Posted on Nov 3, 2016
This Is What Marines Actually Do On Barracks Duty
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I did barracks duty in Basic and AIT. It wasn't called barracks duty. It was called fire watch, and it was boring as hell. So was NCOIC at Fort Bragg. It seemed like it took two nights before I got off duty. This article reminds me of that.
Standing duty: It’s the one thing every enlisted Marine will do in the Corps, but no recruiter ever tells you about.
Five minutes into standing duty at the barracks, one thought enters every enlisted Marine’s mind and runs on a loop for the next 24 hours: “Join the Marine Corps, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.”
Or, if it’s not that, then it’s probably just “fuck my life.”
Standing duty: It’s the one thing every enlisted Marine will do in the Corps, but no recruiter ever tells you about.
Five minutes into standing duty at the barracks, one thought enters every enlisted Marine’s mind and runs on a loop for the next 24 hours: “Join the Marine Corps, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.”
Or, if it’s not that, then it’s probably just “fuck my life.”
This Is What Marines Actually Do On Barracks Duty
Posted from taskandpurpose.com
Barracks
Duty
Marines
Humor
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 13
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Not too different from the rest of us, with the exception of USCG and the USAF.
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SGT (Join to see)
MCPO Roger Collins - Ah, yes, there are those wise asses. They didn't do a very good job with whatever they were involved in.
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PO3 (Join to see)
Fire watch every night! Fuck my life just about sums it up when your going off 4 hours of sleep
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MCPO Roger Collins
PO3 (Join to see) - That provides incentive to work for the next promotion. There were times in my career, I would have prayed for four hours sleep and that was long after higher rate than E-4.
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Fire watch was oh so boring, until the year 1988 at Cherry Point N.C. when they integrated the Barracks. The W.M's . drew a lot of attention , we had to patrol the wing and Head that was designated for the women. If I was a sorry wimp of a man, by today's standards I was sexually assaulted twice. Once under the pretense of a broken light. Fire watch and Police Sgt. were the only male's allowed in a wm's room, as I was standing on a 5 step ladder checking the light. A soft hand slowly moved up my leg until it stopped ( you know where ). I almost fell off that ladder ! We had a talk, as much as I wanted to do other wise. Later in our careers we became good friends and laughed about it. The other incident was much more graphic, needless to say Fire watch is much different today than in 1988, especially with the mix of male and female living in close quarters.
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Sgt Charles Reeder
I was on Fire Watch in Okinawa at Camp Hansen, we were in the High rise barracks with Corpmen we had the same kinds of things going on. I didn't mind I was young and unattached, so when I was off duty I took a couple of those girls out. No harm no foul, of course that was in the late 80's too and it was a different time!
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The one bonus of being "attached" as a Corpsman to an Marine unit; not having to stand duty. I did have to pull a fire watch or two (dozen) though. Plus having dual chain of commands was horrible.
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CPO (Join to see)
Corpsman that serve with us (Seabees), are the same way, they do not stand duty, but on call. They do pull 24 hr on call though, when we are deployed, in Home port they just do normal stuff until we go to range and FTX/FEX.
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Cpl George Crab
CPO (Join to see) - I recall watching some of the people that I was on station with, being a Corpsman after deciding that the Corps of a different name was not for me, doing day on, day off duty with the clinic that I was attached to, beyond their 'day jobs'.
There is duty, then there is DUTY.
There is duty, then there is DUTY.
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PO3 David Fries
CPO (Join to see) - I know that I was essentially on call 24/7 when I was with the Infantry. If one of my Marines knocked on my door at 0100, you can bet that I was taking care of them (still drunk or not, but that's another story lol). In the field was a bit different.
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