Winger Ed.
Chief Petty Officer
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2004
- Messages
- 649
I was going back through many of the posts here, to be sure I hadn't missed anything really hilarious, and coming across the dough-nuts in a jon boat posting reminded me of one of my Marine Corps buddies favorite Sea Stories.<br /><br />Unlike me--- a super smart- perhaps bordering on brilliant, and strikingly hansom, (former) Marine Air Winger helicopter mechanic & Parachute Rigger. <br /><br />My buddy is one of those knuckle dragging, Marine Grunts. If you ever see one, you'll recognize them imediately:<br /><br />They all have a rather large protruding forehead, accented in the middle by this one big long, bushy eyebrow, that just barely covers their dark and dull, deepset eyes. <br /><br />They are so unique that they have their own species designation in Latin. Its called, "Gruntus Maximus Neanderthalus".<br /><br />Anyway:<br /><br />He tells a tale of where he was locked up, along with other members of said species at a place called "Marine Corps Base, Camp LeJune" somewhere in the unexplored Eastern regions known as 'the Carolinas'. . <br /><br />Like any other Govt. instalation, they had a 'Special Services' dept. where you could rent various articles of camping gear-- for about a buck a week. And boats too.<br /><br />They had several jon boats, with about 10-20 hp Merc. outboards hanging on the back of them you could rent for the day. With each boat also came a paddle** so you could get it back if you ran out of gas.<br /><br />**<br />It wasn't really a paddle. It was a oar from the days before they got the OB motors.<br />**<br /><br />Anyway:<br />All they charged was the gas you used and about $2 per day for the use of this leaky, 20 year old, bent, and broken boat.<br /><br />On ocasion, him and several of his other animal friends would take all the beer they could carry, a .50 cent bag of peanuts for Lunch, and go rent a few jon boats. <br /><br /><br />They'd ride up the river out of sight, pull up on the beach---- at full speed, then shut off the engines, hop out, and procede to get really drunk. <br /><br /><br />After about a case of beer each, they'd put the boats back in the water,,,,,,,,,,,,,<br /><br />Then, with their life jackets chinched up real tight, the ones who'd done it before would wear a stolen flak jacket or body armor, then with Oars held at the 'ready' position, holding the bow line in their free hand, and a Helsman, they'd run the jon boats at each other at full speed, and Joust.<br /><br /><br />At age 49 and at this stage of the game, I can't imagine myself standing in the front of a (rented) jon boat, with another one headed straight at me,,, and jousting..........<br /><br /><br />,,,,OHHHH Boy,,,<br />Jousting with jon boats,,,,,<br />I hope Mom doesn't hear about this,,,,,<br /><br />.......<br /><br />Ohhh well....<br /><br />If you ever need to slaughter the enimies of freedom, and regretably suffer losses at the ratio of about 1,000 bad guys to one of our own sacred sons,,,,,,,,, that's the sort of folks it takes to do it with. God bless them all.<br /><br /><br />And the older I get, the more I realize that the Moms of such rascals do indeed have the toughest duty there is. <br /><br /><br />But then again, Jousting with jon boats, is that funny or what?
