Royal Marines or Ex Royal Marines

3:09 PM, 24 January 2012
Radio Times would like to apologise for a picture that has inadvertently been published in the new issue of the magazine.

It has come to our attention that an apparently innocent photo of the Royal Marines’ 42 Commando unit – printed by Radio Times in good faith and issued by Channel 5’s publicity department to promote the documentary Royal Marines: Mission Afghanistan – contains the sight of one of the marines playing a prank.

“I know that British soldiers serving in Afghanistan are well equipped, but seeing the roll call of Royal Marines gives the expression a whole new meaning,” wrote one reader in a letter to RT this morning.

The unnamed marine is, like the rest of his unit, posing for the photograph dressed only in shorts. What we took to be the marine’s finger proved, on closer inspection, to be another part of his anatomy.

We have redacted the picture above, but the 28 January issue of Radio Times magazine – on sale today, priced £1.40 – went to press before the mistake was noticed.

“We apologise for any upset caused to readers by the rogue member of 42 Commando,” said Radio Times editor Ben Preston. 😆

Ha! PMSL at the Radio Times anecdote. 😛

Make sure your son gets some practice in at naked roll-mat wrestling.

i remember my brother tried to get into the marines way back in 1982. dad took him down, my brother goes into interview dad waits outside, 15 minutes later my brother comes out , head down.

my father was asked into the interview room, he basically told my dad that your boy was too ‘nice’ and wouldnt hack it.

when pressed he went on to say they prefered kids from rough backgrounds.

i still wind him up to this day as he cried all the way home in the car

Make sure your son gets some practice in at naked roll-mat wrestling.

It’s normally more like an attempt at boxing. Certainly more whacking than grabbing. He will have to update his wardrobe with plenty of female attire……you wait and see.

Had a couple of mates who were Marines, went to one of their stag do’s.
Local pub 7pm start; i walk in the door to find them already on the table dancing with flaming toilet role hanging from their arses.
I have no recollection of the rest of the evening.
An evening out was always entertaining!!

Dance of the flaming arseholes – a true classic!

Dammit, I miss the green stuff!

What musical instrument does he play? If you’re going to join the Marines you need to be able to play an instrument.

Only kidding, just winding the booties up!

I would question his desire to join up at such a young age. Firstly from a maturity point of view and secondly watching all your course mates getting drunk on a free evening isn’t as much fun as joining in with them….

Some interesting advice being flung around, PM inbound for the ‘gen’

Holy thread revival Batman!

Spam advertising websites will not bring you customers – it will annoy people.

im annoyed.

or it might be confused, i always get those two annoyed

Great, now it looks like I revived the thread…

Ah well.

Thought I would give a little info, as im in the process of the application. Recently came back from PRMC, which is the final 3 day fitness assessment before being invited to start training. I was unsuccessful in my attempt, but not by much I made it through day 1 with no problems day 2 was the hard part. This consisted of a bottomfield workout as they call “functional fitness” full of carries, drags, plenty sprints and plenty press ups, squats and burpees. Got through that with will power and determination. I thought that was hard but the endurance course was honking phys. 7 mile endurance run with lots of crawling and circuits thrown in. This was done for around three mile then finished of with a 4mile run back to camp, this is where I was pulled out by the sergeant major, I collapsed about half a mile from the end I tried to continue running but my legs were gone after all the sprints and squats on the endurance course. The sergeant major told.me to stop and.i was to wait to be picked up by the truck behind us. I was heart broken when I was told this because after everything I had failed not far from the finish. I will be going down to smash I to smash it next time.

So the best advice I can give your son at 15, is to get as fit as possible before starting the application, this will make things easier on him when tests start flying his way. Also I would suggest he waits a few years 18 years old at the earliest, maturity is a bit thing he needs.to have a good head on him as this will certainly help him through.all the tough times during training. If he is truly set on it, then he should go for it it will help him to become a great person and open alot of doors in his life with everything the corps has to offer.

If you would like any other info just ask, im happy to help as I know now how my parents feel about it and I know you will go through the same as my parents.

You got bottle to admit that publicly galezomega. You now know what’s expected of you so you have an even better chance of succeeding next time.

This has undoubtedly been a set back for you but you seem to be responding in the desired manner for a Royal Marine. Keep your focus, train harder, train smarter and remember when you go back the DS will know it’s your second attempt so will expect to see that you have trained appropriately, BUT keep in mind, they LIKE to see people come back for the second try. It PROVES you have balls and desire for the green beret.

Remember…the sixth core value of a Commando is cheerfulness under adversity. You have the adversity, now lets see the cheerfulness and I look forward to hearing of your successful completion of PRMC in six months time.

(FWIW…I only allowed myself one attept at PRMC. Today, every time I see a Commando Flash, something deep inside me aches in a way I can’t describe. Don’t follow me down this path.)

