Sea Stories of a U.S. Marine Book 4 Harrier Quotes

“At first light we were in the ammo dump and right on schedule my platoon showed up.  They were Marines, and as such, eager to get the job done.  That was the good news, the bad news was not a single one of them had ever seen a Harrier engine, I think some of them had never seen the engine in their parents car, but they could recognize shiny metal when they saw it and that would be good enough.  The Platoon Sgt had managed to scrounge up magnets from some place and when I asked him about the magnets he said, “Well Sir, ‘THEY’ said we’d be looking for something metal and I thought the magnets would certainly help out here in the bush, we can drag them around.”      “Outstanding Sgt, just goddamned OUTSTANDING.”
― W.R. Spicer, Sea Stories of a U.S. Marine Book 4 Harrier

“I decided to take a peek, because usually he was up before me doing pushups or some other such nonsense.      I pushed the head door that led into his room open just a few inches and almost burst out laughing.  He was sleeping soundly alright because he was warm for the first time but it wasn’t because he had extra blankets, because he didn’t.      He’d removed the shower curtain and placed it on top of the existing bedding.  Next, he’d taken down the drapes from the windows and piled them on top of the shower curtain.  And lastly, he’d pulled the 6x9 foot area rug off the floor and piled it on top of the bed as well. He was curled up under it all like a hibernating bear.      I walked over to the bed and gave the mound of stuff a good punch.      “Hey Mongrel, reveille, reveille, what the hell are you doing under there?”      “Finally getting some sleep Sir.”      “Why’d you wreck your room?  Why didn’t you get some blankets from the front desk?”      “Didn’t see any when I came in, there was no one around, so I did what you’ve been teaching me to do.”      “What’s that?”      “Improvise and adapt Major, improvise and adapt.”      “Good man Griggs, good man.”
― W.R. Spicer, Sea Stories of a U.S. Marine Book 4 Harrier

“The CO had held his briefing, the pilots were manning the aircraft and we had senior officers from the Wing and Group staff prowling around in maintenance control looking at our paperwork, it was in reality a pop inspection.     I thought the CO would be horrified but instead he thought it was funny and gave them all the big wide grin as he was heading out to his aircraft, almost as if to say, “Watch this shit you assholes.”
― W.R. Spicer, Sea Stories of a U.S. Marine Book 4 Harrier

“I see rather than hear a guy in a suit and tie knocking on my door.  I wave him in, he opens the door and starts strolling toward my desk, he’s followed by two long haired, bearded, overweight, scruffy looking assholes both wearing glasses, short sleeved white shirts with their shirt breast pocket full of pens and little ruler looking things, complete with pocket protectors.       He’s wearing a really cheap looking blue suit, that’s been worn shiny slick and had to be right out of the 50’s.  The suit is adorned with a greasy looking; really wide tie that had more soup stains than Campbell’s.  To complete his ensemble he’s chosen a pair of shit brown shoes that hadn’t seen polish since they were new, which had to be a long time ago.  To top it all off, he’s sporting the most massive “Comb Over” on his head I’ve ever seen.  On the left side of his head was a “Tuft” of very thin gray hair.  He’d allowed this to grow until he could comb it all the way over the top of his bald head and down to his right ear.  I couldn’t help but stare.      Marines are first impression people and if you present a poor one, they generally will turn you off immediately. ”
― W.R. Spicer, Sea Stories of a U.S. Marine Book 4 Harrier

“the Col slammed his canopy and immediately started his engine.  Lt Eicher was calling trying to tell him what the DASC had said but he either didn’t hear or wasn’t going to pay attention.  We could hear him doing his engine accels once he taxied onto the runway and in a flash he was rolling down the runway. The fog was low enough now that we couldn’t see the tops of the pine trees.  We heard the “Whoosh” of the nozzles being slammed down and watched the aircraft jump into the air and disappear into the fog.  I think we both waited for the sound of an ejection or crash but all we heard was the aircraft at full power climbing away.      Todd turned to me and said, “That may be the last time we’ll see that man alive.”      Poor Lt Eicher was horrified and looked at Major Eikenberry with this look on his face and said, “What do I do now?”
― W.R. Spicer, Sea Stories of a U.S. Marine Book 4 Harrier

“That stupid intercom was only one model removed from a string and two cans, it had been here so long no one knew where it came from, how it got installed and our best technician couldn’t fix it.  The only station that came in loud and clear was the CO’s office and you couldn’t reply to anyone. ”
― W.R. Spicer, Sea Stories of a U.S. Marine Book 4 Harrier

