape the resulting stream of wrath fairly
>easily.
>
Please tell me it is  a true story, so that I will know what kinds of
guardians we truly have for our city. Is it really a kind of wonderful and
ferocious watchdog? that reads
Plato? Tell me its true.

Michael Keilly, SF 83