When I was in middle school, my social studies teacher and principal were both veterans, only the social studies teacher was marines and the principal was army. They were always making fun of each other for any reason they could find, it was funny.
This scene is mostly true to fact; my father was XO of C Company, 164th Regiment, Americal Division, and was tasked with offloading supplies to Kukum Beach in early Oct 1942 . When the Japanese planes came over to bomb Henderson Field, the offloading stopped and the GI's all headed to bunkers, which is when the Marines showed up to steal their stuff. This whole series about the Guadalcanal campaign was very well done and very accurate.
Malnutrition, shit food for weeks, and starving. Ever had a time in your life where you almost didn't eat for days? Like a disease or something? If you go long periods of not eating you can't just gulp down an entire can of juice. You have to go slow and take your time to build up your appetite. And trust me on this, those kinds of throwing up sucks worst than any other kind of throwing up.
What would have made worse is those were tinned peaches so they were most likely tinned in syrup.... that would have made it even more punishing on his body.
i had a colon infection and couldnt eat for a month. when i was better i tried to eat and it fkign hurt so bad cuz my stomach had shrunk or whayever. the worst part was once i could eat i had to ramp back up so slow lol.
@@PolymurExcel He specifically says "I got the God-damn runs, and you had to get peaches?" He (and many others) would have had diarrhea or dysentry on this campaign.
@@randycheow4268 This marine thinks these are peaches, that is incorrect, marine - your pass is _revoked_ This is United States Army property that was *stolen* from my mess hall today!
Yep. During Desert Shield, we were at the Bahrain International Airport gearing up the aerial refueling for everyone. A C-5 came through, and said, "We have some vehicles for the Marines. Our CO said, "We're Marines." So we took the 2 Humvees and 2 Chevy trucks. Later, when the rightful owners came looking for them, we managed to finagle keeping one Humvee and one pickup.
Doing ammo off load on my ship marines left a whole crate and pallet of food. We couldn't get to the mess deck to eat because we couldn't leave the ammo so we walked over opened it up and handed out MREs to everyone. A Master Sargent came down saw us eating ask we're we got the food. Told him he just nodded and said well eat up and close the crate next time and walked away. The WO on the other hand she was pissed but he covered for us.
Yep. That Master Sergeant knew the real deal. Take care of the troops first. The stupid WO forgot what it was like to walk a post, or, more likely, never did. You may notice that senior Marines never cut a chow line. The private eats first, the C.O. eats last.
This brings back fond memories, in an 8 month period of rather memories. I was a Corpsman with First CEB , First Mar Div in the first Gulf War. My Marines would go to a position recently vacated by doggies and dig up their unwanted food. They would also follow behind Army supply trucks and pick up items that fell. We had HUGE trays of “ field lasagna “ and cases of M and M’s. Napoleon was right , an Army travels on its stomach. The Corps ....not so much
He wasn't use to the sugar content in peaches, so his stomach reacted badly to it after having a sweet sugary fruit for the first time in probably months.
it's kind of the same reason I don't like soda all that much, went 9 months in Afghanistan without it, when I got back, I finally had a pepsi and I threw it up just because of the sugar content.
Wasn't there a story how the army commander demanded Chesty to order his Marines to return stolen property to which Chesty replies "If they want it back, they are welcome to come and get it"
"If you leave a soldier in the desert with a hammer and an anvil, and come back 5 minutes later, the anvil and the hammer will be broken. Because soldiers gotta fuck with shit." *This scene*
Love how that one Marine that was about to steal an M1 Garand later received his own garand and used it to shoot a cow in Australia with it before being incarcerated for insanity during the war.
Damn dude, people nowadays getting angry about having to wait an extra minute or two for their big macs delivered straight to their car door. While these guys probably in real life got excited as hell over some canned peaches.
@@weeeman819 I never went to combat but during my time in the military, things there are pretty much the same as shown in the vid. I would consider myself a winner if I stumbled on a pack of crackers, biscuits, sometimes even a piece of candy mint. We only get to eat during mess time and we'd receive hell if we sneaked to get some food somewhere, which was impossible most of the time because of tight schedules of class and PT. Once you're in the military, you would really come to enjoy the littlest of things.
