VMFP-3 80s Flashback

Home / The Good, The Bad, The Sucky

The Good
By Marc "Devil Dog Of The Web" Iseli / Updated Dec. 2025
Looking back, I’m still glad I ignored the peanut gallery in 1979 and signed up for the Marine Corps. My master plan was simple: see as much of the world as possible and rack up stories you just don’t get as a civilian. Being a plane captain on the RF-4B Phantom with VMFP-3 delivered in spades, plenty of travel, plenty of chaos, and enough memories to keep me entertained in the old folks’ home. I got to serve with a bunch of knuckleheads like myself from every corner of the country. Sure, we played hard, but when it was time to get the job done, we went full throttle. So, thanks to all the knuckle-draggers who made it worth it and managed to make the Corps look good, at least most of the time, anyway. Semper Gumby!

The Bad
If there was one thing that really ground my gears, it was getting yanked out of the squadron for base duties, Guard Duty, Mess Duty, you know, all the glamorous gigs. I lived for being a plane captain, and once I got that shiny certification, I was all about keeping the RF-4B running like a champ. Getting pulled for base details felt like being benched for no good reason. Took me way too long to figure out that the NCOICs were just filling quotas when the base needed warm bodies, which was all the time. Fast forward forty years, and I finally dig up my service records and, surprise, we’d all signed up for this nonsense if only I had read the hundreds of forms they made us sign. Turns out, getting voluntold for the suck duties was in the fine print all this time.

The Sucky
And here’s what finally pushed me over the edge and out the door. I was supposed to pick up Sgt. Stripes a few months before my EAS, but every time I bugged my NCOIC, he gave me the old 'not yet' routine. So instead of strutting around as a newly minted Sergeant, I got blessed with mess duty, again, as a Corporal. That really chapped my hide. Then it was off to WTI in Yuma for some top gun shenanigans, still rocking the Cpl. chevrons. The sergeant in charge decided all plane captains would play musical chairs with the F-4s and RF-4B squadrons. One day, he tells me to ride brakes while he tows our RF-4B, and next thing you know, he runs a main tire off the tarmac. The bird sinks, the airfield shuts down, and we need a crane to fish it out. Cue the drug test and a whole lot of finger-pointing. Back at El Toro, Gunny Furr was ready to chew my a new asshole, but I was just following orders. That whole circus made me take my EAS real seriously. When I got out and told my old man, he went full dad mode and wrote our state rep. Next thing I know, I get a letter from the navy brass saying I should’ve been promoted months before, during mess duty, and that I'd get back pay. All that BS was totally avoidable. They don’t call it the suck for nothing.

Alright, you glorious Rat Phixers and Phlyers, if we ever survived a TAD, a Det, or a BOHICA, who haven't, and you didn’t think I was the biggest gaff off in the squadron. Got a sea story, or some grainy photos your ex didn’t set on fire, and they’re only slightly illegal? Send ‘em by email, snail mail, or safety wire it to a carrier pigeon. I collect ‘em all, just nothing that would incriminate me.
80svmfp3@gmail.com

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