CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — A first sergeant with more than 20 years of service in the Marine Corps and a high school equivalency degree told a corporal being discharged after four years to attend college that there’s no way he’ll ever make it on the outside, sources confirmed.

Cpl. Steven Winters, 23, an infantryman with multiple deployments who was recently accepted to Columbia University in New York, will be “crawling back to the Corps within months,” according to 1st Sgt. Ted Harris.

“These young Marines don’t understand what they are giving up,” said Harris while spitting Copenhagen into a nearly-full 2-liter soda bottle. “This is the greatest job in the world. Where else do you get to get drunk, shoot things, and get a paycheck for it?”

Indeed, sources confirmed the Marine Corps is likely the only place where you get a paycheck for getting drunk and shooting things. A Duffel Blog investigation found that Marines also get to live in barracks with security cameras and guard dogs, caged security doors for their rooms, and have incompetent bosses called “Majors” that get them killed on a daily basis in combat.

“Winters thinks he’s one of these smarty-pants kids. Mr. Ivy League, whatever the hell that is,” said Harris. “You don’t need no daggone education to understand things in the world. I know whatever my sergeant major tells me, and I get guaranteed pay. What more do you need?”

“The only book these daggone devil dogs need to read is the daggone PES manual,” he added.

So far, Winters has saved up his money before getting out to pursue a degree in international relations at one of America’s top universities. He’s planning on possibly going for his Masters before moving on to become a consultant or civilian contractor for the Marine Corps where he can eventually tell Harris what to do.

“The grass isn’t always greener out there,” Harris said. “There’s scary things like reading, and people who don’t eat Copenhagen for lunch. I know he’ll be back.”