I loved the endurance course. Ace fun.

Royal Marines or Ex Royal Marines

Well I like Royal Marines but on the other hand I also like ex-Royal Marines, but which is best. There’s only one way to find out…..

Fight

Actually on second thoughts maybe not a good idea.

More on rollmats:

The funny thing about that episode was, while the public reacted with horror, those of us that have had anything to do with Royal reacted along the lines of “yes, they’re Marines, they do stuff like that”.

Andy

Good luck to the lad. Preparation is key IMHO – not just the training to get in, but awareness that day-to-day Infanteering/camplife can be boring/humdrum. Be aware that an alternative is the Engineering element to the Army (RE/REME) allows doing the All-Arms Commando course (to suitable canditates) after getting into the chosen Corps – a bit less intense than the direct RM route. Just an option…

I passed the commando course in 2001 and have since left and set up my own fitness company so quite well placed to offer realistic advice. if you would like any advice for him then email me(address in profile) and I’ll be happy to help

KingKongsFinger my cousin was in them. He has replied below. Been waiting for his response as he is currently on his honeymoon! He says let me know if you want any more advice and he will email you direct. Hes a great lad, about 30 now. Hope it helps with your lad.

————————————————————————–

Difficult to answer this question without writing an epic!! But if i was going to give what I think are some decent tips for passing training, which is the hardest part of being a Marine; they would be:

1- No matter what happens, its all a big game…..just play along with it, no matter how bolloxed you are no one is going to die. Its training after all.
2- Be the grey man. Dont be the best at things, but at the same time don’t be the worst. Either of those positions gets you on someones radar and you’ll be in for some extra scrutiny. Save all you best work for when you pass out and go to a fighting unit, and get the praise it deserves rather than a beasting.
3- Keep reasonably fit but not too much. If you run 5 mile without the need for an oxygen tent at the end that will be enough as a base. Too many potential marines get excited about turning up on day one as a Mo Farah/Arnie cross breed!! They instructors will get you to this point. Turning up like this will only prolong the agony. The idea behind commando traing is not to see how splendidly fit you are , but to see how you perform when physically exhuasted!! The fitter you are the more times you will have to run up big hills in order for the instructors to see how you deal with pain and exhaustion.
4- When you reach the above point, and a they ask you for more they want to see a “will to go again” not an actual end product.Just attempt it even though you know you wont complete. The instructors are looking for this quality more than any other ( I was an instructor eventually, so I should know) Be more of a Roy Keane than a Ronaldo, for want of a better expression.

you should now see what I mean by it being a “big game!!!” and the advantages of being the “grey man”.( I was the biggest of grey men, when I finished my training I was still shit at push ups and pull ups but made sure i wasn’t the worst in the troop)

Hope this helps Nick, forward this to the lad in question. get him to mesasage me if he wants to go more in depth.

That is absolutely spot on advice above.
The only thing I’d re-stress is KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT. It should be like a test to say as little as you can get away with.
There is a reason that you have two ears and one mouth.

rumbledethumps has got it spot on but…..get him doing his washing, ironing & cleaning his room too!

& make sure he can handle the homesickness

Thanks very much indeed for all the new posts, some superb information All passed over to my lad, its all upto him now.

Many thanks again. 😀

Hi,

this is my 1st post on this site, so firstly hellotoyou all.

I’m trying to trace a Royal Marine commando who served with 42 in Borneo in 1963-64, does anyone know the best way of going about this

many thanks for any replies

Try the London Gazette.
http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/
Try the commando veterans association.
http://www.commandoveterans.org/site/
Try the royal marines association. http://www.royalmarinesassociation.org.uk/

Probably in reverse order.

Dance of the flaming arseholes – a true classic!

aye, an old singapore tradition in bugis Street, sadly all gone now !!

They send all the nutters to 45 commando!

Marines = thinking mans soldier
Paras = death or glory boys

Yep this is the wrong way round I’m afraid.

The Marines are really brave lads, and great people, BUT. I would steer him towards the army. He would be better off in the Paras than the Marines from my pov.

Got loads of mates in the army and my brothers going into the Army Air Corps very soon. Tell him the more grades/ levels i.e. gcses, a levels, nvq’s college courses etc. he goes in with, the more leverage he has to say “I would like to do this”, if you don’t have many grades/go in straight out of school, they put you where they want you, not the other way around.

They send all the nutters to 45 commando!

This is pretty much true. Marine training is pretty much none stop drill, PT and fighting each other. One of my mates dropped out of the Marines and transferred because he wasn’t being taught anything. If your lad just loves boxing running climbing swimming etc. then he’ll go far in the marines. If he wants a more rounded entry route to the armed forces – army all the way. You get so many more options and you aren’t stuck on a single path.