“There was no way out of this; the Col was upset for the moment.  I’d seen this before and even if I confessed that it was my fault that I’d created the thunderstorm this morning just to halt flight operations it wouldn’t have mattered so I decided to take a chance and break this up while hopefully maintaining a straight face.      “Well Sir it’s a highly technical problem that has to do with electricity and humidity.”      “WHAT technical problem with electricity and humidity?!”      “Well Sir, it’s the Geeblefarbs.”      “GEEBLEFARBS?!!  What the fuck are Geeblefarbs?”      “Well Sir, they are little microscopic things that ‘Geeble’ down the electrical wires transporting the Ohms that make the electrical stuff work.  When they get wet or it’s really humid outside the Ohms pick up moisture and  swell up, which causes the Geeblefarbs to get too fat and they can’t ‘Geeble’ down the wires and when that happens the things like the UHF radio, TACAN and other electrical equipment just won’t work.”      Now I’ve known other officers who weren’t very mechanically inclined and never curious enough to really know if this was a true technical explanation or not.  I also knew that with those types of people if you said something like this in an authoritative manner that they would simply say, “Oh” and go on to another subject, but I knew Col Psaros (Big George) better than that.      “Geeblefarbs and fat Ohms, you’ve got to be shitting me!”      “I am Sir.”      “You gonna fix this problem we are having, quickly, I hope.”      “Yes Sir, it’s in work now, weather aside, we will be ready to go in about 1 hour.”
― W.R. Spicer, Sea Stories of a U.S. Marine Book 4 Harrier

“Before I could knock on the open door of his office I heard, “Get your ass in here!!”      I by-passed the knock and went straight to his desk and stopped front and center.      “Christ, what the hell is going on out there this morning.  I come in here drop my cover and car keys on my desk, look at the morning availability report and see we got 13 aircraft up.  I go down to the ready room to get a cup of coffee, see on the schedules board we got an 8 plane launch going out, look at the weather, shoot the shit with the ODO for a couple minutes and by the time I get back to my office, I got 4 aircraft up out of 18 and the entire launch has been scrubbed, what the FUCK?!”      “The thunderstorm got us Sir.  Flight line had the aircraft all ready to go, canopies up waiting on pilots and everything got drenched before we could close up and run for cover.”      “Oh for Christ’s sake, didn’t anyone notice a huge thunderstorm heading our way?”
― W.R. Spicer, Sea Stories of a U.S. Marine Book 4 Harrier

“One grossly overweight young Sergeant I’d put on the PT and Personal Appearance platoon had written a letter complaining to his parents.  They wrote their congressman about how horrible I was treating their son, and we received a “CONGRINT” which stood for Congressional Interest inquiry.  This was a big deal; it got the attention of everyone from headquarters in Washington all the way down to the squadron.       When I showed it to Major Psaros he didn’t even blink.  He said, “Where is this guy?”      “Sir he’s a Sergeant down in radio repair and one hell of a technician.  He’s just a big chunky Italian looking kid and I think he came into the Marine Corps looking like a tub and they slimmed him down in boot camp.  But now he’s just reverted to his natural shape.  I bet his whole family looks just like this.  He’s not going to qualify for reenlistment because of his personal appearance and weight.  He’s one of the most productive technicians, but if he had to saddle up and go into combat I think he’d be a liability.”      “Get his ass up here and let me see what he looks like.”      I brought the Sergeant up to the CO’s office.  The Major took one look at him and said, “Marine, you look like a Technicolor Sea Bag in your uniform.  You’re fat and out of shape.  I’ll give you a month to start showing some major improvements or your career as a Marine will be coming to an end.”      After the Sergeant left Major Psaros told me to take a picture of him in his skivvies, front and side and bring him copies of all the appropriate Marine Corps orders on personal appearance and weight control.      The CO answered the CONGRINT with the pictures of the Sergeant in his skivvies and the copies of the orders.  He didn’t include anything else.  We never heard another word.”
― W.R. Spicer, Sea Stories of a U.S. Marine Book 4 Harrier

“The more you sweat in peacetime, the less you bleed in war.” ”
― W.R. Spicer, Sea Stories of a U.S. Marine Book 4 Harrier

“We also learned that Joe had been in the Navy for about 8 years, then got out and worked for the Border Patrol in the Yuma area for another 8 and then quit to go into real estate.  She said, “He’d just got tired of chasing down poor Mexicans trying to find a better life.” ”
― W.R. Spicer, Sea Stories of a U.S. Marine Book 4 Harrier