h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ah well, yes. Here I am, as the title of this entry notes, on Base. This particular base is generally called Camp Geiger, though a more appropriate name might be something generally along the lines of Camp Hole-In-The-Ground-Where-You-Stick-Unwanted-Bits. Maybe Camp Trash- Bin. That would be an insult to trash bins, however. You see most of the United States Marine Corp's human refuse ends up here. Thats not to say that everyone stationed here is a bag of rear end. But the majority is. If you, reading this, happen to be stationed there or once were, simply assume that you are one of the unlucky ones.

The thing, however, that is really bad about this situation is that while only the select are actually stationed here, every single Marine trained on the East Coast, (Everywhere east of the Mississipi, that ridiculously named river which cuts things in half rather unequaly but rather convienently.) spends at least One or Two months here.

The reason for this, of course, is the School of Infantry. Having finished Marine Corp Boot Camp, new marines go home for ten days and then are cast into Camp Geiger to get a basic infantry training, which of course they had already gotten at Boot Camp. The exception is of course the full infantry training that they do for those who are actually going to be Infantrymen instead of Combat Cooks and Combat Drivers and Combat Filler-outers of complex forms whose names consist of no less than four digit numbers. They get two months of training which consists of slightly more in depth bits of training then what thier non-grunt brethren get, as well as some practice and experience with the particular weapon/weapons that they will be expected to need to use. The End Result of all this is that every Marine on the East Coast gets disciplined and motivated at boot camp, is sent home to see all that they are missing because they signed up to defend thier country, and then come to Camp Geiger to get thuroughly demotivated and have the spirit ground out of them so that when they go to thier permenamt duty stations they will by no means be accidentaly motivated to actually do anything.

But I digress. Yes, I am here. I currently fall somewhere between the lines, as I find that I often do. I was a student here, getting a shoddy re-education of all the things that I had learned slightly better at boot camp when I broke my lef again. Actually, thats a lie. It was the ankle this time.

You see, the Marine Corp has a very dim opinion of anyone daring and rebellious enough to actually become injured enough. While not against the Uniform Code of Military Justice, it is strictly against Marine Corp unspoken law and those who go ahead and get injured are considered amongst the worst sort of hooligans and troublemakers. So instead of actually letting us heal so we can finish training and get ourself out of here, we're made to walk around and do all kinds of work until we come to our senses. I have had the unfortunte luck to be given the job of Driver for the Officer of the Day. What this means is that I work from Six'O'Clock in the morning to the same time in the evening, (0600 to 1800, for the Militarily minded) every week day, and then overnight one out of three days. Even when no one is on base except for the Officer of the Day and of course those of us who do this duty. The result is that here I am two days before the New Year, a terrific excuse to party and remember all out failed New Years resoulutions and simply not care about them, and I'm going to be stuck on base for about two more weeks. And thats why I'm grumpy today.