A lot of Marines ask me for favors. They know I got the right ingredients for their turtle soup or what not. And most of the time, I help them. I believe that “Semper Fi” shouldn’t just be empty words that mean always faithful. It’s a good motto but most times, many Marines aren’t faithful. They lack integrity and integrity is what I believe to be the most important value. It is the one value which all values are based on. A person who isn’t a man of his word simply isn’t much of a man.

How can you do business with a man if you know he’s a liar? Would you? I know I wouldn’t. Some people never change. Thieves steal, killers kill, liars lie, etc. Released sex offenders have a tendency to just going back to committing sex crimes.

I’ve always tried to live my life with integrity. That means doing the right thing. Sometimes it’s easy to cross the line and lie but then it’s not easy to step back. In the Marine Corps, Honor, Courage and Commitment are ingrained into every Marine at boot camp. Marines can choose whether or not to accept these core values.

It just sickens me whenever I put my trust out to my fellow Marines and they stab me in the back to get ahead in life. I’m nothing more than a scapegoat for a Sergeant or someone with money to another Marine. Every new unit, I come to the belief that it is a new beginning but I quickly learn that nothing is different. I lose faith in the Corps and in humanity.

If a Marine asks for your help, and his life isn’t in danger, just don’t help him. If he needs to borrow your CIF gear, or your money or he needs your time to stand for his duty while he “does something important”, do not do it. I know in your heart, you believe that you’re helping him but you’re only fueling his need to be dependent on others. Until you close that door, that Marine will know you’ll always be there to get him out of every single bind and most times it’s for something stupid.

In Okinawa, a Corporal got a call from his two junior Marines. They were drinking underage and were about to break the midnight libo curfew. This Corporal wanted to help his junior Marines not get NJP’d for underage drinking and staying beyond the curfew. So he trusted them. He falsely signed them into the liberty logbook and told them to “stay the fuck off base.” Simple right? Except one of those drunks told a taxi driver to go on base. He gets caught and all three of them gets NJP’d.

Most of the time, these Marines put themselves in a shitty situation. They become desperate to fix it immediately even if they have to break their integrity.

“I’ll get you back”

Those words, I hear often whenever I help people but whenever I need a small favor that doesn’t take up much of their time, I am told, “I am too busy.” or “Sorry, I can’t help you.” I mean, why do I even bother asking for help. I learn to be as self-reliant as possible because I realized that in the Corps, you can’t trust most Marines to look out for you. You can only truly connect with a few Marines.

On a side note, I just want to say that what Washington is doing right now is down right dangerous. They can raise the debt ceiling all they want but it’s not going to solve anything in the long run. What our government doesn’t understand is that borrowing more money is not going to fix our deficit and debt. They are borrowing our future.

What will solve it is a fix in the monetary policy, an environment that encourages a free market, lower all taxes for everyone, end the wars, the removal of the Federal Reserve Bank, a fix in our aggressive foreign policy, a fix in our ponzi-scheme-like social security system, a fix in all our welfare system and a fix in our spending problem. Those are just a few solutions. Yet, our politicians will not talk about them. They believe they can pass laws that defy the laws of basic mathematics and economics. Zero money means zero money as in not good. Printing more money without an increase in the supply of goods will only cause inflation. These politicians are all cowards, afraid to do what is necessary and right and remove or cut anything in fear of protesters.

These politicians rake in 6 figure salaries yet the first pay checks they want to cut are the men and women who serve our country and fight and die in foreign countries where our coward politicians sent them.

Remember Vice President Dick Cheney? He’s what you call a chicken hawk, a politician who supports war yet has actively dodged military service. He dodged the draft to Vietnam five times at the height of the war because he felt he had “better things to do”. He supported the war in Iraq that we have today. He was also the chairman and CEO of Halliburton, a private contractor for the 2003 Iraq war. You remember all of that.

There is only one politician that stands above the rest. His name is Ron Paul. He doesn’t just dodge the issues or provide answers that have no real meaning. The controlled media obscures his name because all the other status-quo politicians are afraid of him. You can view his messages of personal liberty and fiscal responsibility on Youtube.com. He will offer reasonable and logical solutions that our politicians will not even dare mention.

Lastly, we’ve reached over 20,000 hits.

Buddy fucked since 1775.