@@Tikii_9 Im just saying, ive personally seen people act like shit,( over such small things that I would get upset, even though their nastyness wasn't directed towards me) because their modern conveinances aren't convenient enough, and feel disgust because there was a time when this was a reality and men lived like this,afraid of indiscrimante death, The expectation of hardship so constant that even a can of peaches were probably seen as luxury. Im just saying, be grateful, because if we were born in the times of these people depicted here then we could have been the ones drafted into the army and this terrifying reality would be one we could have experienced ourselves.
I love that detail about Marines still using Springfield rifle's while the army arrives with garands. Marines were always the last to be reequiped. In Vietnam they were still armed with 14s Even in Iraq they were still armed with old m16s. If my history is correct.
My dad was in Vietnam Nov 68 to Jan 70 1st signal brigade and he was still issued an m14 it wasn't till around mid 69 he was issued an m16 some guys still managed to keep the m14 because of the distance they worked with microwave radio towers and the had to kill animals that got on the equipment at above 300 ft off the ground because they could damage the equipment and the radios would not work if they were out of commission.
@@strangebrew1231 cause they thought it was space age and didn’t have to be cleaned so along with the climate of the Vietnamese jungle their m16s were absolutely filthy
@@strangebrew1231 problem with the early M16s is that they were intended to use a certain kind of powder in the cartridges, but the army decided to make cartridges with a much cheaper, low quality powder that caused a lot more fouling. Wasn't the rifle's fault. It was the bureaucracy's.
USMC: fought the japanese up front. Airborne: dropped behind enemy lines. Rangers: first on the beaches. Infantry: Supplied with the best, to stand around.
Seeing that reminded me of a particular statement from a certain 1st Lieutenant Nathaniel 'Nate' Fick said during the Invasion of Iraq in 2003: "If you want logistics, join the Army. Marines make do"
@@d.g.6147 alongside the Marines and occasionally USAF Combat Controllers and USAF Security Forces, rarely non-SEAL sailors ashore fighting too, usually Corpsmen with their Marine unit to treat injuries and protect their patients. They all fight together a lot more directly these days
crackshack2 because they were so sweet, if you go a longg time without sweet things and you suddenly get something very sweet like him drinking the juice, it sometimes makes you sick
I think it should be mentioned that in the memoirs the Marines were actually glad Army troops came to relieve them. Kind of a shame that the show only shows them in a lame light. Now I see people in the comments saying how regular infantry had it easy or weren't as deserving, it's quite disrespectful.
No its not dumbass they joke around with each other like this all the time its part of military life stop being offended for others and worry about yourself
@@bb_arcadia5752 You sure sound like the offended one to me. Don't get me wrong, I love this series, but what I said was entirely reasonable given the misconceptions this show creates about the Pacific War.
@@americanatlas3631 so me calling you out on your lack of knowledge makes me offended? Have you even served in the military? if not then honestly shut up they arent making misconceptions the different branches always mess with each other like brothers do in real life so again stop being offended for others
@@bb_arcadia5752 Well when you start your argument with "No it's not dumbass!!!", yea, you sound like you might have a mild case of butthurt. Maybe if you settle down and read my comment again you'll see that I'm not criticizing actual military culture. I'm criticizing this show's portrayal of services and how some people disregard the struggle shared by other servicemen because of that portrayal. If you don't fall into that category yourself, I really don't see why you're getting so worked up.
When my Dad was a marine, he and some of the other marines would occasionally steal a few of the fresh loaves of bread the cooks made every morning whenever they could get away with it.
I was Army, but in Afghanistan, the Afghans shared a mess hall with us and would always hoard the fruit so we almost never got a chance to grab some fruit before it was all gone. After I talked with the cooks, they set aside a box of fruit (peaches, oranges, apples, etc.) every morning just for us because they knew we almost always had to deal with shit at the front gate. I was part an MG team at the front gate of an ECP (entry control point) and we rarely got the chance to hit up the mess hall because of the shit we had to deal with.
I see all the comments of past and present soldiers here, so I just wanted to say thank you. Whether it was or is army, navy, marines, or air force thank you for serving our country and thank you for your sacrifice. I saulate you brave men. That is all I wanted to say.
