R.B. Miller Stepping Off

Whenever I visited a new country, my goal was to get a letter published in the Dear Dotti column of the Weekly World News (1979-2007). Prior to enlisting, I'd had many letters published from the U.S., and one from France. The highlight of my literary career was getting this letter published in the run-up to Desert Storm: Okay, the letter wasn't actually true -- I'd kill any Saudi trying to take my Dotti picture -- but it prompted her to send me a picture, something I'd failed at many times previously. It's hard to articulate why I first enlisted, but the 1991-2019 portion of my career reflected my pride that Dotti was behind me, supporting what I did and wanting me to Kick Butt. One usage error that Marines rarely tolerate is being called soldiers. Marines aren't soldiers. Soldiers are in the Army. Whenever a newspaper -- even the Wall Street Journal , Washington Post , or New York City Times -- gets a picture of men in uniform, they label the...

Two tenets of feminism that don't play nicely together are: - Men and women are exactly the same. - Women are better than men. There is overwhelming contradictory evidence for the first -- look down -- and conclusive confirmatory evidence for the second. A current example was highlighted recently in a  Marine Corps Times  article. What percent of pervs who plant video cameras in bathrooms are women? 0.1%? 0.01%? What is the ratio of pornography aimed at male consumption to that aimed at female consumption? 100:1? 1000:1? More? In Stepping Off , Eileen is never afraid to identify differences between the sexes. Here, she's using a restroom along a marathon route: I almost abandoned my plan due to another reminder of man’s foulness. Though I was miles behind the winners, only 2% of runners beat me—a few hundred people. Near the 19-mile mark, on a peninsula with sparse crowds, I had to pee. At most stops, johns fill with spectators. Here, some were open; I jumped in...

From the beginning of time until a few years ago, it was considered normal to hate your enemy during wars. Okay, there were a few incidents where Americans and Krauts sang Silent Night together before killing each other the next day, but for the most part, armies have hated one another. Is that bad? The above recruiting poster is among the Marines' most famous. Wouldn't this be considered a hate crime today if posted on a college campus? I'm sure that 100 years ago, my Hun ancestors in Wisconsin didn't take it the wrong way. It was a war. Watch even the most sanitized, bloodless WWII movie, e.g., Sands of Iwo Jima . Racial caricatures abound. Characters speak of Japs, Nips, little lemon-colored characters, etc. And that was made a few years after the war. T.R. Fehrenbach claimed that (paraphrasing) most Indian tribes called themselves by a word that meant "The true human beings" in their language, as if everyone else wasn't. So give G...

From Stepping Off : 1. Ponch is a haircut Nazi. He continually orders haircuts. Our only clippers cost $12 at an off-limits PX for bigwigs. Americans use 120V electricity. Foreigners, their cars sipping liters of diesel and their foreheads flattened by soccer balls, use 240V electricity. Ponch plugged ten sets of U.S. clippers into 240V outlets. Each burned up within minutes, but before catching fire, they cut hair really fast. Americans will do anything to plug 120V devices into 240V outlets: The result is always the same: Sorry, 1stSgt, but you voided the warranty:

Wait, no, that was Saddam. Still, it baffles me when people describe Jordan as an ally. From what I can tell, this is how they've spent my lifetime: 6 days: trying to annihilate World Jewry 53.98 years: shipping ammunition to Iraq Between the Gulf War and the Iraq invasion, I've seen plenty of unlabeled enemy ordnance, but I've never seen labeled ordnance that wasn't from Jordan. This was typical: Here's another theory about WMDs: maybe we never found any because the whole country was floor-to-ceiling artillery shells. Elementary schools were filled with artillery shells. Foyers were filled with artillery shells. Sports complexes were filled with artillery shells. If one in 100,000 shells contained nerve gas, that would still have been an enormous arsenal. I'm not exonerating the Americans here. In the months after Baghdad fell, nobody came to inspect any of these caches with Geiger counters or gas chromatographs. When we left this posit...

