MACS, maybe you can help me. I did a Med. cruise onboard CV-67 with a USMC A-6 squadron in 1986-87. I left the Corps in 1988 and moved on to better and brighter things. I remember clearly how important mail and packages from home were.

I'd like to make contact with someone, preferably a junior enlisted jarhead, since that's what I was, that's serving outside CONUS. When troops started deploying to Iraq I called the local recruiting office, but nothing ever came of that.

I'm in contact with a friend in the National Guard, but he (and it seems like his unit) has a good support system already in place.

Let me know if you have any suggestions. You can post here or email me at [email protected].

e-mail me rd. I would need the kid's first and last name. Rank if you know it, would narrow the search.

swn69 at hotmail dot com

rd-- i might be able to get you a random contact. i was talking with a jarhead who deployed 2 months back about having a herf at my place for the guys when they get back to lejeune. actually, i saw a post of his here, and that's how we got in touch. he's not junior, but he is a cigar smoker and could help out, i'm sure. semper fi.

That's great Cav. If your in touch with him ask if he has anyone with him that needs some extra support from the home front. Cookies, wet wipes, books, cigars, whatever they need.

My experience is the junior guys are the ones that need the most support and have the smallest networks. Most are just out of high school, unmarried, girlfriends jerking 'em around, friends are in college or back in the world doing their own thing - so their Mama's the only one they can count on. And some of 'em probably don't even have good Mama's.

When I was deployed I craved mail. I even got excited over my Visa bill and junk mail. Even if it was only a computer, something knew I was alive.

Semper Fi

one way or another, i'll make certain you get a contact. getting on that right now.

rd -- just shot him an email. whether he gets it or not, i don't know. if he doesn't, though, his wife should receive it and reply.

got a few other sources to check as well. that's a fine gesture, and i'm sorry that you weren't getting this treatment when it was your time. my dad was a marine ("was" qualifies as he's gone now), WWII so. pacific, joined when he was 16. anyway, i couldn't get into the corps because of a hinked up bone in my foot. 😛 the cops took me; the corps, no. i was raised from day one to be a marine, so you can imagine how badly that sucked.

sometimes i write out "semper fi" before i realize "doh! that guy's probably going to think i'm corps now..." but it IS coming from a marine -- in a way.

see, my dad wanted me to promise that when he was gone i'd carry on his philosophy about it all, and that was to "go the extra hundred miles if necessary" to ALWAYS help out a marine in any way i could and in any capacity.

"and when you do, tell 'em corporal beltrisi said SEMPER FI!"

so... just had to pass that on to ya.

and i WILL get that contact! lol

Thanks Cav, that's a great story about your dad.

Just because I got excited over junk mail, don't think I wasn't getting good treatment from home. I'm talking about what I saw - not what I experienced.

I had a girlfriend back home, a girlfriend in MD, two sisters, and my Mama sending me stuff.

When Dear Abby published the address for the ship; mail, card, care packages, etc... flooded in. I worked 12 on/12 off and had lots of free time so I answered every letter or card I could get my hands on. I was pen pals with a family in NC, a girl in college in WI, and two or three groups in AL. But when your a million miles from home, there can never be enough mail.

Now in the early 80's there was no email available and international long distance was expensive. Letters were our only option. It may be a different ball game today.

Damn, there seems to be to many damn skimmers on the boards these days. whats up^skimmers.

even with email a letter or any mail can make anybodys day when the special k deployed i left my wife that i had just married pegnant and the letters from her and others were all that kept me going and her mom and sister had there class ake cards and sent them i still have them and look at them

that's great, rd. 🙂 glad to hear that you had some "real human being" incoming and not just junk mail!

so tell me -- when it comes to those penpals out of the blue, are women writing much more "popular" with the crew than guys writing in?

i wrote to a guy, army, during the first gulf war. we're still buddies now. we were both into punk music at the time and had that in common. but a friend of mine (female) wrote to a guy -- same thing, just a hello from home -- and he was all kinds of falling for her. i know a lot of women who go for guys in uniform, and i wonder if guys deployed end up getting a lot of "wannabe girlfriend" mail, or if it's welcome whether from a guy or a woman.

