I deleted it because of the email you sent regarding your deletion of my other post. But reading what you just wrote, it sounds like you won't have a problem with me posting it, so here it goes:
quote:
THE HISTORY OF MARINES ON THE INTERNET
In the beginning Marines got together in smokey rooms, huddled around beers and reminisced about wars fought, women ****ed and future endeavors. The participants of these meetings were limited to the geographical location of the meeting hall. It all changed when Al Gore created the Internet coupled with the creation of AOL.
Bulletin board services sprung up all over the country. Familiar phrases such as “When did you serve?” and “What outfit were you with?” were being typed as soon as someone recognized the all too familiar sign of Marine jargon on the computer screen. What was missing was a central meeting place for all Marines.
Enter Wally and the M&M boys. Using their computer know how and the now wide open Internet they created The Few, The Tun Tavern on the Net. Word got around and Marines from all over the world gathered in this virtual bar to talk about things that only Marines could understand. Life was good.
Years went by, online friendships were formed, old buddies were found and new buddies were made. More was learned about a Marine in his first few months on The Few then most of his buddies knew about him during his whole enlistment. Grunts mingled with pogues. Wingers mingled with Drill Instructors. Female Marines mingled with male Marines and no one woke up with underwear on their head and a paternity suit under their pillow. Life was good.
Things changed. Multi-billion dollar corporations felt left out. There was money to be made off of these Marines. Enter monster.com, the worldwide leader in on-line resumes and employment opportunities. An offer was made to the M&M boys that they couldn’t refuse. Merge with monster.com and allow them to advertise your site within the framework of theirs. This would allow even more Marines the opportunity to meet and greet with their brothers and sisters. What a great idea. The deal was signed.
Some members of The Few felt betrayed. They saw the signs on the wall. The wanted nothing to do with the newly formed subsidiary of monster.com, now known as Military.Com, so they went searching for a new place to park their screen name. These members heard about an upstart website called Leatherneck.com. It was being run by a prior Marine, a Marine Corps Community for USMC veterans. These internet nomads felt at home on Leatherneck. The camaraderie between the members of Leatherneck rivaled that of The Few. Life was good.
As time progressed, a new entity was introduced to the internet. They had existed in life since the dawn of time, but had avoided the untamed digital wild west until now. They would become known as “The butt hurt crowd”. These people would go out of their way to voice displeasure anytime something bad was said about someone else, things didn’t go their way or if someone said something about “their beloved Marine Corps” that they felt wasn’t true. The bickering, lying, and backstabbing resulted in the owner of Leathereck.com doing things that ended up driving away his initial member base. Many stayed behind, but those with convictions packed up and began wandering the internet once again.
Old friends from The Few reached out to these Marines. They invited them to Military.Com, the old Few, now standing proud on its own two feet. They were told that all of their old friends were there. Life was great. Good people were in charge. The homeless Marines accepted the invitation and logged on.
Marine Online Discussion Forum aka MODF. The busiest forum on Miltary.com. They envy of all the services. The least amount of members but the largest amount of posts. Wannabes and posers getting murdered for intruding into those hallowed halls. The internet version of Animal House. Marines being Marines. But then it began to change.
There is a saying that “Nothing lasts forever”. In the case of the MODF, this saying rang true. Over the course of a few years, different moderators were put in place. The M&M boys stepped down to create another albeit unsuccessful forum; Marines Direct. Old friends stopped by to visit but the forum was but a shell of The Few. When the M&M boys merged with Monster.Com, they lost the rights to the famous Marine Locator, the heart and soul of The Few. The user created database that included the names, service dates and units of all Marines that input their information.
The new moderators of the MODF were split into two groups: folks that held allegiance to their members and those that held allegiance to their “employers”. As anyone that has ever worked in big business before knows, the ones that sucked up to their “employers” won out. The moderators that folks respected stepped down. A new storm was brewing on the internet horizon, but some saw it for what it really was: the re- emergence of the “butt hurt crowd”. This time, the “butt hurt” crowd was led by an insider. A civilian forum administrator who somehow hoodwinked his way into one of the leadership positions of Military.com. He arrived on the scene swinging a heavy stick, brushed off the advice of the faithful Marines and caused havoc amongst the forums. The Marines decided that they didn’t want to belong to a place that allowed civilians to run freely and at the same time have their own views censored. They followed their friends, some who were banned, to a well known, but rarely used forum known as The Squad Bay.
The Squadbay was created by one of the original members of The Few as a way to learn how to run an internet forum as well as to have a place where Marines would never be censored. Marines would visit from time to time, but the majority of them were too busy causing havoc on Military.com. When the tide swung in favor of the civilians of Military.com, a mass exodus found the Marines setting up camp at The Squadbay. The few members of the Squadbay that never found a home at Military.com were saddened. Their little, seldom used, quiet forum was now being over run by hundreds of Marines. Someone once said that when the Military.com refugees swarmed the Squadbay that they “turned it from Mayberry into Las Vegas overnight”.
