u/IsaacB1

Mama warned us not to do that with our faces or they'd get stuck that way

Most Veterans Are Drinking Less. Those Ages 35-49 Are an Exception

So I want to preface this by saying I didn't steal anything, I salvaged it. There's a difference, and that difference is currently living a second life in an undisclosed location.

During ITX I was working a shift at the BAS, hot enough that I genuinely considered treating myself for heat casualty and having a good time with a silver bullet by myself, and there's just a plate carrier on the deck. No name on it, nothing. In my head there's only two options: either it's dead stock nobody wants, or some Marine walked off without it. Either way, in the field, unmarked gear operates under maritime law. Salvage rights. Look it up. Actually don't, I made that up, but it sounded right in the moment and that's really all the legal reasoning a I need.

I grabbed it, swapped my janky ceramic plates for the ones inside, because mine had cracked during an incident involving a rectal insertion procedure, duct tape, and engineer tape being used as a restraint, plus a questionable decision to use the tailgate as a bench in the middle of all that, a story I've had to keep consistent for three different people now. I'm not litigating that today either. Or ever, ideally.

Fast forward two days and I'm hearing through the grapevine that some Marine is calling around the BAS asking if anyone's seen his plate carrier, sounding increasingly like a man who just realized his rent check bounced. I did feel a little bad. But also, bro, if you're gonna leave your gear sitting out with zero identifying marks on it like you're daring the universe to teach you a lesson, you kind of forfeited your claim the second you walked away. That's not theft bro, that's Darwinism with a NSN number.

So now I'm sitting here wondering: do I say something, or do I just ride this out until the exercise wraps and quietly swap my old cracked plates back in, and let this become the ITX equivalent of a ghost story Marines tell each other?

https://www.reddit.com/r/USMC/s/bweMHCRRCE

There's a joke in there somewhere but I'm too stupid to think of anything that isn't an old and tired crayon eating trope.