My grandfather was a united states marine and fought in the battle of guadalcanal and his favorite story to tell was stealing a kitchen from the us army. I'm so glad to see it being recreated, miss you everyday grandpa. 1923-2016 Cpl Kenneth Vanderzeil 3rd Marine Division
In Somalia I was given the title of "acquisitions specialist" Which meant I "borrowed" the Battalion XOs vehicle at random times (when he was in a meeting kissing someones asshole) and would take said vehicle (HMMWV) to the port and "acquire" much needed military resources from shipping containers that always seemed to have already had their seals broken off them (the luck I know). This made me a valuable part of company morale. Also, prior to deploying to said shithole I realized hey, this Hummer has a lot of room in the back of it. I bet I can find some old Vietnam era trunks at the motor pool and guess what, I was successful. I then made a hasty assault to the local PX and loaded the trunks with jerk off mags, cigarettes (which I think were something like 11 dollars a carton at the time), booze, jerky, canned foods, and even sodas and much more. Needless to say this cemented my position as a very important member of my beloved Company. I was also the company's mail clerk and I did push my luck severely one day. I went thru all the baskets of mail and took out our company mail prior to allowing Division to process it. Now that one......that one got me in some hot water and I started to get more monitored and had to get more creative during my time there liberating wonderful people who we were freeing from oppression. Speaking of freeing the oppressed. I once "acquired" and sold an entire hefty bag of marijuana to members of the 10th Special Forces group for?????? 25 dollars. Approximately twice what I paid for it from a local. Ahhhh no PTSD here.
Love the pacific, however if pop culture the idea is generally that the Marines were the main force in the pacific. While there was about 4x as many army soldiers who sustained a majority of the pacific theaters deaths and were key in major battles.
@@daniellap.stewart6839 Guadalcanal - Army was there Iwo Jima - Army was there Peleliu - Army was there Saipan - Army was there Okinawa - Army was there because it was an Army/Navy operation There were few battles that were exclusively fought by Marines.
@@daniellap.stewart6839 They were infantry, not support troops. The Army deployed four whole divisions to Okinawa while the Marines only had two, and that was while the Army was simultaneously fighting in the Philippines.
I remember my squad leader in the Army telling us if we see any tool lying about in our motorpool 'unattended' to 'acquire' it for our use as the needs of the squad matter most. Amazing how the shared misery bonds people-and the military is expert at providing misery.
Love the "acquiring" scene, reminds me of when I was a Marine in the Middle East and we came across some Army personnel with better food than MRE's (which is all we had) we had a Sgt. That used to be a recruiter go over and talk the ears off of the hard while a couple guys "acquired" a truck load of good chow.
Yeah, I had that happen once: drank a whole bottle of fruit juice (about the volume of that can of peaches) after a long time without much sugar (we were short on sugary food at home as back home people were paid only once every month, and I was in school during a particularly hot year).
the Island was not taken yet. Just the Airfield. the movie "the Thin Red Line" is about the final stages of the Battle of Guadalcanal. those were soldiers of the 25th Infantry Division.
The army did by far most of the fighting and the dying in the Pacific and European theaters, they took and held most of the islands with and without the Marines.
My dad was in the 1st MarDiv on Okinawa, and was caught stealing from the army, so he was detained with some buddies. While detained, he came down with bad kidney stones and was operated on in a cave, recuperated in a hospital made from a Japanese sickle factory, then flown to Guam and Hawaii. Bad sanitation and stress caused the stones and he had problems with them all the rest of his life.
This scene captures 99% of what goes on between comrades in the military. Yes it's honorable to serve and to fight. But there are also enough crazy silly stupid hilarious moments to last a lifetime as well.
Three things civilians only need to understand when the Army and Marines squabble among their ranks and give each other crap. 1. It's a state of mind or it's a family thing. 2. Marines and Army makes their arguments and pranks more intense then the "tickle pillow fights" civilians have. 3. If the situation arises between any of our branches...stay the HELL away from their sector of fire or blast radius.
It was also called "midnight requisitions" and the practice worked both ways. Regular army in N Luzon 1944-5 consisted of mobilized N. Guard regiments (including Arizona Bushmasters) who were supplied even worse than the Marines. They mainly pilfered the Navy.