One of the exercises the Marines do a lot of for example – part of their so called ‘controlled aggression’ consists of recruits punching each other in the face as hard as possible until one falls over. You are not allowed to give up. You either keep punching or you fall over. They very rarely do this in the regular army because they seem to focus more on training them as tactical thinkers rather than focusing on making them hard as nails.

The above post is wrong , youve written that as if the army is the paras , if it were a choice of army or RM then army is better in SOME respects ie trades that can be utilized once out of the forces but if its a choice between paras and RM then gotta say marines every time

He would be better off in the Paras than the Marines

part of their so called ‘controlled aggression’ consists of recruits punching each other in the face as hard as possible….They very rarely do this in the regular army

😀

Please completely ignore what nuke proof has written. It’s utter bollocks.

You’ve put it so much more eloquently than I did 😉

One of the exercises the Marines do a lot of for example – part of their so called ‘controlled aggression’ consists of recruits punching each other in the face as hard as possible until one falls over. You are not allowed to give up. You either keep punching or you fall over. They very rarely do this in the regular army because they seem to focus more on training them as tactical thinkers rather than focusing on making them hard as nails.

I Lol’d a bit.

Good luck to the OP’s lad.

It’s utter bollocks.

Why so angry? Wasn’t intended to offend anyone. Sorry if it offended you, although I realise in hindsight it reads as anti Marines which It wasn’t intended to be lol – promise! I should have read through it before posting haha.

All I wanted to stress – most of which comes from my mates – one of whom went through Marine training, is that it’s not for everyone, and the OP’s son may well be better suited to the regular army who do things differently.

I did hear a story about a Marine self defence instructor who regularly taught his recruits how to rip their enemies ballsack from between their legs though, which may well come in useful at some point but I’d rather spend weeks on the shooting range lol

I was lucky enough to spend my last 6 months in the RN working with the SBS at RM Poole. Amazing bunch of blokes. Get your lad to aim high and do his utter best all the time. It will pay dividend in the end.

nukeproofriding – Member

Marines = thinking mans soldier
Paras = death or glory boys

Yep this is the wrong way round I’m afraid.

The Marines are really brave lads, and great people, BUT. I would steer him towards the army. He would be better off in the Paras than the Marines from my pov.

Got loads of mates in the army and my brothers going into the Army Air Corps very soon. Tell him the more grades/ levels i.e. gcses, a levels, nvq’s college courses etc. he goes in with, the more leverage he has to say “I would like to do this”, if you don’t have many grades/go in straight out of school, they put you where they want you, not the other way around.

They send all the nutters to 45 commando!

This is pretty much true. Marine training is pretty much none stop drill, PT and fighting each other. One of my mates dropped out of the Marines and transferred because he wasn’t being taught anything. If your lad just loves boxing running climbing swimming etc. then he’ll go far in the marines. If he wants a more rounded entry route to the armed forces – army all the way. You get so many more options and you aren’t stuck on a single path.

One of the exercises the Marines do a lot of for example – part of their so called ‘controlled aggression’ consists of recruits punching each other in the face as hard as possible until one falls over. You are not allowed to give up. You either keep punching or you fall over. They very rarely do this in the regular army because they seem to focus more on training them as tactical thinkers rather than focusing on making them hard as nails.

Mate, take this as gospel as i spent 12 years at 45, everything you wrote is pretty much the biggest load of bollocks i have ever read.
All second hand nonsence. My mate said this, my mate said this.
Milling is what you are calling the toe to toe boxing and it had been well and truly scrapped by 97 when i went through lympstone.
Oh and as to the non stop drill, PT and fighting each other. I generally find all these negative attributes are spoken by people who have a chip on their shoulder for whatever reason and it in no way resembles the truth. There is a very strong possibility that your “mate ;-)” really didnt have what it took to complete training so has some strong negative feeling towards the corps.

But it did give me a great big chuckle on my long nightshift 🙂

OP, good luck to your lad and his chosen career whichever way he wants go.

everything you wrote is pretty much the biggest load of bollocks i have ever read.

there is plenty more on other threads 😉

Why so angry?

I’m certainly not angry. I’m not going to dissect your post, I have nothing to gain by making you look silly.
mactheknife has covered it. If you’ve not personally been to Lympestone, Aldershot etc, I’m afraid you’re not qualified to comment.

nukeproofriding – Member

Marines = thinking mans soldier
Paras = death or glory boys

Yep this is the wrong way round I’m afraid.

The Marines are really brave lads, and great people, BUT. I would steer him towards the army. He would be better off in the Paras than the Marines from my pov.

IME you will also find that most, if not all, in the Army who are not Paras but have completed both P Company and the All Arms Commando Course are more proud of having got the dagger…

Not necessarily dave. IME, it’s whichever they got first. I reckon it forms their mentality and attachment to a particular mindset (Airbourne or commando). Some swap between units just to avoid going to hatland.