I’ve got a friend who recently got back from basic training and is now a Marine. He has gotten a few tattoos, one before going to Basic and one after. The first is a very large piece of an eagle in an attack posture with his wings spread, covering the whole right part of his chest, and is very well-done and frankly pretty badass looking. The other one is on his arm and it’s the Marines symbol with a skull with red eyes in the middle, which I’m not quite as crazy about, but he has the attitude to back it up so it does kind of fit him.
I’ve noticed that Marines and former Marines or whatever you call them (I guess they’re still Marines even after they’re done with the service) usually seem to have tattoos, often the Marines bulldog, the Marines symbol, or just “USMC.” I have always wondered whether most of these guys are getting their tats right at the beginning of their service (to celebrate the completion of their training) or after they have served for a while, as confirmation that they’ve actually proven themselves in combat or something.
On the one hand, I could see more hardened guys looking down on the young rookies getting their bodies covered in Mr. Badass Marine tattoos before they’ve even seen combat. But on the other, it’s a pretty badass thing just to complete the training at all (I sure as hell couldn’t do it) so if it were me, I might want to get the tats right away, to mark my commitment to the Marines.
I also really don’t want to sound like I’m taking these guys’ service for granted in some way by asking about their tattoos - obviously it’s kind of shallow in light of the fact that they’re facing life and death for their country (whatever your opinion is of the war.) But let’s face it, Marines-related stuff is pretty damn popular as tattoo material any way you look at it, so I can’t help wondering. I guess my basic question is, do guys who get lots of Marines tattoos while still rookies get looked down on at all by senior guys as putting the cart before the horse?
Since this is IMHO, I wonder at how many folks get USMC tattoos who have never served. The wackos that pretend to be vets seem to be growing in number, I can name a few folks that I suspect of such (Mostly folks that don’t seem sane) that have said tattoos.
I can’t see many tattoo artists asking for their DD-214 or whatever that magic piece of paper is.
I don’t think we have many active “young kids todays and their tattoos” threads going on now. We had a player had on a short sleeved shirt today that showed a tattoo, his buddy remarked, “I never knew you had a tattoo.” He replied “yeah, that was a dumb one, I got it in the service” You could tell he wasn’t thrilled about it and probably wished he had worn another shirt after attention was called to it. I wanted to have him give a talk to all these kids that want tattoos that swear they’ll NEVER, EVER regret them.
Well, as I’m sure many others will pop in and inform you, every single person in the entire world to get a tattoo ever comes to regret it someday in their future. That’s why tattoos have become so rare nowadays. Only stupid young people get them and later on in life they uniformly regret them, dontchaknow.
Anyway, I have several friends in the Marines (including both an ex and current boyfriend- one of which has tattoos, but nothing to do with the Corps) and it seems that they go in a big ol’ group to get inked when they do. A month or so ago my boyfriend went with my friends and me to a very exciting, wild, and cool event (a Civl War Reenactment), but that same weekend a whole bunch of his friends drove into the town near the base and all got various tattoos, many of which were USMC themed. I think they did it because they were all about to graduate from their training there and it was a symbolic thing. Or maybe not, maybe they did it just because it was fun. My other friends have told me similar stories of a bunch of them making an event of it and spending h ours at the shop, getting matching tattoos.
I’ve also never heard stories of anyone getting a hard time for their tattoos (more so than they would for anything else, seeing as the Marines tend to pick on each other as it is). I suppose all that really matters is that it’s symbolic for the wearer, after all.
My brother got an eagle, globe and anchor after he finished basic. From what he says, anyone who came into boot with a marine tattoo got extra ass kickings. You aren’t a marine until they say you are.
Hey, I have one of those types of tattoos. Nice anchor with USN on my left forearm. In the 31 years I have had it, the tattoo has gone from a nice colorful thing to show off to a black blob my grandson calls an airplane.
Don’t mean to hijack, but I have to say that is usually because of the care of the tattoo after it has healed, i.e. not wearing sunblock. I have a lot of tattoos, all with very bright colors, and because I wear sunblock every day they are still as bright and perfect as the day I got them (some are almost 10 years old). UV rays cause all sorts of skin problems anyway, and people should wear sunblock no matter what, but with tattoos there’s an extra incentive because you don’t want your anchor to turn into an airplane-like blob. There’s a reason they use lasers to remove tattoos- they break up the pigment. Prolonged sun exposure over the course of the lifetime does the same thing. So, people that tell me my tattoo will look like crap in 30 years- I doubt it. Some fading is inevitable, but they can be recolored, and sunblock means the pigment won’t break up and spread. Anyway, carry on.
I was in NJROTC in high school. Most of my friends went into the service after graduation (I have authority issues, and besides, I was disqualified at MEPS for some health issues, haha). Most of them got service-related tats after they graduated basic training. To the best of my knowledge, it was because they were proud of having made it through - most of them plan on staying in for quite a while. Personally, I designed three tattoos for them, one for a friend in the Army and two Marines.
I suppose it’s probably the same reason I got my union bug tattoed on me - I’m proud of it. And going through basic training seems like a hell of a thing to be proud of.
I can understand the Marines who resent the new policy. Virtually every other aspect of their appearance is already regulated, after all: hair length, weight, eyeglasses, for instance. Why not let them express themselves with tattoos? But I think the Corps is correct - these young Marines will have much better career options, in and particularly out of the Corps, if they’re not covered in tats.