We took over a forward observation post a couple thousand feet up a mountain once. The only access was by helicopter, home was where you dug it, the command post hole had a desk made from a boulder, a roof of canvas covered pallets. But in front of the radios was a beautiful blue leather swivel chair - the sort with pneumatic suspension, lumbar support and an adjustable headrest. It said 'property of the United States Air Force' on it. We weren't Air Force. We weren't even United States. Whoever relocated that chair was clearly the top man in our war.
My Dad was in the 5th Marines on Guadalcanal. Prior to the series being started I had posted on one of the sites, that Dad always recalled the first thing he ate after bring resupplied was a can of peaches. So now you know where that scene came from. That's the only time I ever heard him speak about Guadalcanal.
When they're running away from the mp's and the one guy is carrying a crate out! Every time i see that, I get tears from laughter. I don't know why I find that scene so funny.
What was the reason that the marines had to use old scrapped Equipment and the army got better Material? Also the uniforms/clothes of the marines always looked totally used up. Was there such a huge difference in the military budget between the branches? Greetings from Germany
Marines are part of the Department of the Navy, so they have a budget based on what the Navy allows. Whereas the Army, being it's own department, develops its own weapons and supplies itself directly. The M1 Garand, for example, was an Army project, so naturally the Army got first dibs.
My favorite scene in the whole series. Army gets all the good shit while marines get Jack shit. And for all of you who don't know, they didn't steal, they tactically aquired all that gear.
After watching a 4 minute video on youtube that dramatized a period of time during WWII. That's what you're basing your entire military decision off of? Maybe you shouldn't join any branch.
@Ominous You see that a lot of videos of Band of Brothers or The Pacific. Younger people believing that the show is entirely non-fiction, and therefore reflective of each branch.
Ali Sadeq You're an idiot. The reason they're called Marines is because they work closely with the Navy, so that they can be deployed anywhere in the world extremely fast. That's why they're almost always the first large force into a combat area. They aren't a 2nd Army, they don't have the man power for it, they are a ruthless, hard charging groups of fuckers that are sent in to get the job done. And the Marines are trained to operate anywhere, desert, jungle, mountains, and the extreme cold.
RedWolf 893 by the time of guadalcanal the marines had about 100k garands and about 10k per month order. they were equipped with what was top of the line equipment. unfortunately the guadalcanal units werent updated yet. however the mgs and rifles were essentially the same. they also had the johnson lmg and semi auto.
the opening stages of the Guadalcanal campaign were done very quickly. its roots go back to the Battle of Midway- this resulted in a catastrophic defeat for the Japanese Navy. Admiral King, Chief of staff of the Navy convinced the the other senior leadership that they could not afford to not take advantage of the Japanese weakness and go on the offensive. the US Army was already preparing for major landings in North Africa that would take place in November 1942 and the Army was not interested in a Pacific First campaign. But you cannot allow an opportunity like this to be passed up so King sent in his Marines. prior to this no major offensives had been planned since it would draw away resources from the European Theater. It is unlikely that the Marines had been equipped to launch any major offensives until 1943 at the earliest. However Midway Changed all of this so they had to move fast before the Airfield was finished. Their is a reason why the Marines referred to this as "operation shoe string"
Shawn Tan Wai Kit I would go for captain expensive loafer shoes and cigar Because I wouldn’t want to get drunk while at the same time a Bombardment is happening
@@unsalted_walrus1575 or you could not be a bag of shit who steals pers kit. IRL someone who steals army kit is just a good supply person. Someone who steals pers kit gets the shit kicked out of them until they quit or get transferred.
The marines earned it, they had to go through hell and all. And army seemed to get away with the easy stuff so they deserved to acquire some top of the line items
@falcon3268 yup the army got away with all the easy stuff, like the beaches of Normandy, the battle of the bulge, and facing a fleet of the best tanks in the world (panzers and tigers). Yup, all easy stuff....
you don't know what your talking about falcon3268. No the Army were not sent in after the battle thats nonsense. The Army actually did most of the fighting in the Pacific by virtue of being bigger- the US Army sent 27 Divisions, out of a total of 89 that fought in WW2- the rest fighting in Italy or Europe and the Entire Marine Crops fought in the Pacific- 6 Divisions.
