I’m fairly certain the unit armorer would have been overjoyed at the thought of every rifle having to be cleaned immediately after prolonged immersion in chlorinated water for a routine training exercise.

Anyways good story.

Semper Fi 2nd battalion 4th Marines Comm platoon.

Lake Michigan should be scary to you. I read somewhere that there are more sunken ships in Lake Michigan than the entire Pacific coastline bordering the US. The radical weather changes and potential for incredibly high waves makes the Great Lakes some of the most dangerous waters in the world. If the reputation for Lake Michigan is playing any part in your fears, then try a different lake. LOL.

But given that this has contributed to my fear of open water (Lake Michigan is scary to me, let alone the ocean), my kids are DEFINITELY learning how to swim. It’ll just have to be the hubby that teaches them. =)

My wife and I drove through Beaufort on a family trip about 7years after I graduated. She wanted to know if I wanted to stop by and show her and the kids where I went to boot camp. I said Hell No! so fast it startled her. I told her that would be like going back to Death Row after getting a pardon…

At least in the Marines, it’s a function of low body fat. You get a group of people that exercise a LOT, and place an emphasis, rightly or wonrgly, on rapid 3 mile runs for fitness tests, and you get a decent number of folks with such a low body fat that they are just not naturally bouyant.

And when you have to fight like hell to stay above the water buck ass nekkid, adding a bunch of wet clothes and gear does NOT help.

In Henderson’s case, it was cause he was just… scrawny. He was highly successful at very fast long distance running… but he was NOT the kind of guy that would be humping ammo for a mortar on a 20 mile march. Ever.

One of the people who was my personal hero in the service, Gunny Michael Jordan, was one of the most fantastically in-shape guys I ever knew, a natural athlete that worked his ass off to be in top shape at all times. He had posters of Michael Jordan the basketball player (no relation) everywhere as his inspiration, and he was just a hardcore badass. He strove to be the best of the best.

When American Gladiators was first on the air, way back in the day, Gunny Jordan went on the show, and he did pretty well.

Gunny Jordan was in the line of non-swimmers that day. All I’m saying.

Anyway I love the story as allways BBB. I allways love those Navy men who can’t swim in the movies wtf? Surprised to see that it really does exist. Hard for me to see how any grown person can’t swim but its probably more common then I think. Aqualad FTL

My reaction to your story BBB was mostly that I read you talking about this Kick Ass Sailboat (didn’t look at the link right away) and then a few paragraphs later I saw the word Sunfish. I basically did a double take. See at the camp, some of the councelors lived on the lake. They had some very nice 40-50ft sailboats. Ya know the ones that could seat 8 people comfortably, actually had a jib instead of just one triangular mainsail. On nice evenings we would take those out onto the lake and just cruise around (with the councelors of course). So from my initial perspective, those were the nice (Kick Ass) sailboats and the sunfish were the little trainers that the campers got to learn on.

Not to knock Sunfish though. They are a blast to sail around in and pretty easy to right if you tip them over. One of my favorite things that we’d do is go out onto the lake and play pirates. Basically it was about 12 campers in 6 sunfish hopping out and intentionally capsizing the other sunfish. Loads of fun.