Posted on 02/06/2010 6:21:49 PM PST by 444Flyer
The actor who played the drill sergeant in “Full Metal Jacket” is coming to Washington, D.C., next week to lobby Congress to pass a long-stalled bill.
R. Lee Ermey is the national spokesman for a growing grassroots effort behind legislation sponsored by Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) that would rename the Department of the Navy as the Department of the Navy and Marine Corps.
Ermey, who was in the Marine Corps for 11 years, has been in over 100 movies, including “Apocalypse Now,” “Dead Man Walking” and “Leaving Las Vegas,” according to imdb.com.
Over the past decade, Jones has repeatedly pushed his colleagues to pass his bill. Jones’s bill has 367 co-sponsors. Roberts (R-Kan.), a Marine Corps veteran, introduced companion legislation last year.
The Marine Corps League, which is orchestrating the grassroots effort with Ermey, has started a petition-writing campaign and is bringing supporters of Jones’s legislation to Capitol Hill on Thursday.
“Marines have fought and died with their Navy brothers and sisters for more than 200 years,” said Michael Blum, Marine Corps League executive director in a statement. “It’s finally time to give the Marine Corps the recognition the branch has long deserved.”
Although the Marine Corps has been a separate service since the National Security Act of 1947, it does not get equal billing with the Navy, Air Force and Army, each of which has a Pentagon department named after it. Since the Marine Corps’s earliest days, it has operated under the Department of the Navy.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
I remember reading how the Navy was starting their own infantry units because the Marines, with all their commitments, were becoming too unreliable as there were not enough of them. The Navy was supposed to use master at arms and seal rejects amongst others for these units. BTW, there is nothing dishonorable about being a seal reject.
When I enlisted in the Marine Corp my dad, a retired Master chief who was a master EOD with a silver diving helmet and gold wings, laughed and said that the Marines were good gate guards, he had not heard of them losing one yet.
Sea men?
I’m sure glad we did not have names on them when I was in. O.D. busted us sneaking out through the fence in Korea. There were three of us and when the O.D. started asking use our names myself and the one Marine played stupid (we were boots) while the other Marine, a terminal Lcpl, did the talking. The Lcpl just up and walked away and while the O.D. went after him we ran. We all got away and I bet that O.D. felt stupid. Had we names on our uniforms we would have been busted.
Yes,
So, what is your Korean Name?
I think Ermey is being tactful. He makes his living as a public figure and going off on a tear is a good way to find yourself out of a job in that business.
Does this mean Ann Margret’s not coming?
I never understood that story as anyone in movies with a brain would have remembered R. Lee Ermey’s sucessful Marine DI role 9 years earlier in the movie “The Boys in Company C.”
Han Sang Byung and whats it to ya?
He was quoted as saying that on Military.com. I posted the quote earlier in the thread.
Thanks 444Flyer.
Well, here ya go...
Back to the future.
There will be a press conference today at 3 P.M. I should be speaking just after Sgt. Eddie Wright. Details about the speakers:
http://www.marinecause.com/2010/02/19/r-lee-ermey-to-lobby-congress-on-marine-corps-name-change/
Do check out the details on the main page at http://www.marinecause.com/ We could use Freeper support, especially with respect to contacting your Senators.
Semper Fi.
BTTT! Prayers up for you all day today.
Oorah & Semper Fi!
Do you have the one where she “forgot” her... ummm...? /g
Need support for the cause. See Pop's post at #56 for news and links.
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