R.B. Miller Stepping Off

Vaccines are in the news. Anti-vaxers are an interesting mix across the political spectrum. I wonder how many were once Marines. I'm resolutely pro-vaccine, but understand the cynicism most Marines feel when barely trained Navy medical personnel inject them with everything under the sun (and continue to give the same shots every few years when medical records disappear). The anthrax vaccine has been particularly controversial. Therefore, the Navy had its foremost scientists and wordsmiths craft a particularly cogent pamphlet that explained the benefits of the vaccine. ALL Marines received this in 2002: There are rare circumstances where refusing a vaccine can be rational if selfish. Say there's a disease that's only spread by human contact, and that all other humans are vaccinated. Refusing the vaccine makes sense: there's a one-in-a-million chance something will go wrong if you get the shot, and a none-in-a-million chance something will go wrong if you don't

This incident spoke for itself. Gary, 3/9/03, Kuwait: We never learned what he reported since we were in a desert without electricity. He was balder than he looked on TV.

16 years ago this week: We always called these Ba'ath Party taxis. I have no idea if that's accurate. I neglected to photograph Matt and the bus.

If you think military medicine is good, you're probably an officer, a civilian who knows retired officers, or an ignoramus. Stepping Off discusses many facets of military medicine. Have you ever seen a dentist for a torn Achilles tendon or for PTSD evaluation? I have. Gary was on the losing end of this conversation (6/16/03): With a fixed set of doctors, medicine is a zero-sum game. If officers see better doctors, enlisted men see worse ones, period. Officers also have better access to doctors. They see doctors whenever they want. Enlisted Marines can only see a corpsman at a set hour four times per week. I know an extremely talented surgeon who started out in the military. When his daughter needed intricate surgery, he said she got the best care available. Me: "Was the surgeon randomly selected?" Him: "Of course not. I picked the best surgeon in the military." Okay, then who operated on the lance corporal's daughter? It's frustrating how man

The copyright page of Stepping Off claims that the number 1775 is a registered trademark of the United States Marine Corps. Is this a joke? No. The Marine Corps owns over 175 U.S. trademarks. A few are shown below. Weren't the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy founded earlier in 1775? Yes, but if either attempts to put that number on a sweatshirt, we'll sue their asses. Where can I learn more about Marine trademarks? https://www.hqmc.marines.mil/ousmcc/Units/Marine-Corps-Trademark-Licensing-Program/FAQ/ https://www.hqmc.marines.mil/Portals/134/Docs/USMC%20Content%20Guide%202015.pdf What should I do if someone asks, "What's 5x5x71"? Refuse to answer on the grounds that answering would be a copyright violation. Am I allowed to use the word "Marine" at all? Under certain circumstances. You can use it when discussing boating, fishing, or oceans. What's the worst that can happen if I violate a Marine trademark?

Most Marines have strong opinions about chemical warfare gear. By trying to make a suit that gives 100% protection against all possible chemical agents, DoD came up with something that kills far more men than it saves. The suits are extremely burdensome, ignite like coal dust, and have no provision for bodily functions. Since 1990, most wars have been fought in sand-colored deserts. Explain this: Gary certainly had strong opinions about this: DoD can't seem to make NBC gear that matches the terrain, but Fox News does. Note that the Marines here have taken off their green NBC gear and are wearing desert cammies, analog or digital. Rick Leventhal is still prepared for that nerve gas attack we've been waiting for since 1918. For a more complete discussion of death by too much equipment, Google the article Risk Curves from the August 2007 Marine Corps Gazette .

Gary: This was Saddam's palace in Babylon, not Nebuchadnezzar's. The donkey in question. This was during the brief period between the fall of Saddam and the beginning of widespread IED attacks. This Iraqi maiden looked happy to see us. We were happy to see her.

People sometimes ask how this picture came about. Two weeks after taking Baghdad, we happened to be near Babylon, about 70 miles south. I was a longtime subscriber to the Weekly World News (RIP), but this was a copy a friend sent. Since I was in the Arena of Death anyway, I asked a friend to take this picture. Here's a picture of the Arena of Death from the top. The lion entrance is the partially obscured arch on the left. The Christian entrance is out of the picture to the right. When I was done with the newspaper, I gave it to some locals, who really enjoyed it. Here they're reading it on a stone table used for human sacrifice.

A common theme between both authors and among all areas of combat operations is the appearance of marching bands. Stateside, I'm as big a fan of our marching bands as anyone. In combat -- well, I tend to grumble when the Marine Corps brings trombones, but not food. I've been serenaded during the Gulf War, in Iraq, and in Afghanistan, and tend to share the authors' cynicism. Gary, May 13, 2003: May 13, 2003, near Diwaniyah, Iraq. MajGen James N. Mattis: May 13, 2003, near Diwaniyah, Iraq. The MajGen James N. Mattis Marching Band:

To my knowledge, no Marine has died in a chemical warfare attack in over 100 years. This was an entry from Gary's journal on 3/18/2003: This is the same pigeon later in the conflict (Jim had reached the rank of lance corporal): The "PFC, unmask" method is exactly what you'd think. When you're unsure about chemical contamination, you make the lowest ranking Marine take off his mask. If he dies, you keep yours on. Later: I just ran across this. It's the accelerated promotion schedule for the pigeon in question. As described in Stepping Off , this pigeon was non-recced after going UA, so he fell behind this schedule. This must be Gary's early draft, because it disagrees by one day with the date given in the journal, and is dated two days earlier.

You can learn a lot about people by studying the words they use. Stepping Off  should contain a representative selection of Marine vocabulary: it's based on writings taken from the careers of two long-term Marines with different specialties. The table below shows the 100 most overused words relative to normal American usage. For example, the word "Marine" appears 114 times as frequently in this volume as it would in typical American books (adult nonfiction, fiction, and news writing combined). Some Marine words don't appear simply because the ratio was infinite: normal writers almost never use "battalion," for example. Some words such as "physics" and "Korean" are simply overused by these authors for obvious reasons. My quick analysis: - Marines say "sir" a lot. - We swear too much and drink too much. - We're interested in weapons and violence. - We marry frequently. Some Marine friends have married four times as