Frate Raper Will Hate This Story About Cars

[KaBar]

When I was in the Marines, back about 1981, I was stationed in Southern California, at Camp Pendleton MCB. .I actually lived in a mobile home park with my girlfriend (now my wife) who was a SCUBA diver. Our mobile home was like three minutes from the surf at Doheny State Park. I would grab my board, run out the back gate of the mobile home park, down the banks of the San Juan Creek, under the bridge at PCH and I was in the Pacific and paddling out. It totally rocked. The surf wasn't the greatest, but we had the occasional good day. I surfed a lot of weekday afternoons at Salt Creek (right down the road) but weekends, the waves at Salt Creek were too crowded with aggressive assholes.

 

People in California hate Marines. I think it's a cultural thing. Most Marines are working class, very few of them are from beach communities, very few are surfers or SCUBA divers or have any interest in the California beach lifestyle. Inland, the prejudice and animosity is not nearly as bad as it is on the coast.

 

Right near my house was a Carl's Jr. hamburger place. They have great burgers, at least, I like them. I could walk there, easy, it was like two blocks. So I was walking to Carls' Jr., and just as I get there, I hear a Porsche come snarling up the parking lot, and screech to a halt, parked all crosswise in the Handicapped Parking spot.

 

A couple of parking slots away, there was this greasy ass biker with Vagos MC colors and a lime green bandana on. The Vagos aren't super vicious, but they are pretty tough guys, certainly nobody to fuck with without a very good reason.

 

As the California cool guy gets out of his car with his beautiful knock-you-out chick (both wearing sunglasses) I said "Hey. That's a Handicapped Spot."

The guy says, "Yeah, so?"

I said, "You don't look handicapped."

He said "I'm not."

I said, "Why did you park there then?"

He says, "Fuck off, you jarhead creep. I park wherever I please."

I said, "You can't park there!"

He says, "What you going to do about it?"

 

Then he and Miss Baywatch, laughing like a couple of assholes, go off to Carl's Jr's.

 

I stood there, fuming, knowing I was completely powerless.

 

The biker walks up. "Hey."

 

"Hey." I said.

"That motherfucker was a real prick."

"Yeah. Nothing I can do about it though."

"Let's give him a ticket."

 

The Vago takes out a large folding knife, snaps it open, and proceeds to casually key the guys paint screeeiittcchhh! from stem to stern. I was standing there with my mouth open. Then he smiles real big, and cut all four tires on the sidewall. Pssshh! The Porsche was sitting on the pavement.

 

"You, uh, probably ought to split," he says.

 

Yeah, no shit. I took off walking as fast as I could without drawing any attention to myself, and went home. I heard the Harley start up, and slowly pull away, then, once he hit PCH, he twisted the wick.

 

I would have given anything to see that guy's face when he came out of that restaurant. But, not being completely stupid, I stayed home the rest of the day.

All jarheads look alike. You know?

[Dick Quickwood]

bump for socal in 1981

i wish i was as old as i am now, in that time and place

[Guest post.]

I live near Camp Pendleton... I see jarheads everyday. They're either very polite or extreme dickfaces.

oh yeah I have a friend who works at the local jarhead strip club.

 

p.s. she doesn't make very good money.

[Pistol]

It's not that everyone hates marines.

Like post said. When you come across them, their either realy polite cool peoples or a fuckin' dumb ass prick's acting stupid.

[KaBar]

That's Cause

 

Marines don't have much money. But, you got to give them credit, they will spend every last dime on booze and strippers. Shit, your friend ought to at least be happy she's doing her patriotic duty, LOL.

 

Until I met my girlfriend, my days at Camp Pendleton were about as lonely as any I have ever spent. I finally met another Marine I thought would be tolerable to live with (I was a 26-year-old corporal--an NCO (E-4)--but he was 20, and only a lance corporal (E-3)) and we rented a cheap-ass apartment on El Camino Real in north San Clemente, right across the street from a pool hall and a laundromat.

 

We got up a 0430 every day, rolled out of our respective beds and hit the floor for 100 push-ups. Whoever got to 100 first got to piss first. We ate corn flakes and beer and shit like that for breakfast, then arrived at the barracks in time for 0530 reveille. We worked all day in the 2/1 armory. At noon, we ran five miles, then wolfed down chow. We got off work at 1630. By 1700, I was surfing. At dark, I'd come home, change into PT gear, and we would run from our apartment to the San Clemente pier and back, wearing flack jackets. One time, just for the hell of it, we did it barefooted.

After our evening run, we came home, ate fast food, had a few beers or some Jack, and squared away uniforms while listening to Elvis Costello, Pat Benatar and Joan Jett and what's-his-name "Bad to the Bone." Our uniforms were immaculate, razor sharp creases, spit-shined boots, freshly blocked covers. Our shit was tight. Thursdays was haircut day, Field Day at the barracks and Field Day at the apartment. Friday mornings, Uniform Inspection formation. Our weekends we spent surfing, or my buddy SCUBA-dived. And we went looking for girls, a complete and total waste of time in San Clemente. Sometimes we would take our HK91 rifles down to the quarry at San Carlos (I think) and shoot old refrigerators and old cars, shit like that. One Saturday we fired up a 1,000 round case between the two of us in about two hours or so. That rifle barrel was smokin'. Neither one of us had any respect for the M-16A1. We all called it a "poodle shooter." We spent our Saturday nights drunker than shit in the Swallow's Inn in San Juan Capistrano, CA. Man, I love that bar.