A common misconception in war is that, worst case, an ally is useless. A common misconception in business is that, worst case, HR or IT is useless. In fact, it's easy for a group or country to have negative value. Consider this passage from Stepping Off in the 1991 Gulf War: “Tomaso, you missed it. The BBC just discussed that Wop pilot who surrendered. Lucky he had the white flag, or they’d have shot him, and he wouldn’t be on TV denouncing his country.” “Well, they didn’t cover Luftwaffe pilots surrendering since they were busy strafing refugee camps. Qatar sent more troops than you Nazis did.” “Remember the rumor that five Italian planes turned back with mechanical problems and the sixth was shot down? That was false.” “See!” “The BBC said seven turned back and the eighth was shot down.” “And you’re a Nazi.” Remember that the Italians were assigned a mission. It wasn't the most important mission, or it wouldn't have been assigned to Italians, bu...

Okay, it turned out that weapons of mass destruction were overrated, but this doesn't imply a conspiracy. When the largest post office within 100 miles doesn't have stamps for sale (just happened to me), do you jump to a conspiracy theory, or do you mutter "nitwits"? Bad news: the post office and the CIA draw from the same hiring pool. The figure above is from the one lab notebook I saw in Iraq (a few days before Baghdad fell in 2003). For non-physicists, let me assure you that very bad things happen when Uranium 235 captures a neutron and decides to split into barium, krypton, energy, and more neutrons. I am a physicist, but if you don't trust me, ask the Hiroshimans about this reaction. I believe that my commanders honestly thought Saddam had WMDs, at least of the chemical variety. Why else would they have dressed us like this (bright green chemical warfare suits)? In my next installment, I'll explain why you should blame the Turks and Jordan...

Oh, this is just a picture of an Iraqi riding a donkey. Anyway, about leadership, Gary explains in a number of places the differences between Marine first sergeants & sergeants major (leadership track) and master sergeants & master gunnery sergeants (technical/too dorky track).      All first sergeants act like assholes; only some really are. Gunnies can become master sergeants, first sergeants, or (about half) neither. Some gunnies pull their names, desiring to retire, or knowing they’re uncompetitive. Some want master sergeant, though it’s less prestigious. Tankers might want to stay as such and avoid the headaches first sergeants endure. Promotable gunnies requesting 1stSgt are ranked for the primary Marine leadership traits: loudness and meanness . Those excelling at both become first sergeants . Those excelling at neither become master sergeants. Mixed cases can go either way. But remember: Gary (who is neither loud nor mean) admits that he's ...

Is your cover meant to be disrespectful to the Marine Corps? No, it's meant to be disrespectful to the Middle East. I love the Marine Corps. Why the poop? I grew up with pet birds. They can crap several times per minute. I also grew up in the D.C. area, which has a high concentration of pigeons and statues. For my whole career, I thought, "What must the back of the EGA look like after 200 years?" Most animals can control themselves, bowelwise. What's up with birds? Scientifically speaking, birds are uni-hole-ular -- their poop and pee are the same thing. I think they even use the same hole for mating. This is speculation, but if your job was flying, you probably wouldn't want to carry around even an extra gram once you were done with it. Does your eagle have unusually good aim? He seems to have missed Israel. Good observation. How would that scene arise? Say you're behind the EGA. The DI gives the commands, "Right FACE,...

Authors and editors often depict characters with whom they personally disagree -- how else would we get biographies of Manson or Goebbels? In my case, this statement ( Stepping Off , 26AUG94) does align perfectly with my belief: “As I said, women don’t do these things. Even ones who never let their husband get on top. People think I’m sexist for thinking women are different. Women are better! ” When you hear about someone dying while teasing bison, jousting with forklifts, or peeing on downed power lines, do you really need to ask? Of course it was a guy. Guys must do 50 stupid things for every one done by women. Is it any surprise that few women join the Marines, and fewer have any interest in the infantry? Gary at Parris Island: "Sociology professors desire that the Marine Corps be 50% women. My DIs desire that the Marine Corps be 0% women. To the consternation of both, the Corps has remained 5% female for decades." Still, I wish that people would admit that there ...

If you haven't read anything by George MacDonald Fraser (1925-2008), you should. Fiction, memoir, disguised memoir -- it's all great. April 8, 2003, was a brutal day for the men of F 2/23, during the invasion of Baghdad. From Stepping Off , “Infidels…we will kill you slowly…Allah smiles each time you scream.” If that isn’t what the muezzin said, the men accepted my translation. He’s blabbed over the loudspeaker since dusk, likely, “Shoot those Marines on the bakery roof.” Rightfully, the minaret should be rubble. We were pounded with RPGs and rifle fire from this mosque. One thermobaric [1] SMAW round would have put the muezzin’s body in a debris pile, and his soul—well, with those of the Fedayeen [2] , cabbies, women, children, ambulance drivers, birdwatchers, and everyone else we killed. I’ve never been so proud of my men, and I’d defend each shot. [1] Warhead mixing fuel with atmospheric oxygen, enabling greater energy density. [2] Fedayeen Saddam ...

