Things about the Jehovah's Witnesses that remind me of the Marine Corps
1. Both demand conformity in hair cuts, dress and attitudes, failure to conform will bring disciplinary action and forestall
promotion.
2. Both try and isolate you from the world, though only for three months at Parris Island, a lifetime with the Witnesses.
3. Both talk insultingly about other groups, and disparage the abilities of the competition using nicknames like "Squid,"
"Airdale" "Worldling" and "Apostate." Marines will call them names to their faces though, while Witnesses won't.
4. Both show great loyalty, though Ex-Marines continue to show this loyalty and Ex-Witnesses rarely do.
5. Both try to tear people down and build them new personalities, neither are very successful over the long run though
the Marines do manage to instill in most a real love of firepower. Thieves remain thieves, ex-Marine thieves are better
with weapons though.
6. Both are insulting toward things you used to love and hold sacred. Marines frequently make nasty remarks about your
parentage and homelife, Witnesses usually attack your former religion and its priests or ministers. The Marines quit
after training, the Witnesses continue for your lifetime insisting that you agree and participate.
7. Both anticipate the destruction of their enemies and revel in the thought though the Marines take more joy in describing
just how they will do it and the Witnesses are more mercenary about it, thinking of the property they will get from
the dead. I never heard any Marine talk about looting the way I have heard Witnesses. Marines anticipate doing
the killing themselves whereas Witnesses think Jehovah will do the dirty work and the Witnesses are thinking on a
global slaughter scale whereas the Marines deal with it on a much more limited basis as in the Japanese Empire,
The German Army, the North Koreans or the Viet Cong. Despite favorable kill ratios with all of these they never
approached the level of slaughter the Witnesses dream of.
8. Both have harsh punishments. Marines will torture you at Parris Island or in the brig, strip you of rank and give
dishonorable discharges to those judged guilty of a serious crime before a jury in an open court. Witnesses will
strip you of all you love, parents, siblings, life-long friends, in a judicial committee before which you have no rights
other than the right to repent. If you do not repent you are condemned for life and condemned to death. Though
as in the slaughter of the worldlings, they will let Jehovah kill you. They will just shun you, and all other Witnesses
who don't shun you. It is, however, much easier for Marines to avoid trouble as the rules are spelled out in the UCMJ.
For Witnesses the rules are always changing and frequently the opposite of those stated to the public at large in
print.
9. Both have two groups, an officer corps and enlisted (in Witnesses: Anointed and the Great Crowd) with vastly different
treatment and privileges. High ranking Marine officers get their own homes, cars with drivers and helicopters.
Anointed Witnesses don't get the helicopters.
10. Both as organizations have clear cut ideas as to what they are to achieve and are willing to inflict death and
destruction on all defined as enemies, the Marines are more selective as to who the enemies are. They don't
include women, children, and other non-combatants. As stated above Witnesses have a more thermonuclear,
"let GOD kill them all AND sort them out" approach.
11. While both groups have heroes, the heroes of the Witnesses are mostly ancient biblical characters like David (who by
the way would have made a great Marine) and Gideon (he was drafted so would not be a part of the all volunteer
Marine Corps we have today unless a judge ordered him to either join up or go to the pen), not many contemporary
heroes that all Witnesses know and recognize. Marines have Chesty Puller (God Bless you Chesty Puller, Where
ever you are!) and countless others who wrapped themselves around grenades and such and are commemorated by
bldgs. and things. (John Wayne, a movie Marine,was commemorated by a small c-rat can opener)
12. Both listen to the same music over and over but the Marine Corps Hymn is much better to march to and I would say
all in all a better peice of music than #54 or the others I have heard.
13. Both have emblems, the Marines have the fouled anchor and the globe with an eagle above it, the Witnesses
have a big stone Watchtower off some ancient city wall.
14. Both have records they love to brag about. The Marines have fought all over the world and killed the enemy at a
tremendous ratio. In one battle on Guadalcanal during repeated Japanese charges and in close fighting
they killed 1400 Japanese to 70 or so Marines. They love to point to Belleau Wood, The Frozen Chosin, Iwo Jima,
Inchon, as examples of who they are and why they exist. The Witnesses like to point to all the times they
have been killed, banned or persecuted, like in Germany, Malawi and the U.S.A. for refusing to fight, give blood or
vote.
15. Both love nicknames. Marines like to refer to themselves in a number of ways from Lean, Green, Fight'en Machine, to
Mean, Green, Amphibious M. F.ers, and to their organization as The Corps (unless they are mad at it when they call
it Uncle Sam's Malignant Crotch, or Crotch just for short) Witnesses like to call themselves The Brothers or Friends.
The Witnesses refer to their organization as The Organization or The Society, unless angry with it in which case they
can no longer be Witnesses and what they call it then is immaterial as they are no longer Witnesses. (The Borg is
popular among some ex-witnesses.)
16. Both do give standards of comparison for the rest of
their lives. A Marine broken down in the desert with loved ones would think, I can do this, I have been in worse
situations. An ex-Witness might say, hey, at least they are talking to me, I have been in worse situations.
