Third Battalion

Title: Third Battalion

Informant info: Michael Rodriguez. Informant attends Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH as a United States Army Veteran. Informant enlisted in the Army in 2003 and was a member of the 1st Battalion 8th Marines Bravo Company, which is an infantry military unit. He was stationed out of camp Lejeune North Carolina. Informant served in Iraq from June 2004 to December 2004. He was awarded a Purple Heart. He was from a military family, as well. Informant is 31 years old.

Type of lore: Verbal Folklore, Myth, Song

Language: English

Country of Origin: USA

Social / Cultural Context: Informant was interviewed at Dartmouth College. Informant was asked about certain superstitions or rituals that they had experienced during their time in the military. The informant described a myth that the third battalion group being tougher than the other battalions, even though there was no difference between the battalions.

Associated file:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByAeKMYqcV3uc1FlcG9SYWY5dHVtMkdtWDBfLTV3TFh6Y2hV/view?usp=sharing

Transcript:

[I have recorded the item exactly how it was told to me in the interview]: “I was in the second battalion. There’s three battalions, like thats how they would separate all of these people that were coming in. Like, ‘hey you’re in the second battalion’ and then the next group that’ll come in… they sort of rotate between these battalions and the companies between them. There’s always this sort of idea that the third training battalion was a harder group of marines, if you came out of third battalion boot camp. But it’s really just a load of crap. They think they’re harder because they’re sort of in a different section of Parris Island, an older section. Where there’s more woods and stuff and i think thats it. But they think ‘well we’re kinda out in the woods by like 400 meters’… you know what I mean. It’s not like they’re out in the middle of nowhere. There’s just more trees.”

Informant’s comments: He did not believe in this tradition at all, but he believed that the soldiers in the third battalion strongly believed it.

Collector’s comments: Interesting how offended the informant seemed to be by the thought that their battalion was thought to be better than his for no good reason. Especially since he thought that boot camp was pretty easy for himself.

Tags/Keywords: Third Battalion, Military, Myth

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