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-Craig

Editor-in-Chief

Sneaky Marine
23 March, 2003


Have you seen the e-mails or web sites that are discussing “Those Sneaky Marines” and the camouflaged paintings they did? I have, which is why I am writing this next piece.

I am that Sneaky Marine! But I did have help.

Today, I was reading on the blogs about what people thought regarding those camouflaged paintings of nude women on helicopters, and for the most part it is all positive. A few people had inquiries about whether it was done for morale, bad morals, to force Islam’s to commit suicide for seeing a naked body, or that the paintings were photo-shopped. And heck, one person even said (tongue in cheek) that it was the new opening credits for the next James Bond movie (that cracked me up!).

And to that one person out there that said the painter (me) “has never seen real boobs before”, I have and I am not going into detail about it. My Mom visits this site and will give me the wooden spoon to my backside if I don’t keep it clean.

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A little background information...

I will start this from the beginning. Forgive me if I skip a detail as I am writing this from memory (my journal and additional pictures from that time are stuffed away in storage). And just so you, I am a bit of a smart-ass.

From 1986 – 1992, I was an active duty United States Marine, my highest rank achieved was Corporal. I was attached to HMH-466, a Marine CH53-E helicopter squadron located (at the time) in Tustin, CA. Ever drive along the 5 freeway between Santa Ana and Irvine? If so, you may have seen the large white and green hangers. Those were originally ‘Lighter Than Air’ (think blimp) hangers, which later became Marine Corps Air Station, Tustin. These days they seem to be primarily used as stages in some movies and television commercials.

My job: Aviation Ordnance (think explosives and such). My basic job is to maintain the helicopter’s electrically primed ordnance and machine guns that are normally kept at the base armory. In times of war, I am the door gunner. The .50 caliber machine guns are mounted to the helicopter and I stand behind them and fire at the enemy as we fly by.

My very good friend Dean B. stills calls me the “Get some! Get some! Guy” (he got that from the movie ‘Full Metal Jacket’). Some people think being a door gunner is cool and it was. But, we are the first to get shot at, after which, they aim for the pilots. At one point, during the Persian Gulf War also known as Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein had a $5,000.00 bounty on our heads. $5,000.00 was a lot of money in that region at that time.

August 2nd, 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Kuwait is a small Middle-Eastern country that sits southeast of Iraq’s border and northeast of Saudi Arabia’s border along the Persian Gulf. Kuwait is a small country very rich in oil.

August 22nd, 1990, my helicopter squadron HMH-466 had just finished taking apart our helicopters for transport in a C5 cargo plan. Now we are on our way to say “Howdy” to Saddam’s troops.

On with the actual story...

Fast forward a bit to about December (I think) 1990, we were stationed at the Port of Al-Jubayal, a small naval port for Saudi Arabia. We just received our shipment of tan camouflaged paint and we were ordered to paint our ‘birds’. I, recently having gotten into a little trouble, was on that detail. There were a handful of us to get the job done and at the moment, I cannot remember the names of the rest of the guys. Sorry guys!

By mid-day, I was getting a little bored of the painting and being a smart-ass, decided to make one of the spots into the figure of a girl, similar to the “Mud-flap” girl. I had gotten part of the head, back and breast done when one of the other guys on my squadron’s paint detail approached and noticed what I was doing. I personally was not planning on leaving it, I was just amusing myself. But my co-painter thought it was funny and joined in. He helped with the hair, since I was having a problem with it and he tackled rear-end.

Soon enough, everyone else on the detail joined in and we worked through the night using large lights on a generator. I figured if the enemy saw the pictures, maybe they would pause for a moment and double check, giving me enough time to pop off some rounds.

We all thought that no one would really be able to see the paintings from a distance. But we ran into a bit of a snag. One of the Gunny’s saw it and brought over the XO (Executive Officer, 2nd in command under the CO – Commanding Officer). The XO, to put it nicely, was a jerk and did not like what we were doing.

Eventually, the CO got involved (I think one of the Crew Chiefs ran off to get him). After some discussion and viewing what were doing and seeing how excited we were, he decided to allow us to continue. The paintings stayed on the birds until we got back stateside. Bummer. So, I guess you could say that those paintings were done for morale. And it is one of my best memories of the Gulf War.

The paintings continued. Someone liked Elvis, so we painted his Elvis’ head. One of the Crew Chiefs nickname was ‘Rooster’, so we painted a rooster’s head on the front of the bird. I painted a hand sticking out the middle finger (something the CO did not know about or would have approved) on the bottom of one of the birds. And the guys painted a silhouette of me holding up my hand doing the peace sign.

Now, there is one thing I would like to call out, and that is the middle finger painting: 1. Kids, don’t do middle finger paintings. And 2. This was in no way an offensive gesture aimed at any religion. We saw Saddam’s army simply as the enemy, not a religious group! They had done some horrific things to the Kuwaitis and we were not happy about that.

I will admit though, while on parameter guard duty (our base had the second largest ammo dump in theater, so we were a potential target), I would take out my ham from my MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) and rub my weapons and ammo with it while yelling out in Arabic to the desert beyond what I was doing. Why would I do that? In their culture, having pork in your system will exempt you from entering heaven. I know, I know, not cool. But hey, I figured if they knew I would fire ham at them then they would avoid instigating a fire fight. Suffice it to say, I didn’t get shot. Did my ploy work? You be the judge.

Fast forward to today, almost; last year my friend Tammy M. sent me an e-mail with the subject line “Those Sneaky Marines” and attached were pictures of my (and my crew’s) painting work. I was shocked and surprised! One of the guys in my old unit must have sent these to someone, who (may have) in turn wrote up a commentary and then mass e-mailed them to their contacts.

Then a few weeks ago, my friend Penny S. sent the same e-mail to me. Huh, I got it again! So, today, out of the blue, I Googled “Those Sneaky Marines” and I discovered those pictures are all over the internet, with commentaries and blogs about them. Holy Cannoli!

I started blogging back until I realized, “Dude, you have your own web-site!” And here we are.

How did those pictures get on the net? Not sure. I was on a military themed web-site today, and they indicated that (L.) Lofton had sent in those pictures to one of the staff. Lofton was a Crew Chief in my squadron, more than likely, he took those pictures.

No one is bleeding on my onion. I just thought this was a damn good story to tell. How often do you get a chance to find out the origin of something like this?

Back in 1990, I never dreamed photos of our paintings would be shown all across the country! And that people would have discussions about them, sometimes heated ones about “Macho geared propaganda” and “Male species crap”. I guess the past really does catch up with you.

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I would like to give great thanks to the kind people over at ForumsForums.com for their support and offer of having me post this story on their site as well.

Another thank you to Gary M. of Gawfer2001.blogspot.com  for offering to write this story and for his support. Although Gary did not write this piece, we together, may re-visit this story and bring more of it out after I get my stuff out of storage.

One last thank you to Patrick of dutyinthedesert.blogspot.com for his support and referencing this story on his blog.

And I thank you, the reader for enduring this longer than usual article. If you enjoyed it, please have your friends and family come read it, or simply send out an e-mail to your contacts.

As for me, I am still out there in the blogs, telling people this story.

-Craig

Until I can get into storage early next month, I will show you these pictures from the internet. The first picture shows that first painting I did (with help) that started all this. Can you find the girl?