Marine Corps Inspection

As a Marine Captain stationed in Okinawa, Japan, I was accompanying
the assistant commandant on his inspection of the troops.

To break the silence, the general would ask some of the Marines
standing at attention which outfit they were serving with ramrod
straight, each would respond, "Marine Air Group 36, sir," or "Second
Marine Division, General."

But near the end of the inspection, when the General asked a young
female private, "Which outfit are you in?"

The young Marine replied, "Dress blues, sir, with medals!"

Reminds me of a situation I was in.

After years of marching up and down and standing still on parade grounds across the globe; for the very time in all that time, an inspecting officer stopped and spoke to me. He was Vice-Admiral Sir David Martin. He was a very nice man and treated everyone in my presence with him with respect. The best type of CO, and one of the best I'd had in that organisation. And though I had seen him, I doubt that he had ever noticed me. There was no reason to.

It was a beautiful late summer's day in 1984 at HMAS Creswell, on a Sunday; VADM Martin stops in front of me and proceeds to ask the usually innocuous questions of an inspectee that inspecting officers usually ask:

VADM Martin: Enjoying the day?
Me: I've had better days, sir.

Upon receiving perhaps the first honest answer in military history to this stupid question, the poor man was now like a rabbit in a spotlight!

VADM Martin: So are there other things you would rather be doing?
Me: Yes, sir. My wife's family had a get together on today, sir.

VADM Martin: So do you like your job?
Me: No sir, I am leaving the Navy in five weeks.

And on and on it went. At least five minutes. He asked about my plans for the future and genuinely seemed interested in my answers. I was polite to the point of punctiliousness and there was no reason to be otherwise. As I said, he was a nice man.

Sadly he is no longer with us. He died from asbestos related diseases from his service in the Navy just a few years after this. At this time he was the Governor of New South Wales.

What was really hard was that I could see the serried ranks in front of me fit to burst with laughter, heads bobbing up and down, faces turning red; my commanding officer nervously fingering the collar of his white dress uniform with the look of a man about to face a firing squad!

Finally he wished me luck in the future and wandered off wondering, I expect, if every single person he had ever spoken to on a parade ground had lied to him, bar one :)

Haha. Good story !
I like ex-service yarns like this. I used to know or work with a few guys who served in the armed forces and they had a lot of good stories as well.

Stewie