California Outfitters, Volunteer Trail Crew

June 6 - 9, 2002, About the Marine Corps

There are at least two important facts of life in the Marine Corps.
  1. "Once a Marine, always a Marine", at least two of us had been in the Marine Corps during our youth. According to Art Buckwald, a Marine during World War 2, was "according to God or tradition of the Corps, I will always be a Marine". (As quoted in Tom Brokaw's, in "The Greatest Generation".) It was also pointed out to me by my DI during boot camp.
  2. The Marine Corps does not have any "medics", instead the Navy assigns its Corpsmen to the Marine Corps. Once they join the Fleet Marine Force, they are always called "Doc" and "belong" to their Marine Corps unit (and thus are at least one half Marine for the rest of their life). We never needed Ed's professorial abilities, but we did use his excellent saw work!
Ed is a Navy Corpsman attached to the Marine Corps and I am sure that he could have fixed up anything dumb thing that I did with a saw to myself!