Fleet Marine Life

Okinawa was my first duty station. I quickly began to regret my choice. I was surrounded by alcoholics 24/7 and there was no escape. Everyone would often get in trouble for shit they did.

There were several times when I would get a knock on my door from a felllow NCO on a saturday morning because “something happened.”

One time, my fellow NCO told me that everyone has to go to the battalion CP for a formation because the battalion Gunny was asking for it. No one would ever know anything else. 30 minutes later, the battalion is standing in formation and getting our asses chewed by the battalion Gunny because we’re not looking out for each other and we’re all shitbags for it.

It turns out that there was a Marine, in my battalion, who got drunk, went on to the roof of a Japanese bar and started peeing. He was arrested for indecent exposure. I’ve seen different levels of drunk in the Marine Corps. There’s tipsy-level drunk, can’t-stand-level drunk, throw-up-level drunk, black-out-level drunk and then watching-yourself-do-shit-but-you-can’t-control-your-body-like-you’re-watching-a-bad-movie-level drunk, the ultimate level. He was at the black-out-level. He told me he didn’t remember shit and that he woke up in a Japanese jail.

Anyways, the Gunny took away everyone’s liberty. No one knew the guy in jail because he worked in the CP of our battalion.

My old Sergeant told me a story about a time when he was at the ultimate level of drunkness. After drinking, he went back to his barracks room to sleep, turned on his lights and found a girl in his bed. He woke her up and said, “What are you doing in my bed?” She screamed and then said, “This isn’t your room. Let me escort you to your room.” He was in the right room but wrong floor. She escorted him to his room, he went to bed and that was that. Except, the MPs starting busting down his door and took him away on the accusation of sexual assault.

His legal battle ended up dragging on for months preventing him from doing anything. The girl even testified on his behalf that NOTHING HAPPENED. But the military judicial system is so hell bent on sending an innocent man to the brig that they are blinded by the truth. But there was a happy ending to this story. He ended up winning and getting all that backed up pay and a promotion.

I remember on my first day of duty in Okinawa, the Duty NCO was attacked by the platoon drunkard. The next day, my platoon was crammed into the 4th deck lobby on a saturday morning to discuss about what happened. Another day, I remember this same man being dragged up the stairs by 4 Marines.

My old platoon Sergeant was a raging alcoholic who would often come to work drunk. I remember during one field day, my platoon NCOs and my battalion Gunnery Sergeant was in his room. The drunk was arguing about how the Gunny judges field day. It became a huge arguement and then eventually the Gunny said, “I’m done. I’m leaving.” Everyone left after him one by one muttering things like, “Fuck, man. He needs to go back to SACO.” He told me that I did a good job looking over field day. As I walked out, I saw him hock a giant loogie on to the carpeted floor, push down his secretary, throw his shit across the room and then curl into the fetal position and cry.

Anyways, one thing I will miss about Okinawa is Coco Ichibanya Curry House. Recently, they opened up a Coco’s Curry house in Torrance, California. The first CoCos on mainland USA and it was amazing! I highly recommend CoCo’s Curry to anyone near that area.

Excessive alcoholism since 1775.