He said 'because the first four were girls'. He asked if I had any other children and I said I had another daughter to which he responded to by slamming his fists down on the table and yelling out 'do you mean to tell me that a Marine Officer is a quitter?' He then said 'sir, do you know why I have five children?' I said no Gunny. He noticed my Marine Corps polo and we talked about our service. When we finally got to see him, he signed my daughters FMJ DVD and remarked that 'she had some fine, athletic looking legs' which got the whole store howling. He always spent a little extra time with military serviceman and first responders. At one point he talked to the store owners and announced that they stay open as long as there were people there to seem him. He'd sign anything you'd put in front of him, he shook everyone's hand, he took pictures with guys holding jelly donuts while he chocked them etc.

The wait was so long because he took the time to get to know a little something about everyone who came to see him. I can't put into words just how genuine a guy he was. My youngest daughter, my son in-law (former Marine aviation ordinance-man) and myself waited in line three hours to see him but it was well worth the wait. He was a Glock celebrity spokesman who was in town for the store's 70th anniversary. Check it out at We Are the Mighty.I was fortunate enough to meet the Gunny a few years ago at at a local gun store. It's military life presented like never before. We Are The Mighty (WATM) celebrates service with stories that inspire. Emil FoleyĪ Green Beret was the inspiration for Col. Lee Ermeyĥ lessons we can all learn from Marine Gunnery Sgt. He wanted to join the Navy because his father was in the Navy, but they rejected him on the grounds that he was a troublemaker.ħ ooh-rah tips from the career of R.

“Basically a silver-haired judge, a kindly old judge, looked down at me and said ‘this is the second time I’ve seen you up here and it looks like we’re going to have to do something about this,'” Ermey told a gathering in 2010. And he didn’t even know about the Marine Corps the day he decided to join. He admits to being a bit of a hell-raiser. In the old days, joining the military was an option for at-risk youth and juvenile delinquents to avoid real jail time. He originally joined the Corps to stay out of jail – and almost went Navy. It was the first and only time the Corps has promoted a retiree. Jones promoted Ermey to E-7, Gunnery Sergeant, the rank he became so well-known for. But it was in 2002, that Marine Corps Commandant James L. He was medically retired for the injuries he received during his service. He rose to the rank of Staff Sergeant after spending 14 months in Vietnam and doing two tours in Okinawa. Ermey is the only Marine to be promoted after retiring. Kubrick never gave him input on what a drill instructor might say. Interestingly enough, Ermey wrote the insults he hurled at the Marines in the film. He taped the interviews he did as Hartman and Kubrick cast him after seeing those tapes. He got the job as technical advisor because of his other roles in Vietnam movies. They already hired another actor for the part but Ermey had a plan to get the part. Hartman while interviewing extras for the film. He wasn’t supposed to be in “Full Metal Jacket.”Įrmey was doing his job as technical advisor, reading the part of Sgt. Coppola also hired him as the film’s technical advisor for all things military.

R lee ermey daughter