Just look at these Filipino marines

Photo: Romeo Ranoco / Reuters

Evidently these are new recruits. I wonder how well the experienced ones can balance a banana.

Jason Weisberger is Boing Boing's publisher. He often does what he ought, instead of what he should. On instagram and twitter he is @jlw

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Preston Sturges

“Don’t eat with your hands, boy, use your entrenching tool.”
- jackbird
  
  “Isn’t that bridge built yet?”
http://www.gyrofrog.com/ Gyrofrog

Speaking of military bananas, y’all are smart, I bet you can help me with this. When I was a kid, someone told me about a movie where a POW had to flush a banana down a toiley=t. If it didn’t flush down he’d have to eat it (but it did). Similarly, a POW was forced to walk with an olive clenched ‘twixt his buttocks. If he didn’t drop the olive, he would not have to eat it. Sound familiar? To this day I don’t know if the other kid was joking or this was a real movie.
- Preston Sturges
  
  Those sound like an older brothers tales of fraternity hazing stunts rather than a movie.
  - jackbird
    
    That sounds like a fraternity keeping a plumber in business.
chellberty

“Just look at them.”
- daneyul
  
  Should have been in the post itself!
  
  C-C-C-C-Combo Breaker!
oldtaku

To graduate boot camp you must be able to eat your entire meal with the banana on your head – vertical.
- MB44
  
  DADT
timquinn

That is a ridiculous level of discipline.
- Wreckrob8
  
  It is a harmless way of instilling one particular form of discipline. The military have to strike the right balance between blind obedience and the application of individual skills. Both are necessary for the efficient functioning of a unit.
- chgoliz
  
  Actually, much easier than balancing a book while walking….both because of the shape and because of the relative stickiness of the peel.
  
  I’ll bet it helps teach the idea that just because you’re eating (etc.), you shouldn’t stop paying attention to things around you.
- niktemadur
  
  Just you wait until they take it to the next level – balancing a banana while eating durian. Then they’ll cull the weak from the strong.
  - chgoliz
    
    Sign me up! (I love durian….and bananas too.)
http://redesigned.com redesigned

someone really should tell them they all have bananas on their heads. they look ridiculous.
http://www.facebook.com/francis.estanislao Francis Estanislao

a very stupid idea for discipline.
https://www.facebook.com/rgovrebo B. Peasant

I bet they do that thing with only moving the knife and fork in straight lines and right angles – Filipino ships’ officers in training did in a reportage I saw on TV once.
- cservant
  
  Makes me wonder if it would help to eat not your own plate, but the one across from you whereas the person across would do the same.
  
  Or maybe that makes it worst.
peregrinus

Very neatly Spaced Marines.
http://www.facebook.com/markus.schafer.77770 Markus Schäfer

They’re probably going to fight Jiralhanae. I heard their real weakness is bananas.
niro5

I was thinking, “Wow, those Marines sure do have some feminine features”

Sure enough: “Newly-recruited female marines”
- Preston Sturges
  
  I know, at first I was thinking “Dude you really need to start dating again because the one on the left has good cheekbones and nice hands.”
  
  Anyway I pointed it out and the moderator promptly deleted my comment.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    For using transphobic language.
    - Preston Sturges
      
      …
DJBudSonic

Looks like a fun way to promote good posture, I am going to try this at our family dinner tonight.
IndexMe

I am reading a pretty cool series right now, the 3-trilogy Galactic Marines series by Ian Douglas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Keith,_Jr.
I’m half-way through and it’s great! When I was little I was freaked by real life marines I saw somewhere who looked so huge and kick-ass. Reading this, even though it is fiction, there’s a lot of lore and it has gotten me interested in them. Not in joining up though, evidently you need to be both smart and have dino-moxie to be a marine! I respect them.
http://twitter.com/sirkowski Sirkowski

You won’t be laughing when the banana jihad strikes.
Velocirapt42

It’s charm school. Perfect posture!