Marine Corps Stories: Backbone

“You see the privates, PFCs and lance corporals are the legs, you know? They’re always running around. The corporals are the abdominals. Staff sergeants, all the way up to Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps and officers, are the kidneys, liver, lungs, heart, skin, central nervous system, and brains of the body,” Sergeant Jemsen Gerow said.

Sergeant Berris looked down at his raisin bran. “But you forgot an enlisted rank.”

Sergeant Gerow looked at Berris with a smirk. “C’mon, now. Are you making me state the obvious?”

“The sergeant is the backbone. Everybody knows that. People outside the Corps know that.” Berris took a bite of his cereal.

“If you’ve been married, divorced or headed for it, have an addiction to dip or cigarettes, your kids either love you too much or don’t know you yet because they’re too young, can still run a 280 PFT hungover, and can hit black in a tight group, then you’re probably a sergeant.”

“If you can say you’ve led in a billet typically reserved for gunnies, there’s a chance you’re a sergeant.”

The chow hall began to clear out, so Berris and Gerow dumped their trays, grabbed their covers, and left.

“That’s about right,” Berris said.

“You’re goddamn right,” Gerow said.

“I mean when you think about it, we take care of our Marines more than the ranks just above and below. Corporals are trying so hard to pick up sergeant, and staff sergeants are just focused on distancing themselves from the rank they just held, that we’re left being the…”

“Backbone.”

“Goddamn right.”

Passing a pair of majors, the two sergeants threw up salutes. Then they located their shop. Both worked in ordnance.

“You see, we have these jobs in the Corps, but it’s so much more than that,” Gerow said.

“It’s a…”

“Lifestyle. Everybody knows that, too,” Berris said.

“But do they act on it? Just look around you,” Gerow said.

Berris looked at the various Marines of different ranks busying themselves like the mechanism of a finely tuned clock. They moved with a sense of purpose, yes, but also as if they didn’t know what that purpose was.

“I see your point,” Berris said.

“It’s like we make this thing work. The best part about this is, if we’re not promoted already, or busted down, we can all be sergeants.”

“Sergeants,” Berris said.

Gerow and Berris then witnessed a gunner come through in a huff and descend upon a gunny.

“I don’t care Gunny! Make the goddamn adjustments!” The gunner roared.

Gerow and Berris then witnessed the gunner make the gunny stand at parade rest to receive a proper chewing-out, right there in the desert heat.

“Yes, I’m not looking forward to that,” Gerow said.

“Why do you say that? The gunner could bark at us like that right now if he wanted to,” Berris said.

“Because when you’re a gunny, you’re a few more years into your mortgage, your kids are almost in college, your wife or husband’s eye is straying, and you’re losing more testosterone everyday. It’s a totally different realm.”

“Good point.”

Berris and Gerow went back to working on the documentation for the gun pods they installed on a drone yesterday. They filed their work and kept moving like a drill.

Gerow looked at Berris as they headed out to the flight deck.

“I bet you lance corporal is the greatest rank though,” Gerow said.

“Even over Commandant?”

“I’m talking about the greatest, not the most powerful, which would be a four star general who becomes Commandant. No, I’m saying...well you remember?”

“Yes, I do,” Berris said.

“You could go down to TJ and see whores in heels, drink like a sump pump, see the world, and make it to formation before anyone knew you’d left.”

“Not now though. These three stripes and crossed rifles are what it‘s all about,” Berris said.

“Sergeants.”

“Sergeants,” Berris said.