Terminal Lance #17 “The Stare”

This occurrence is pretty common in my life. I refer to it as “The Stare,” I’m sure you’re all familiar with it. As a lower enlisted, we are obligated to “greet” Staff NCO’s and officers as they approach us or walk by us. Generally its not a big deal, but often times the difference between E-7 through the E-9’s is indistinguishable outside of 15 feet–degrading to a blob of black weighing down their collars.

It becomes a game of chance and timing. The chance being that you’ll actually figure out what rank it is before he gets too close to be considered a late greeting. Often times I resort to a simple “Good morning…!” and just leave it at that, I try not to use “Sir” because the one time I did, I received the prompt response, “Don’t call me that shit, I work for a living.” Obviously this game doesn’t apply when you know the individual, but walking around in garrison always keeps you in a state of alert, not knowing when some random Staff NCO is going to start harassing you for not saying good morning to him.

I ask this though, if it weren’t a Marine Corps regulation, would anyone really care? Probably not, as I don’t typically greet everyone in a position of seniority as I walk down the street back home. Its ridiculous, really. While I have no qualms with the idea that it shows respect, often times I think Staff NCO’s and officers actually are more annoyed by it than anything.

Hell, as a “Senior Lance Corporal,” walking down the catwalk of the barracks became annoying when every boot 0311 scooted out of the way and panicked a quick, “Good morning, Lance Corporal!” at my mere presence. Often-times this happened multiple times in a short time span.

If you’re a boot and you don’t know the rule, I’ll explain it to you:

Greet a higher-up the first time you see them that day, or at least after a reasonable lapse of time; i.e., not every fucking time they walk passed you.

On a slightly related note, the little hand selector in the 2nd panel is definitely old school Final Fantasy inspired. I loved those games… anxiously awaiting FFXIII coming out next week.

So anyway, in site news, the forums are a little bit more active–which is great. I think more community activity and interaction would be great, but I suppose those sorts of things naturally develop with time. I’m slightly disappointed at the lack of store sales. I figured Terminal Lance skivvies would be flying off the shelves, but alas the store has been at a stand-still for a bit now. In any case, I will continue to wear mine with pride. I actually just had the chance to order one of the “civie” shirts, the Hand Signal ringer. I’ll post photos and let you all know how it looks when I get it.

In the mean time, keep it real and keep passing this site on. While performing my POGiest of activities today, customer service, I had the site up on my desktop and asked a random Lance if he had been to my site. He told me yes and that he thought it was hilarious, I proceeded to proclaim that the creator was in fact a genius. He also agreed, but when I asked if it had caught on within his battalion, he told me no–that no one really knew about it actually.

WTF gents? Spread that word like Jody is spreading your slutty girlfriends legs back home. In the meantime, I’ll continue to POG it up while I wait out the last 2 months of my contract. Peace.