General Information about Item:
Language – English
Country of origin – America
Informant Data:
Cory Green is a 26 year-old male from St. Albans, Vermont. He is now located in Boston and is attending Northeastern University. He joined the Navy in July of 2008 out of high school to be a hospital Corpsman. He did boot camp in Great Lakes, Illinois. From 2009-2011, he was stationed in Yokosuka, Japan where he worked in the ER and ICU doing basic hospital medicine. In 2011, he transferred to first Marine division to be an infantry corpsman where he specialized in combat medicine and combat trauma. Finally, in 2013 he transferred to Portsmouth, New Hampshire where he worked in family practice and eventually, got out of the military.
He joined the Navy because he was 3-sport athlete in high school, and his grades weren’t the best. He also didn’t feel mature enough for college. His dad suggested the Navy as the best option for him. Cory is 6th generation Navy. He felt that corpsman had the best opportunities for real-life experience and jobs outside of the Navy.
Contextual Data:
When navy personnal got promoted to a certain rank they had to make a show of it. For certain ranks, in order to show that they deserved the promotion they allowed everyone above them in rank to punch in their chevrons wihtout the backing into their chest. This occured over the course of 24 hours.
Item:
Pinning
Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):
Transcript of Associated File:
When you picked up rank you had to walk around with the frogs pinned behind your chevrons with no frog for 24 hours and anyone that was an e4 or above could tac it in on you and you would bleed a little bit but nothing too crazy.
Informant’s Comments:
Informant seemed to be a big fan of this tradition. He believed that this showed the promoted person was worth their new rank and was a way for them to stay humble even with the promotion.
Collector’s Comments:
A rite of passage for when you gain a promotion. Similar to many military traditions, it includes a physical aspect as well as shows pain tolerance.
Collector’s Name: Cole Cable & Jonathon Kong
Tags/Keywords: Pinning / E-4 / Picking up Rank / Promotion / Navy / Marines / Military