QUANTICO, VA— With the refrain, “From our board rooms to the sea, Force Design makes us seethe!” echoing across the Potomac, Marine Corps University (MCU) joined the ranks of institutions of higher learning occupied by raucous protestors. But while Columbia University activists chant in solidarity with puckish hostage-taking and mild rape, MCU’s dissidents are raising their voices against the institution they once led.
“Force Design has wrecked the Marine Corps and we’ve said so for years!” shouted retired Gen. Charles Krulak from a drum circle. “But no one reads our blog, so we mustered our supporters and came here where we can’t be ignored!” Krulak claimed his fellow protestors numbered almost one hundred, though quietly admitted all but six were actually limo drivers and security details.
The “we” Gen. Krulak referred to is the Chowder II Society, a group of retired Marine Corps generals who really hate Force Design 2030 and the fact that Marines don’t know who they are anymore. Lt. Gen. Paul K. Van Riper—who, though a 3-star, was brought into Chowder to meet their diversity, equity, and inclusion requirements—summed up the group’s efforts to solve both problems.
“Retirement’s hard. You can only drink so many free Diet Cokes in the executive waiting area before you’re just going to the bathroom every ten seconds and wondering what it was all for. So we came here to apply a little old-fashioned fieldcraft in erecting this Special Purpose Autonomous Zone to make our voices heard. The SPAZ has all kinds of activities—look, James Amos is starting the tour of the human dung pile we built to fertilize our victory garden and finger-paint op-ed drafts on our shelter-half walls.”
The SPAZ appeared a few weeks ago when dawn revealed a half-dozen shelter halves, covered and aligned, pitched next to the Gray Research Center. Puzzled base police officers initially thought the camp was a historical reenactment, though the line of Mercedes S600s parked next to the tents indicated something else was afoot. One policeman asked James Conway—holding an “Ask Me, I’ll Tell” placard—to move Chowder II’s vehicles from the University’s reserved spaces. When Conway denied the cars were theirs, the officer placidly noted that the Bell Helicopter parking permits and Lockheed Martin bumper stickers were a giveaway. “Fine,” growled Conway. “Go find that boot John Schmitt and tell him I said to maneuver this trash somewhere else.”
Van Riper claimed the generals simply wanted an honest debate about Force Design. “But Force Design proponents won’t engage with us and we don’t know why. All we said was they ruined America’s national security, destroyed the Corps’ ethos, are crippled with dementia, and deceived Congress—perfectly unemotional starting points for discussion, right? I even founded Marine Corps University but I’m not invited to speak here anymore for reasons I can’t fathom and which are completely unrelated to me smashing the ‘like’ button on anonymous comments on our website calling Force Design supporters cockroaches and targeting MCU’s female president with playful misogyny.”
MCU student Major Zachary Reese said of the protests, “I was heading to my totally woke comparative seminar on Murderology and Murderonomy. Suddenly this guy with a Zinni nametape wearing old NATO cammies barrels over, shouting he’s got free little white doctrine books and would we like to hear more about our Lord and Savior ‘Service Componency?’ Then he invited us to his shelter half for an interpretative dance party where we could jive to the Marine Corps Shuffle and the OODA Loop. I was like, bro, this is the worst MCCS Family Day ever.”
EWS student Captain Brasidas Hord was walking to Q-town for a haircut when he was confronted by SPAZ occupiers. “I made a good-faith effort to listen but it turns out they’re just a bunch of old dudes who haven’t done the reading and tell me I’m wrong based on what they did 40 years ago. It’s basically indistinguishable from any of my other classes here.”
Asked whether a half-dozen octogenarians could alter the Marine Corps’ future trajectory, Gen. Krulak was adamant. “Absolutely, and don’t be fooled by our numbers. It only looks like we’re six bored geezers. Our anonymous membership is huge and includes every single Marine general officer still living, seriously, we pinky-swear. And they would absolutely leave their lucrative defense industry sinecures to join us here—unfortunately, they had calendar conflicts because they’re all on vacation with their hot girlfriends who live in Canada.”
At press time the retirees were brain-storming ways to boost awareness of their campaign. Van Riper suggested a page from the Columbia playbook by running a light-hearted rape limerick contest on the Chowder II website. If that didn’t work, Krulak said, they could always build a sand table.
G-Had and Brasidas contributed to this story.
Kay Too Ess Ohhhhh finds your excuses vague and unconvincing.