From Stepping Off , Sydmor Press, 2019: 4/11/03, 1448Z Scour my writings for complimentary references to the French or the UN, and you’ll flounder—until now. We looted the UN building—Hans Blix will be shocked at his long-distance bill—taking flags, blue helmets, and other knick-knacks. By phone, we learned that many wives saw our firefight live. Our embedded reporter screamed, “They’re being used as human targets on the streets of Baghdad.” Fox News sure nailed that. We also took a pallet of French humanitarian rations. Whoa, that SMAW must have caused a concussion: I forgot to record that after the firefight, Ponch fed us humanitarian rations. They’d looked tastier and tastier the hungrier we got. Actually, they’re awful. U.S. rations are deliberately so bland that nobody could object to any component. God, Buddha, and Allah might not agree on much, but when they break bread with Gandhi and Pamela Anderson, they needn’t fret about causing culinary offense. We shared one ra...

Servicemen overseas often get bundles of letters from pupils in the homeland. Most go unanswered, but I always tried to answer letters that came to me. This was a reply to a girl in Chicago who was hoping for Peace for the USA. I hope that she took my advice as she must be about 25 now.

In your book, infantry Marines starved on the way to Baghdad in 2003. However, on 24 April 2003, Lieutenant General Earl B. Hailston stated, “ Our lines were drawn and they were tested. Nothing came fast and nothing came easy, but I've asked every single commander, and I've asked every single Marine, who may have gotten down to only one meal on-hand, but it wasn't time to eat that before he got his next meal.” Did LtGen Hailston check with you before making this statement? No. Here's a cat that was on the same diet we were on: Look friendly now, but they're just waiting to eat you: Dinner is still hot:

In writing this book, did you realize that it could offend Italians, Mexicans, whites, blacks, Chinese, Indians, Jews, Frenchmen, chemical warfare specialists, defense contractors, women, gays, bulk fuelers, corpsmen, Pashtuns, Shiites, Sunnis, Germans, Blackfeet, bakers, journalists, Afghanis, Saudis, Iraqis, Mormons, Catholics, Protestants, Koreans, VA doctors, the Dixie Chicks, male quilters, gym majors, Chicagoans, rotary wing pilots, sailors, Yaquis, Shoshones, psychologists, soldiers, food service Marines, admin Marines, Jacksonvillians, Harrier pilots, Navy doctors, infantrymen, goats, supply officers, Arabs, deans, New Yorkers, New Orleanians, Algerians, Sicilians and professors? Yes, but I only intended to offend admin Marines. So you buy into the stereotype that admins are selfish and lazy? As well as the stereotypes that the sky is blue and that the ocean is wet. Including civilians, there's about one admin for each squad of thirteen Marines, but rememb...

I thought former SecDef Rumsfeld got way too much grief for saying, “You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time” Well, you do. Case in point: this picture was taken almost exactly 16 years ago, north of Nasiriyah, Iraq. The captain is leading his Marines from behind a sheet of glass that wouldn't stop a BB, on a day with heavy fighting. Many of our trucks were hit that day. Sure, it would have been nicer to have modern armored vehicles, but we didn't have them. If Nimitz had waited for the perfect solution, we'd still be fighting Japan. Later, entering Baghdad: And this guy had to ride on the front bumper, without eye protection:

Chances are, you've seen doctors with different philosophies. This guy might be a DO, this lady an MD. Some keep statistics on frequent lab tests, others prefer natural compounds, others are eager to sell you that whole-body scan. The Navy (which provides its own medical service, and provides the same to the Marine Corps) has a different philosophy, rectum-centered medicine . This is the belief that all ailments can be diagnosed and treated by inserting the right object into your anus. Friends have expressed skepticism that the Navy still uses rectal thermometers. Here is the Navy's rationale: Rectal thermometers are more accurate. Rectal thermometers can be used on conscious or unconscious patients, on infants or grandmas, on nerve gas victims, etc. Mercury thermometers are light and don't run out of batteries. Glass rods are inherently resistant to electromagnetic pulses. Doctors need your core temperature, not some surrogate that's affected by the environm...