Great Photos!
Wish I had seen this earlier. Some of those are pretty moving. I had never yet been to Japan and now I feel lesser for it.
Glad to see you're having such a great time. I'm in the 1st Civ Div now and I often run into people here that when the military question is posed to them I usually get, "no way that's not for me, Im to busy here", then they pull out their phone and text their buddy and that's about all their excitement for the day. Then there are you photos where the juxstaposition really shows how limited and boooooring their lives are.
Remember, wether you stay or leave, you're already a world ahead of your peers.
Random thought: So the MOLLE is in MarPat now eh. Cool.
We had the misfortune of being the first company in the Marine Corps to recieve the MOLLE in late 1999. It was a piece of crap that relied on a system where you had plug the pack into your belt which without the pack was large and cumbersome. Try liting such a friggin large pack over your head, weighed down by all your gear, ammo, mortar rounds, water and so forth and guide a thunb sized plastic bar into a barely larger seat behind you. Then the guys from Secialty Defense Systems warned us against full weighted pack marches and marching more than a couple miles at a time since the pack requires you to use you different muscles. So what did we do, my platoon commander (6'4" is I am 5'7" + ) took us for a 15 miler at his full speed. We couldn't move when we got to the range. I loved the modularity of all but that system was crap. Fortuneately, just before the war we got a new system.
Oh yeah, sorry about that. I never have seen one with the MarPat.
Just before I left active duty it was all about the 1stCivDiv and using that DD-214 as the biggest...well watch Cheech and Chong "Up in Smoke."