Till these days, the Marines and the Army still hate each other. The Marines generally look down on the Army as sloppy but has good logistics and the Marines begrudgingly has to accept that fact
@superhornet69 Dysentery, Malaria, Yellow Feaver, Heat Stroke, Heat Exhauston, Dehydration, Trench Foot, take your pick and anyone in the Pacific Theater probably came down with it during the war, an old saying is the Jungle isn't neautral
Damn, I keep forgetting Jon Seda was in this, as John Basilone. He was young, dude. Kind of cool to think he'd eventually play as Antonio Dawson in a few years.
Marines and Army were under different jurisdictions. The army was bigger and were therefore prioritized when it came to supplies. The Marines were under navy command and a smaller force, and therefore had to rely on old surplus gear and uniforms in the early part of the war, because the navy and marine corps basically shared the budget. Now about your statement that "marines who were fighting the hardest" - I think you're underestimating how big of a role the army had in the Pacific theater. I fact, the army suffered twice as many dead and wounded in the Pacific as the marines and navy did combined, with the army suffering right around 200.000 total casualties and the marines and navy combined suffering just shy of 100.000 total casualties.
Drunken Sailor. i also recall reading that the marines at the time of guadalcanal did have a decent amount of garands. the garand collectors magazine showed the ducuments listing them. pretty much all the marines had a garand apart from a few units.
Marines were just as well supplied and equipped as the Army in WW2, its just that in this one operation they went into combat poorly equipped. because it was hastily planned.
Its all about organization and timing. The Army tended to adopt new equipment and then passed it along to the Marines if they decided they wanted it. A Good example of this is the M4 Sherman. The Marines decided to go with the Diesel engine Shermans because they were available right away while all the gasoline engine Shermans were in high demand for the Army and British. At the start of WWII, the M1 Garand was still in fairly limited production despite being adopted as the new standard issue rifle. So there was already a shortage. After Pearl Harbor the Army began a massive expansion program basically going from two hundred thousand fighting men to roughly 3 million over the course of one year. With immediate production failing to meet demands, the US soldiers and Marines fighting in the early campaigns of WWII were forced to work with what they had. The Army fighting in the Philippines in 41 and 42 were using similar equipment to the Marines. The Marines deployed to Guadalcanal were using Springfield rifles and M1917 machine guns because thats what the Marines had in their inventory to equip these divisions. Of course, once the American Industrial base kicked in, equipment could be produced at an awesome rate. By 1943, Marine Units were being supplied with equipment that was just as good as anything the Army was using. New units that were raised were often equipped with and trained on the new equipment while units that had been on the front lines with older equipment got rotated off the front line and had the new equipment distributed to them as it became available.
He hadn't had anything that sweet in weeks, maybe months. So it was a shock to his system. I dunno why the others didn't get sick. Stronger stomachs, maybe.
I saw stealing every day. All MY gear was stolen when I arrived at Camp Lejeune. Took me three months to get my initial issue back. Theft was prevalent, constant and routine.
Guys in the Gulf War I served with mailed all sorts of stuff home they "found" while in Saudi Arabia....a chainsaw, tools, MREs, wooden footlockers stuffed with whatever, boots, canteen lids, OD green pants, chinstraps, MOPP suit, things you would probably ever need again. It was a trove of opportunity, and certain guys could not stopp.... then you have to ask yourself is this stuff worth it
@pumas666star - lol brotherly love... the marines where always messin with us, we messed with them back but we always love and would die for each other
I can understand that army supplies stealing might be somewhat ok since they dumb out that shit in the thousands but I would never dare to touch personal luggage unless my life depends on it.
During Desert Shield, we were operating our KC-130's out of Bahrain International Airport. We kind of commandeered a small hangar and a flight line. Anyway, we kind of became the default VAL line. C-5 lands and one of the crew says "we have some vehicles for the Marines." Our C.O. says, "We're Marines." so we kind of took possession of the two HUMMVEES and the two Chevy pickups, CUTV I think... Well eventually the rightful owners came looking for them and we finagled keeping one of each to use as flight line vehicles. I think we had them all for at least a month.
It’s because after months of having horrible/small rations his stomach couldn’t handle all the rich peach juice. Same reason why they give people who are found starving small rations or broth to eat at first.
In Ancient Greece, Spartan trainees were encouraged to steal in order to survive, the trick was not getting caught. They had to learn to forage and adapt by any means.