Posted on 12/27/2005 10:04:14 AM PST by njpa
Men. I can not confirm this with any searching/Googling yet but: It seams that the new recruits of Paris Island (Marine boot camp), will be issued a "sress card" to be used when a drill instructor stresses them out enough. All they need to do is pull out the card and wave it in the instructors face and the instructor needs to back off. Also, the thing called the crusible (hell week)is no more. I know this because I just needed to send back a PFC new Marine on Christmass day. We droped him off at Philly air port to finish the second leg of his training in NC. On the trip down to the air port Mat was telling myself and his mother that he was one of the last of the "REAL" Marines. Word spread via grape vine/his pears about the new, as he says "sisified" batch of Marines. He also, contributes this to an orginization called "Marine moms". I may be wrong in the exact name of the group, I was so hot headed about this. But, it's that or something like that. I needed to quite down in my rantings with it being Christmass day and his mother was upset enough- sending off her son for a 5:55PM flight. I went to his graduation at Paris Island and it was moving and impressive. As I choked back tears at the serimony I was thinking that atleast they haven't infiltrated(to the point that it will make them inefective) the Marines. I seem to be wrong.
Don't know what our Country is becoming.
Can you imagine the crap he would take from his fellow recruits for waving the card?
They tried them during the Klinton years, but got rid of them.
Urban legend.
Check out:http://www.snopes.com/military/stress.htm
Have you noticed that there is a spellcheck feature. Good grief. How old are you?
"Word spread via grape vine/his pears about the new, as he says "sisified" batch of Marines"
Are you insinuating that the Marines are a bunch of fruits?
Since there are people out there trying to kill her son, you would think a "marine mom" would want the toughest possible training for her son, to give him the best possible chance of survival in the gun-battle he is almost guaranteed to face.
From Snopes.
http://www.snopes.com/military/stress.htm
For a few years during the 1990s, the US Navy did issue "stress cards" to new recruits, but they weren't the "Get out of jail free" coupons military lore has since turned them into. Rather, these cards listed names and phone numbers of resources the newcomers could contact "if things pile[d] up." The cards were strictly for informational purposes: they informed recruits of available support services.
Navy trainers began reporting that some of the recruits had taken to raising their cards while being disciplined, as a way of signalling for time out. It's unclear whether any of those enduring basic training really thought that was the purpose of the cards or whether this was just standard armed forces jackassing, but the Navy took no chances and got rid of the cards.
This short-lived experiment with providing recruits with clear information about whom to contact when things went bump in the night has morphed into an unflattering and unsettling illustration of today's soldier as a creampuff. Notice how the story has mutated into one where the drill instructors are portrayed as honor bound to obey the cards when they are displayed to them, an aspect that wasn't part of things during the real cards' short life. The story has also widened its net; what was a Navy hand-out has, in the world of rumor, become a card issued to Army and Marine recruits, making this an Armed Forces-wide phenomenon.
Why was such a story so happily seized upon? We always want to believe anything we've been part of was the biggest, the baddest, and the best. One of the ways we bolster that belief is by looking pityingly upon the current crop who have since taken our places. The high school teams we played on were the toughest and most feared, with today's iterations only pale imitations of the ones we were part of. Likewise, the music of our youth has it all over today's stuff, and schooling in our day was rigorous and thorough, with the hike to the schoolhouse uphill both ways through the snow.
That sentiment, that need to feel superior through disparaging comparison, is part of what underpins this legend about stress cards. In any vet's mind, the armed forces went careening downhill the moment he left. Throughout the history of human endeavor, people have looked back to note with satisfaction how things have gone to hell in a handbasket since their glory days, be they bridge players, churchgoers, parents, or soldiers. It's just human nature.
Change is also threatening, and any shift in how things are run will always bring out the doomsayers, those who will feel it their duty to point out everything is about to come apart. They will hold up any small misstep and repeat any wild tale that seemingly confirms their gloomy prognostications. Just as the influx of women into the armed forces raised misgivings often expressed in "Told you so" kinds of tales, so the "stress card" canard quickly caught on in military lore because it captured the essence of what many believe, that today's army has gone soft.
Barbara "ice cream soldier" Mikkelson
I am not a Marine, but my thought is that the Stress Cards will likely stay undercover. Samy guys just said that DI's can't *make* you do anything, but they can make you *wish* that you did.
Word spread via grape vine/his pears about the new, as he says "sisified" batch of Marines.
Spellcheck won't get those tricky grammatical errors laced in there, I'm afraid.
I was a "doc" at Fort Jackson for 5 years. I always heard about "Stress Cards" but never could find a trainee with one.
OK. Time to cue up "Full Metal Jacket"
Are these new supposed Marines going to be able to show this card to a bad guy when they are in country. These cards will get these Marines killed. Sarge is the only one that train them so they have a chance to survive. If these new Marines are going to protect us WE have to find a way to destroy this card!
>>his pears<<
All my pears have beebers. Both are stuned.
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