JohnnyFreakingDanger

Or grunts who got realllllly fucked by their recruiter.

Sterling,

First off, from one Marine to another, thank you for your service! I'm a former 0351, and there's something i've always been curious about but never had the opportunity to factually confirm. Flamethrowers are a big part of 51 lore, and we were always told it was the assaultmen who got to carry them back in the day. Was this true? As an aside, did you ever get to shoot one?

S/F Johnny F. Danger

(P.S., you last AMA resulted in me buying your book. I work outside the US with spotty mail service, but i can't wait to get home and dig into it!)

It stands for expatriate. It just means someone who lives outside of their country, generally without a specific intent to immigrate to where they happen to be living then. But that's not like a steadfast rule or anything. Usually it refers to someone working in another country, but there are plenty of retiree expat communities whose residents never plan on going home.

Lol, what?

Having been an expat before, and known tons of them, literally every single one i've met self identified as an expat.

More than a couple dudes in my weapons platoon were swole beasts, and after my 2nd deployment i was the most cut i've ever been in my life. (I'm considerably stronger now; 40 pounds of muscle heavier lean, but i was low single digit body fat then and pulling in over 290 on my PFT, which considering i've struggled with running my entire life was saying somehting.) And then there's recon...

The biggest obstacle really wasn't not having time, it's that i spent the first 3 years hating life and just waiting to get off work to start slamming beers. (Or... you know... Just slamming beers.) Despite spending my entire second deployment on COPs and the like, i found a stride and managed to work out with basically nothing. (Sandbags, bamboo and illum shell benchpress, pull ups, etc.) And when i got back, i was honestly in a really good place mentally, getting to the gym every day, utilizing free movie nights at the base theater, going shooting every weekend and taking advantage of the single Marine program. Basically just figuring out how to occupy my spare time other than getting absolutely shitfaced black out drunk at Heroz and picking fights with POGs.

Really long way of saying i don't think most grunts aren't really in insane shape because we don't have the time to be, but most just can't be bothered to work out after you're shit on all day long, every day, for 4 years straight. lol