With the opening of the 2005 film, Jarhead, the tagline 'Welcome to The Suck' comes blaringly fast into pop-culture. I thought it fairly obvious what it meant, but my friends had no clue, so I decided it was my duty as a Marine to inform you all.
'Welcome to The Suck' simply means 'Welcome to the Corps.' 'The Suck' is one way to reference the Marine Corps as a whole -- as an organization -- and is done particularly in stressful times in which, guess what, it kind of sucks. Marines have many of these colloquial terms used to alleviate the pain and discomfort of a tough job, and most of them sort of mean "Yeah, I know what you mean, it happens to everyone. Now, quit yer bitchin'."
We don't like to complain. Honestly. But, we wear our bitterness as a badge of honor. One of our favorite hobbies is to brag about how many times and how completely we have been screwed over. Why, I remember this one time, I hadn't been issued the proper gear before we went on a cold weather training operations: I got hypothermia and hilarity ensued! But that's a story for a different node... |
