Marine Corps Birthday Special!!!! Must Watch!

About this story

Every Marine says they won’t miss it. Ghost knows exactly when they come back.

1,500 crayon eaters walk into a bar. It’s the best holiday in America, and the man running it keeps a case of crayons behind the bar to prove it. Tom “Ghost” Martin enlisted in 1986, fought in Desert Storm as an 0311, and runs The Leatherneck Club, the Marine Corps bar and museum in the middle of Las Vegas that will put 1,500 Marines on deck for the 251st birthday on November 10. He has watched the same pattern for years. The Sergeant Major walks in the week after he retires. The Lance Corporal who swore he was done walks in five or six years later and admits he misses the bullshit.

Two conversations in one episode. Jessica Jay Dee sits down with Ghost for everything you need to know about the 251st at the Leatherneck Club: when to show up, what it costs, where the money goes, and the one message he wants every Marine to take home. Then Ronnie Long and Ghost go long on why civilian life feels like failure when it’s just regular life, why every generation of Marines hates the next one’s crayons, what “not today” means between brothers, and the Gold Star mom who built a lodge for her son’s platoon.

Ghost’s message this year is simple. Be local. Find your I&I staff, your recruiters, your reserve unit, your Marine Corps bar, and let them know you’re still around. The Corps is a living thing and it evolves. The camaraderie, the shenanigans, the field days you swore you’d never miss: that’s the part that follows you long after the uniform comes off.

251st Marine Corps Birthday, Tuesday, November 10, at The Leatherneck Club, Las Vegas. Party starts at 1600, ceremonies at 1900. Family friendly until 1900. No parking, so Uber, Lyft, or a designated driver. Bring cash in $5 increments. Every can of Spec Ops Water and every Chesty’s sends money to Honor Flight Southern Nevada. Donate a ride to get a Marine there:

Veteran in crisis? Dial 988, press 1.

Follow Vegas Veteran Voices for a new episode every Friday.
Host: Ronnie Long
Guest interviewer: Jessica Jay Dee
Recorded at The Leatherneck Club, Las Vegas

GLOSSARY
0311: Marine Corps infantry rifleman
I&I: Inspector-Instructor, the active-duty staff attached to a reserve unit
Poolee: someone who has enlisted but hasn’t shipped to boot camp yet
Field Day: the weekly barracks cleaning and inspection
Beans, bullets, bandages: shorthand for everything a unit needs to keep going
Nine line: the radio format for calling in a medevac
Teufel Hunden: “Devil Dogs,” the nickname Marines trace to German troops in World War I
Tun Tavern: the Philadelphia tavern where the Marine Corps was born on November 10, 1775
Honor Flight: the nonprofit that flies aging Veterans to Washington, D.C. to see their memorials

In their words

“Be part of that community. It’s something we all have the inherent ability to do. It’s just whether we want to go do it.”

“I can speak to anybody about my Marine Corps history and I can do it with gusto and I can do it with pride.”

“When do I start pining for my history? When do I start discovering there’s something in my life I’m missing?”

Chapters

1. 00:00 Cold open
2. 00:47 Intro and the 251st birthday message
3. 03:33 Jess and Ghost: we survived the 250th
4. 06:59 Who shows up, and why it’s always on the 10th
5. 11:47 No parking, food trucks, first-timer tips
6. 15:10 Basilone Beer, Spec Ops Water, Chesty’s dollar, Honor Flight
7. 19:58 Ghost’s message this year: be local
8. 24:44 Ronnie and Ghost: the museum nobody knows is in Chinatown

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9. 30:57 Taking the uniform off: urgency, field day, Thursday games
10. 34:27 The five-year rule: when Lance Corporals come back
11. 35:51 Crayons, the air wing joke, don’t mess with admin
12. 42:42 Close with and destroy: what the Corps is actually for
13. 48:17 You become the lieutenant: why life after the Corps feels like failure
14. 53:54 “Not today,” alone time, and the Darkhorse Lodge
15. 58:41 33 years apart, same story, and the birthday safety brief