Jane Fonda

In 2011, a funny little idea popped into my head, burrowed deep into the same grey matter that writes these very words, grabbed the yoke, and enlisted me in the United States Marine Corps.

Well...

I had cousins, uncles, and grandparents that had served in the military, however they were all either in the Navy, Army, or the Army Air Corps (before the Air Force stole its thunder), and so I was lacking any solid foundation in the ways of the Marine Corps and its odd disposition. I didn't have a tremendously firm account as to why I wanted to join the Corps, only a young mind impressed upon by a wide range of propaganda that seemingly worked like a charm: Flags of our Fathers, the movie Jarhead, Call of Duty, and those goddamn sexy uniforms. Combine all that with the stubborn disposition of my adolescent brain and I was locked in and ready to go.

Although, as is the case with most young people that join the Marines, I had very little understanding of what I was actually signing up for. Before I went off to MEPS to make the deal official, I remember my cousin Mike giving me a call one day to applaud my decision to serve my country while simultaneously pleading with me to instead sign-on with the Navy, as he had done. He told a story of how his training battalion was next-door to the Marine Corps Bootcamp (MCRD San Diego), and how one of the young Navy Sailors escaped his own boot camp, only to unwittingly break into the Marine Corps Bootcamp next door. In his story, after a few days, the Sailor was at last returned to the Navy from the Marines, and it was implied that the Sailor was... different upon his return.

It was a story that should have sobered me at least somewhat, but it did nothing but reinforce an expectation that I was doing something "more-so", and it made me giddy. Looking back, it was a form of self-abandonment, something that the recruiting offices undoubtedly leaned and lean into. Don't like who ya are? Right this way. Want to prove you're hot shit? Sign here. Wish life was as exciting as those novels your reading? Kill that man, right over there.

And I'll tell ya what. You'll never meet a motley crew like a platoon of Marine Corps Bootcamp recruits, each man or woman with a myriad of similar yet unique paths that somehow lead to them each falling into the anomaly that is the good ol' USMC. But that's a different story.

When I came to finally enlist, I was surprised to discover that I had eight months to wait until I could ship off for boot camp. Eight Months... I had already quit my summer job at the BLM fighting fires along the Colorado River in Yuma and hadn't planned on funding myself past the end of the week. What was I going to do for eight whole months? (If this doesn't give you a sense into the brilliant pragmatism that was my adolescent mind, I don't know what will)

Well, I ended up getting a job at Staples. Of course, I told the interviewing manager nothing of my coming departure and did the job well enough to get by without too much effort put in on my part. I came to discover how purchasing the right fountain pen was a matter of life or death for many, but such is the plight of working retail.

I did my best to maintain my enthusiasm for my date with Uncle Sam in the coming months, so I attended weekly workouts with other poolees (as those of us in purgatory were called) and I subscribed to Leatherneck Magazine, as I was still infatuated with the mythos that surrounded the jarheads.

Now, Leatherneck Magazine is a magazine that features articles, perspectives, news, and purchasable merchandise with the focused cliental being Marines, primarily those of the Vietnam era with deep pockets. I, however, mostly just perused the stickers, shirts, hats, etc. as I wanted to be a part of the culture. After all, why would I enlist in the Marine Corps if I wasn't going to let people know it by some tacky bumper sticker that they would be forced to stare at while waiting at red lights (I admit, I still have an Eagle, Globe, and Anchor (EGA) sticker on my car to this day. Oops).

Anyway, one day I recall scanning the merchandise of the magazine. Here's a hat with an EGA emblem. Here's a sticker featuring a skull and cross-bones with a cigar sticking out it's mouth. Here's a decal for the 1st Marine Division tattooed onto the shoulder of a bulldog. Finally, I noticed a shirt with a Marine Corps emblem before a body of text that read: "Jane Fonda is a Bitch"... Well... At the time, I didn't know who Jane Fonda was, as I wasn't exactly a cinephile, but I came to wonder, what in the world could this woman have done to be featured so maliciously in this magazine and on this shirt. And so, I googled: "Jane Fonda Marine Corps," and the first thing that popped up is an article lambasting Jane for supposedly supporting the North Vietnamese Army during the Vietnam war. Now, if it were today, I would have likely continued researching to discover the layers and complexity of the story, but my question was answered and I stopped there. Jane Fonda was some lady that opposed Marines in Vietnam and all Marines must hate her. Case closed.

And with that, I felt that I was beginning to at last begin my immersion into the culture and lore of the storied organization. I was coming to slowly understand the axioms and assumptions that every Marine must carry.

Slogans came to seep into my skin and slip out my mouth from time to time without much thought. "We're lean mean fighting machines!", "First to fight!", "Pain is weakness leaving the body!" and so on...

Then one hot day in April, only a month before I was to depart for boot camp at long last, I parked my pickup at a gas station and walked toward the convenience store's entrance. As I locked the cab and headed toward the door, I noticed a long-bearded biker walking towards his Harley parked nearby. He wore a black, leather jacket with a bold Marine Corps emblem stitched into its back.

In a sudden a bout of bubbling pride, I had a flash of inspiration. I was soon to be a Marine myself. I was going to be one of them, and I wanted the grisly man to know that I was just like him. I was among the best! I was to be among the few and the proud. I walked coolly past the man, and as I got close, I called to him.

"Hey!" I shouted.

He looked up and eyed me suspiciously.

I gave a quick upward flick of my chin in a fraternal greeting, "Jane Fonda sure is a Bitch, huh," I said with a capital B.

The man's mouth opened as if utterly baffled at my words. He didn't even bother to respond. He simply turned away, shook his head, and rode off.

I carried onward and inside to purchase whatever it was I purchased while a slow recognition of what had just happened crept upon my understanding.

It was the first time that I had come to realize that I had assumed something about the Marine Corps that was not true.

It wouldn't be the last time for such a thing to happen...