November 10th, 1775

The Marine Corps is one year older than the United States itself. It is funny to me that even years after being out that I still in some way celebrate its birthday. I am not sure why, I can’t think of but a handful of things that the Marine Corps gave me.

Steve let me borrow a book called “Jarhead” as a birthday present, or at least that is what I call it. He actually just let me borrow it to let me borrow it, but reading the book really brought up some memories of the people I spent a good part of my life with. There are many friends you make while you are in and it seems you will be friends forever but in the end you barely talk, if you talk to them at all. If I had to name a few people that really stick out in my mind it would be Tommy Pembroke, Matthew Hazel, John Aponte, John Brogna, SSgt. Harris, and Judd Tritt. There are many more but these people really were the people that I felt the closest to while I was in. As a birthday gift to them I wanted to tell a story about each of them here. It is kind of a tradition to tell stories so that you don’t forget people no matter where they are or what they do.

Tommy Pembroke was the kind of guy that you had to love. He had a stutter that only came out when he tried not to stutter. I have approximately one million stories involving Pembroke, or Tommy Two Times as Aponte called him. Out of all the things though the one I remember the best is being in boot camp with Pembroke. We stood exactly across from each other and Pembroke would always smile about anything and everything. At first it was really hard not to smile back out of shared discomfort. As the weeks went on though it turned into a game that we played trying to make the other person smile. It was one of the few joys I had for those thirteen weeks. We ended up being good friends the year we spent in Okinawa together and we built a friendship on never having said a word.

Matthew Hazel grew up close to Pittsburgh, if I remember correctly, and loved absolutely everything about it. He was meticulous in all the things that he did, I never saw him wear a pair of pants that hadn’t just been ironed. He dated a girl he cared for a lot and talked about nonstop. We were room mates and I don’t remember many days that I didn’t fall asleep listening to him talk to her as he fell asleep. If I had the money that he spent on Japanese phone cards trying to keep her happy and himself from going crazy I could probably go on vacation for a year. I could type pages and pages about Hazel but I remember the most that after he rotated back to the states and to a line unit we got news that he had gotten non-rec’d for hazing a kid out in town, I believe it was in a bar actually. The story seems short but it says a lot. Hazel never let anything go unnoticed not because he was mean or just out to screw someone else but because he actually, genuinely cared about what he was doing no matter what that was. I don’t know for sure but I would put money on the fact that the kid deserved the hazing.

John Aponte, where do you start. Probably the most hard-core die hard Marine I ever knew. He is still in I imagine. He is probably educating or entertaining someone right now, those were his strong spots. Aponte’s devotion and character speak for themselves and anyone who knows him knows what I am talking about. So the best Aponte story I can think of is an entertaining one. Sitting in the squad leader office one day Sgt. Motzer asked if anyone liked “nips” because someone needed to go give a brief about our job to a group of them. “Nip” is a common slang term for Japanese folk, never meant to be racist or disrespectful but just as a shortcut. Aponte walks in after this has been asked so Sgt. Motzer asks him if he likes “nips” to which Aponte replies that he loves those little cheese crackers. It sounds really lame but if you knew Aponte it would at the least make you smile.

John Brogna loved porn and while he looked overweight, and by USMC standards was, he was a great Marine. Brogna spent most of his time in his room just relaxing and was a great friend of mine when I didn’t have any other ones. Instead of telling a story about how he had antiqued a new kid, or made Piercy’s life a living hell I want to talk about injustice. Our platoon Sgt. decided for some reason that he didn’t like Brogna. So he made sure to be especially hard on him and called him fat, wouldn’t let him eat, and ran him constantly. John lost the weight but it wasn’t good enough. After losing what must of been sixty pounds SSgt. had him seperated under a general discharge. This may not seem like a big deal, because everyone mostly wants out when they are in and John got one of the best ways out, but it is. John loved the Marines and did his job better than almost anyone I can name off the top of my head. I wish I could of done something for him but as usual you never have the authority to do anything.

Judd Tritt is out there somewhere now and I hope I see him again someday. He was always the most dependable person I knew and never let me down. He should be getting out soon, if he isn’t already out. Tritt I know a lot of stories but you’re married now and have kids so I’ll go PG-13 on it. I once watched Tritt smoke a Newport, with a dip in, chewing Nicorette, with a Nicotine patch on, all at the same time. I am still trying to figure out why his heart didn’t explode.

Those are only a small dose of the stories I know about each of these people. They were and, in my opinion, still are my friends. Hopefully one day they will stumble on this doing something stupid like Googling themselves and remember something they forgot. If you do end up here email me though, if you know someone on this list also send me an email.

Happy Birthday, Semper Fi, stay safe