The Squadbay became the most popular Marine discussion forum on the web. Civilians and wannabes weren’t allowed access. Nude photos weren’t frowned upon, they were encouraged. The Squadbay grew by leaps and bounds. Word got around to other Marines stuck in far reaches of the world: “Come to the Squadbay…… a place for Marines and Corpsman”. Life was good.
A few years passed. During that time the Squadbay had grown so big that the owner had a hard time keeping up with the demands of its users. Servers were crashing. Admins and moderators alike were trying their hardest to placate the masses every time the Squadbay crashed. No one cared though. They were just happy that they could say what they wanted when they wanted without fear of getting the boot by some overzealous moderator. Things changed.
The core group of deviants and troublemakers aka the **** Bird Platoon was having too much fun on the Squadbay. Moderators were on the prowl, looking for a way to get them to calm down or at least conform to the site rules. The owner and a few of the moderators had an idea. What if they invited one of the deviants to become a member of the moderator staff? He could control “his kind”. In theory this would be a great idea. Little did the moderators know that this trouble maker would never sell out his buddies. He would fight the other moderators tooth and nail until THEY conformed. Eventually he and a few other like minded moderators won. The **** Bird Platoon would never be talked down to. They would never fear for their Squadbay existence again. They had on of their own on the inside.
We fast forward a year and the Marines’ arch enemy, the “Butt hurt crowd”, held a meeting. They were sick and tired of the **** Bird Platoon. They had had enough. They would complain so loud and so often that the owner of the Squadbay would be forced to listen. They demanded respect. They demanded quiet. They demanded that the troublemakers follow the original rules. The **** Bird Platoon fought a valiant battle but in the end the “butt hurt crowd” won. They convinced the owner of the Squadbay , who was so sick of the battles that he was on the verge of closing down the forum, to hand over the day to day operations of the site to a moderator that had quit on him in the past. This new Forum Administrator aka The Sheriff, introduced himself to the members with the internet version of a nuclear bomb. It would end up being known simply by two words: “The Warning”. The Sheriff told the loyal members of the Squadbay that he was now in charge, all previous moderators had been fired and that they should stand by for sweeping changes. The members scrambled. “What does he mean there are going to be changes?” was asked by all. They were told to “just wait and see”. The “butt hurt crowd” jumped for joy. No more being made fun of by the **** Bird Platoon. They now had their very own Joan of Arc. A former Marine, who by the very nature of his sexual preference (homosexual) was so used to being ostracized, that he was going to stick up for them. The wronged standing up for the wronged. Internet justice at its finest.
During the long days of waiting for The Sheriff to implement his new changes, two members of the Squadbay began talking about creating a new forum. Ideas were thrown around and within a 24 hour period a new forum was created. Members of the Squadbay were all sent private messages telling them about this new site. They came in droves. This new site, The Eagle, Globe and Anchor would be the antithesis of all things wrong with the Internet. Moderators were appointed but they were rarely used. “The Marines will police themselves” was the phrase that paid. Even the original owner of the Squadbay joined The Eagle, Globe and Anchor. He told everyone that he was happy that he had a place to visit where he “could just be himself”. He was welcomed with open arms.
As The Eagle, Globe and Anchor grew, the Squadbay began to die. What was once the most thriving Marine forum on the internet soon found itself returning to its Mayberry roots. People were always asking “Why is it so dead in here?” Everyone knew the answer but many were scared to admit it. They drove away the people that gave life to their forum and now they were gone. The Sheriff and his underling, another homosexual former Marine, formed a group of loyalists who stayed behind and began firming up plans on how to return the Squadbay to its once glorious status. Decisions were made and were being implemented. Word got back to the members of The Eagle, Globe and Anchor that the Squadbay’s owner was having problems with his service provider and that he would be shutting down hit site until he was able to regroup under another provider.
The Eagle, Globe and Anchor, filled with its troublemakers, internet outcasts and otherwise great people plugged along. The Squadbay was in a state of repair. Life was moving on. One day, the evil underling of the Sheriff, along with his pet dog, started making announcements on the Eagle, Globe and Anchor informing people that the Squadbay was back online. They were now a non profit group looking to profit off of Marines, for the sake of internet decency. They had made peace with their arch enemies on Military.com and were welcoming them with open arms. The Marines on the Eagle, Globe and Anchor, while making posts mocking the mere existence of the Squadbay, didn’t care. They were content with their new home and were happy with their little piece of the internet.
To be continued with time……….
