I didn’t take any time to verify whether or not this letter is genuine, or not. I’m just assuming it is. That’s cuz I want to believe it’s the real thing ….. cuz it really has a ring of truth to it, and it’s funny as shit.
Titled “Farm Kid Writes Home After Joining Marines“
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Dear Ma and Pa:
I am well. Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer the Marine Corps beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before all of the places are filled.
I was restless at first because you get to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m. But I am getting so I like to sleep late. Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot, and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay. Practically nothing.
Men got to shave but it is not so bad, there’s warm water. Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc., but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie and other regular food, but tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit by the two city boys that live on coffee. Their food, plus yours, holds you until noon when you get fed again. It’s no wonder these city boys can’t walk much.
We go on “route marches,” which the platoon sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it’s not my place to tell him different. A “route march” is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks.
The sergeant is like a school teacher. He nags a lot. The Captain is like the school board. Majors and colonels just ride around and frown. They don’t bother you none.
This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing. I keep getting medals for shooting. I don’t know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don’t move, and it ain’t shooting at you like the Higgett boys at home. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don’t even load your own cartridges. They come in boxes.
Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be real careful though, they break real easy. It ain’t like fighting with that ole bull at home. I’m about the best they got in this except for that Tug Jordan from over in Silver Lake . I only beat him once. He joined up the same time as me, but I’m only 5’6″ and 130 pounds and he’s 6’8″ and near 300 pounds dry.
Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before other fellers get onto this setup and come stampeding in.
Your loving daughter,
Alice
*chuckle*
A regular Ellie May that girl is…….haha.
Are you collecting info to “fit in” when you move to the south Stucky? Do you eat cornbread or grits, if no better start?
Its more accurate than you think.
I had to walk our fence line a few times a week to make sure the cattle/neighbors hadn’t put a hole in it. On a 30 acre property thats not bad, but there lots of ditches….it was a long walk.
For years I got up at 4:30 in the morning, eventually we got rid of that milk cow and I was able to sleep in until 5.
I never skipped breakfast growing up, ever. I honestly cant remember a time.
You get sore and nicked up while in boot, but so what? Every farm boy carries a handful of cuts and bruises at any given point in time, its just how the job goes.
Source1: My childhood.
Source2: My redneck father, who did 20 years as an officer in the USMC, and used to tell me stories.
The only thing that bothered him was the hike at the end where he had to stay awake for 3 days straight. He said he got tired.
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Switzerland has not been invaded in a long time, because every man and a lot of the women are issued guns which they keep at home. Imagine a government that not only allows but INSISTS its citizens keep military grade weapons. That’s points right there. Even more, they hold quarterly Schützenfests, at which shooting, carousing and drinking are expected. And it’s entirely possible you will have your ass handed to you by a 13 year old girl shooting an StG90 assault rifle that she carried to the range from school, slung across her back while pedaling her bicycle. Swiss GIRLS are better men than most allegedly-male American liberals.
— Michael Z. Williamson (21 June 2011)
http://manlyexcellence.com/2011/06/21/the-10-manliest-firearms-by-crazy-einar/
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@Tucci78: Amen!
MA
When I went to Junior HS, I met a Bluebelly and asked him if anything about us Southerners surprised him and he said you wear shoes. Of course we only wore shoes to school and church.
I remember those days on the farm. Builds character.
@Tucci
True shit if there ever was any…
I’ve been to a few Schützenfests – they are exactly like Mr. Williamson describes. Good food and better beer – and lots of it.
You take your shot at an Ehrenscheibe – also known as a Schießscheibe – “honor target” and “shooting target” respectively.
A wooden target about 18″ in diameter and decorated with some mighty fine imagery. But I’ve seen all different sizes. If there’s some sort of regulation saying How Biggeth thy Target Shall Be (and knowing the Herms and their relations, there probably is), I’ve never seen it.
The target isn’t the wooden circle – it’s on the wooden circle. Distance is about 100m. And just to fuck with you, what you’re shooting at is not guaranteed to be at the center of the target…
This is an Ehrensheibe.
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See that black dot at the center of the dinky bullseye? That’s what you’re shooting at.
Everyone gets one shot, and your bullet hole is marked with a wooden peg with your particular number on it. Whomever gets closest, wins. Much heaping of praise on the winner in a little ceremony, drinks all around and celebrating… sometimes there’s genuine prizes. Most times not. Your name is affixed to the target on a little engraved plate, and it is placed with the others – which circle the whole room up high on a shelf in chronological order. Talk shit rights seem to be reward enough…
Proud youngsters – and at least two AARP members – showing off their respective Ehrensheiben from their respective classes… I can guarantee you most of these kids are spooky good with the long gun…
The older dude on the far left is the overall winner. (Ehrenscheibe Volksfestgemeinschaft, Gadenstedt Volksfest, 2012)
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I don’t appreciate dem folks shootin’ at Salzburg. Why not a picture of Angela?
It’s a well-recognized fact going all the way back to the revolutionary war thru the civil war, WW1, WW2 that a high percentage of the best shooters in the military were country boys that had grown up handling firearms from the time they were kids. There is no magic involved in this it’s simply a matter of practice and experience. The more one practices the greater the chance your skills will improve.
Now liberals and anti-gun people believe in some sort of magic in that they believe the only people that can safely handle a firearm are police and military. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve heard anti-gun people make the comment that they’re ok with police marksmen or police sharpshooters carrying guns but are horrified with the idea of the average citizen carrying guns because of fear of innocent bystanders being injured or killed by the untrained citizen. That just goes to show the level of ignorance that anti-gun people have when it comes to handling firearms.
There is no magic in the police academy firearms training programs. Police academy firearms’ training does not produce sharpshooters. The reality is that any one that comes out of the police academy will have gun handling skill levels that vary from person to person based on many factors.
Would any person make the statement that police are better drivers because they passed the police academy driving program?
@ ASIG,
An oldie but a goodie… I love the classics. 🙂
Too damn funny and true not to post on SLL.
ASIG observes: “Now liberals and anti-gun people believe in some sort of magic in that they believe the only people that can safely handle a firearm are police and military.”
For the value of “safe” which matters to these arrogant, evil, authoritarian assholes who style themselves “Liberals,” the goons of government ARE “the only people [who] can safely handle a firearm.”
This is because the “Liberal” – who sweats to take and exercise control of the “breaking things and killing people” functions of civil government in order to forcibly fuck with the peaceable productive private citizens of our republic – thinks that because the “police and military” draw their paychecks off us civilians by way of “Liberal” politicians and bureaucrats, those myrmidons are wholly at the “Liberals” beck and call.
Figure how much of a shit-for-brains one has to be in order to embrace the “Liberal” sociopolitical outlook on life, the universe, and everything.
Then figure how much of a shit-for-brains one of these overweening assholes must necessarily be to conclude that the people who take oaths to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution (and/or preserve the public peace under the rule of law) are going to be entirely, unquestioningly, utterly and absolutely nothing more than the uncritical enforcers of “Liberal” fascist tyranny.
“…a rifle behind every blade of grass,” and a good many of them in the hands of active and former military and police personnel who hanker for nothing more than to get a “Liberal” in the X ring.
You got that right tucci, and when the popo get gung ho they hassle students trying to get a real education, college administrators and trump speeches. Like thats going to make cops think twice.
@ASIG – have you seen the new, hilariously bad Star Wars Movie? Training? Practice? Nah, all you’ve got to do is pick up the light saber, and you’re a fuckin’ jedi.