File Photo: Marines Running PT

CAMP PENDLETON, CA — Troops running and singing cadence is a familiar scene at bases across the world, but one Marine says the cadence really needs to end.

Corporal Jason Andreesen is assigned to the famed ‘Dark Horse’ battalion of 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines.

“Every morning I have to wake up, put on my silkies and glowbelt and think ‘Well, here we go again’,” says Andreesen.

His reluctance for physical training (PT) comes not from exertion, but from the cadences that his squad mates usually choose. One in particular is referred to as the “Vegetable Cadence.”

“I mean, I thought it was kind of funny back when I first heard it,” says Andreesen, “but that was before I met Sarah. She’s my dream girl.”

Sarah is Andreesen’s wife of three years — who miraculously survived a car crash last year despite losing all her arms and legs and putting her into a coma.

As he runs along with his squad, Andreesen wearily waits for it to come up. Sgt. Wilton Chambers leads the cadence, shouting “Left right ley-o…”

The Corporal happily repeats it back with the rest of his squad, but then his fears are realized at the Sergeant’s next verse.

“My girl’s a vegetable, she lives in a hospital … but I would do anything … to keep that bitch alive, yeah!”

Corporal Andreesen says that “the first half isn’t terrible”, but he repeats the rest back amid tears and sweat.

“She’s got her own TV and it’s called an EKG!” barks Sergeant Chambers.

“I mean seriously. This is fucked up. They all know about Sarah,” says Andreesen. “Yeah, so she has no arms and legs but I mean, I’ve never pulled the plug to watch her choke. I love her.”

Other Marines in the squad say that they’ve found the “chink in his armor” and just continue to attack it.

“We’re in the infantry. We talk shit. When we find weakness in someone, we do not stop,” says Lance Corporal Miguel Rodriguez. “It’s too much fun.”

“I really just wish that we could sing a much better cadence that everyone would love,” says Andreesen after he again repeats that he’d ‘do anything to keep that bitch alive’. “I recommended the ‘cocksucker, motherfucker, eat a bag of shit’ cadence, but the two gay guys in the platoon got all pissy about it.”

Others in the squad say that Andreesen is getting “butthurt for no reason.”

“I don’t really see the problem,” says Corporal Evan Winters. “I mean, Lance Corporal Troy fucks pumpkins and he seems just fine with it.”

After their run returned to San Mateo, the squad continued to bicker about whether pumpkins were vegetables or fruit.