The golden ticket
Few things taste quite as good as freedom.
March 9, 2025 marks 14 years since I got my golden ticket: an Honorable discharge from the United States Marine Corps. I enlisted on Fat Tuesday in 2006 and I got out on Ash Wednesday 2011. Five years goes by quick, especially when you spend the majority of your late teens and early twenties globetrotting around The World’s Armpits.
I got up that morning and shaved my face. I shook four continents worth of dust off my combat boots and laced them up one last time, then marched the half a mile from the barracks down to the 7th Marines Headquarters building. We were called to attention and told to fall in around the Company Gunnery Sergeant.
The company guns informed us that in the back of waiting humvees were a bunch of pressure washers. The parking lot and sidewalks still had the “Welcome Home Daddy” chalk from when the unit got back from Afghanistan in October 2010. Some division general was coming down and we needed to clean off all the chalk.
”Ya’ll have fun with that,” I said. “I’m gonna go and get out now.”
This one fat staff sergeant tried to holler at me, threatening me about how if I didn’t stay for that last working party, he’d get the First Sergeant to cancel my terminal leave. He said they’d call me back in and have me clean every inch of the headquarters building with a toothbrush.
“I appreciate your enthusiasm, Staff Sergeant, but I didn’t take terminal leave. I’m DONE done. Today is my no-shit last day. So, what I’m going to do is walk back to the barracks, change into civies, and then I’m gonna go get out.”
Few things frustrate Staff NCOs more than a Marine who they can no longer punish.
After changing into a button up shirt and some jeans I walked up the hill to the Admin Building and took a number. Another Marine sat down next to me; a fellow Corporal who was also getting out. I asked if he wanted to smoke and we stepped out into the Admin building smoke pit.
As we bullshitted, this loud female lance corporal came out and was braging to her boot friends about how they’d just come back from “the field” (Camp Wilson) and how they got to do “real combat training” (a light machine gun range).
“We might be admin, but we train like Real Marines(tm).”
I thought about talking shit, but decided against it. I was getting out and had no one to impress. Why be salty? Besides, all my buddies that were “Real Marines(tm)” were back at the headquarters building, mopping chalk off a fucking sidewalk.
I went back inside and my number still wasn’t up. This grunt short timer and I spotted a younger Corporal who was getting ready to check in to a line company. The man’s uniform was a mess and we couldn’t let him go in front of a grunt First Sergeant looking like that.
“Hey bud,” I said. “Where you headed?”
“3rd LAR,” he said. “I just came over from the Air Wing.”
I kinda winced at that, but the grunt and I fixed the man and got his shit looking the way it was supposed to. I patted him on the shoulder and told him, “Just remember, you get one chance to make a first impression. Make sure it’s a good one.”
My number finally came up so I went over to the desk and sat down in front of the man, initialling paperwork and checking over the details.
“Everything looks good, Staff Sergeant.”
He signed. I signed.
“Congratulations, you’re officially promoted to civillian,” he said shaking my hand.
I sighed and relaxed for the first time in five years. I lit a cigarette and walked back to the barracks. Threw my C-bag into the back seat of my car and headed out the gate.
And I left 29 Palms, California exactly where it belonged: in my rear-view mirror.