LMAO.. you say Girlfriends jerking them around..

reminds me in 2002 OEF we were deployed.. one of the guys who was suppose to go.. couldn't eye surgery.. so while we're gone this other guy same unit same section has this GF back home.. turns out the guy who had the surgery started dating the GF of the deployed... the emails and phone calls were all different and shortly about 1 month into our trip she dumps him... come to find out about 5 months after being home.. oh Joe was taping this chick and didn't even know she was a GF to the other guy deployed... women gotta have a smile to ya know!!!!

Hog

i can't imagine a crappier feeling than being deployed and having your gf/wife/so or whatnot tramping around stateside. 😛 no wonder warriors of old came up with chastity belts!

*** rant mode on ***

this may be the most perverted feeling to have, but if i could have ONE WISH granted to me, it would be to go back in time and to have been given the thumbs up by the corps. 😞 there are a thousand different experiences i missed out on, and not being a marine remains the #1 most hurtful and sharp disappointment of my lifetime to date.

anyway, one of those experiences is deployment -- i will never know what it's like to be deployed. many a troop will tell me, i'm sure, to be grateful that i never had to go. but i WANTED to be a marine with all my heart and soul, and -- war-is-hell or not -- that's one experience i wanted to have.

no matter what else i accomplish in my life, i will have never picked up my gear and served my country as one of its defenders. that still makes me ache. 😛

*** rant off ***

well i never got to touch the desert but 170 some dys on the ship i think is almost as bad but the way i see it if you support the troops while they are gone then that is just as important as being there i never would of came back with my rank and i might of been out of a job if it wasnt for friends anf family and there is nothing like being with the marines

Cav, you're right! One of my junior sailors found out fairly early in the Deyo's last cruise that his wife was fooling around on him. We had to post a suicide watch on him until he could be sent to a unit with a big enough medical department to deal with psyche cases, and they sent him back to us fit for full duty. We found him hung in a head (bathroom) three days before Iraqi Freedom kicked off. That was definitely the low point of my career!

I was TDY in 97 when my Ex Wife day before I was to come home said to me.. your **** on the Porch.. I said Cool... anyway we can work this out?? NOPE... you sure? Yep... Ok then... the hardest part was on the Kids... I got my oldest in the Divorce and she got the other two... but as time has shown... and Patiants with all... it was the Best Damn thing that happend to me... and to look back I shoulda did it earlier when the kids were younger... I don't think they would have been so hard on them when she did decide to give me the boot... and I lost her to some STUD in California on the Internet Chat crap LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!

he was a stud alright LOL.... I ever see em again I'll thank him and buy em a beer....

Hog

I need to thank God again tonight in my prayers... been with the same woman since I was 18. We've had our ups and downs, of course, but I never had to deal with a divorce or child custody.

p.s. - not trying to be in your face with this... just counting my blessings out loud I guess.

Cav,

We got a lot of letters from a lot of different people, but I didn't see a lot from guys. I saw several from families with small kids or school classes. The family in NC that I was pen pals with had a son in Kindergarten. His mom wrote most of the letters, be he always included a note or picture. When I'd write him about a port call, his mom and dad would help him find the country on the globe. He'd then go to school and show his class where I was. That was pretty cool.

I haven't kept in touch with any of my pen pals. But then it has been 18 yrs.

I can believe a single girl writing to a deployed male GI might get a little intense. These guys are LONELY. And it's not just a sexual thing. Sometimes we didn't even see a female for weeks at a time. It may be even longer between opportunites to sit down and have a conversation.

there is a buddy of mine who called home and got told by his wife that she was seeing someone else and she was leaving she also emptied his account a day before we pulled into a port

let's not EVEN start on "buddy of mine" horror stories! I might have to go further than the one where a dude comes home, and his wife is gone, his apartment is empty (furniture, clothes everything), he's three months behind on his rent, none of his credit cards have been paid in 3-4 months, and they're maxed out, his phones been disconnected for no-payment, his car's been sold, and he has no idea of how to get in contact with her to even begin divorce proceedings.