 

And then I met my wife, and she saved me from a life as a professional soldier.

 

I still hear from my buddy. He's an aeronautical engineer. I became a registered nurse. He calls me on November 10th every year, and we always say, "Semper fi, bro!" If I ever needed the guy, all I'd need to do is pick up that phone, and on the next plane out, I'd get the Marines, locked, cocked, and ready to rock.

[effyoo]

Nice to hear some more stories

 

How's that book comin', Kabar? lol

[When]

kabar i belive you are an inspiration for us all

your stories are only getting more interesting as days go by

keep on truckin'

[yoshy]

good story kabar, thanks for posting it. if you have a chance, post

some more....

[Guest me IS cool]

Your threads are always good KaBar.

[yoink]

awesome, love these stories..my friends brother who was a marine visited us just recently, very nice guy, buying rounds of beers, talkative, and buitl like a fucking truck....he was also tryng to bone everything with two legs..but that was funny...then i met some army heli pilots in panama city also recently...(they were vacationing from rucker) they were complete dick weeds and tried their ever so hardest to impress the girls we were with...none the less they went back to their room emptyhanded and were heckled at...which was pleasing.

 

seriously its so true, some dudes in any of the branches can be tools, and some are just genuinely good company.

[Frate_Raper]

Dude thats rad,I'm not mad at that Biker at all.I would have stabbed that motherfucker not ruined his ride!

[Guest 455]

awesome.

[Guest socrates]

Originally posted by Frate Raper

I would have stabbed that motherfucker not ruined his ride!

 

priorities in all the right the places

[fr8oholic]

man, i love cars...

[KaBar]

Bad to he Bone

 

"George Thorogood" I couldn't remember that guy's name for anything! I liked his music back then, but it seems pretty poseur now. One of my favorites back then that has stood the test of time is Tom Waits. His girlfriend made some pretty good stuff too---her voice sounds sort of like a jazz singer zonked on downers.

[KaBar]

I Remembered another San Clemente story

 

But it actually makes my Marine Corps look kind of bad.

 

Me and my bro (I'm gonna name him Nameless) were sitting in the apartment eating dinner and drinking beers, and we heard this tremendous explosion KA-BOOOM. What the fuck was that? So we jumped up and ran out onto the balcony, and we could see this big cloud of smoke and dust drifting from our side street next to the apartments out onto El Camino Real. We took off running, ran through our parking lot and out to the side street.

 

There was this older woman about 60 and an older man down on the sidewalk, and people coming out of their houses up and down the block. Plus, there were leaves and twigs and stuff sort of drifting down as though they were falling from the trees.

 

Obviously, what had happened was the old folks were out for a walk and they tripped an artillery simulator. We found pieces of it. There was this big hollow bush right next to the sidewalk on the corner of this guy's yard, right behind our parking lot, that had almost no leaves left on it.

 

The people were helping the old folks up, and we did too, helping them find their glasses and shit like that. The neighbors were all kinds of pissed off, and were taking it out on Nameless and me.

 

"You goddam jarheads have no respect foranything! These people could have been seriously injured!"

 

I said, "Mister, we had absolutely nothing to do with this! I'm not crazy. Do you think I am stupid enough to set a booby-trap in a residential neighborhood?"

 

"If it wasn't you, it was some other low life bastard off of that base! I am sick of you Marines doing shit like this! Getting drunk! Getting into fights! I'm calling the cops!"

 

I said "On who? We didn't do this! I'm just as upset about it as you are!"

 

Finally, we ascertained that the two old folks weren't really hurt, except for falling down when the artillery simulator went off. So we went home, kind of half expecting the cops to show up.

 

An artillery simulator is sort of like a big firecracker. I've seen a couple of different kinds, but the most common one, back then, was a black carbboard tube covered with plastic, filled with some kind of pyrotechnic powder. They are ignited by electricity, like a battery or a "clacker" (a hand-operated demolitions igniter.) Some asshole stole one during field operations and smuggled it off the base, and then, as a joke (probably) rigged it up with a trip wire, a spring and a 9-volt battery (we found the battery) in this big hollow bush, stringing the light green monofilament fishing line across the sidewalk. It might have been there an hour, or it might have been there all day. No way to tell.

 

Marines study mines and booby traps and what is called Field Expedient Detonation Techniques as part of the Mines & Boobytraps class. But it could have been anybody.

 

But when I looked at the switch, the trip wire and the way it was rigged, I knew I was looking at the handiwork of a Marine.

 

I felt bad, like I had something to do with it, even though I didn't.

[Guest illwill]

god i hate assholes like that. i hate porsches even more.

[Kes_One_HTFD]

wow, that biker dude shoulda waited till the dude came out and ran em over with his own car, that woulda been a dope twist to the story. :D

[~KRYLON2~]

i hate dick heads like that...once when i was little some asshole took my bike and threw in the street because it was on the side walk...he was pretty surprised when my dad and my uncle who are both vietnam vets picked him up and threw him in the street then they proceded to beat the shit out of the guy while me and my brother watched...