Book report: Gunny's Rules. How to get squared away like a Marine

I picked up a copy on Amazon and read it when I got home.

It's a pretty good read and he does a pretty good job of telling the reader how he became a big shot movie star.

Anyone that knows the Gunny can rest assured his values came from his service in the Marine Corps but the truth is you don't have to be a Marine to be successful. 

He explains that he got where he is not just by being in the right place at the right time, but by having done his homework and having answers when he got there. There was a lot more to it than just being able to prove to Stanley Kubrick that he would have made a better Gunnery Sergeant Hartman than the originally planned actor.

He pointed out on the way to stardom he was always finding employment as he went along and sometimes simply opened his own business. He once opened a bar in Okinawa with only a case of beer and four or five bottles of booze. As customers bought drinks he's take the money and have his employee run down the street and buy more. After a few days of business from the Marines at the nearby base he managed to get ahead enough to stay in business.

Interesting way of opening a bar on a shoestring.

When he heard they were starting to make movies about Vietnam in the Philippines he sold the bar and left. Finding himself there too early to be of any use to the movie industry he simply bought a 40 foot boat and went into the fishing business to stay employed.

Truth is, Gunny kept his eye on the buck and would have been successful even if he hadn't gone into the movie business. His work ethic would have not permitted failure.

He points out that things are there for the taking if you are willing to go the whole mile to earn them.

There's a lot of pretty good advice in this book and it's well worth the read. He's a little salty here and there but that's to be expected form the Gunny. He's not a politically correct character to begin with.

He has no use for the welfare types, which is to be expected.

He comes to a pretty good point when he suggests that young people look to spending a hitch in the military if they are at all adrift because he feels that it's a good place to settle down a bit and learn things about life and pick up a work ethic.

There's a lot of good tips and pointers in it.

All in all it's a pretty good read and I think it's worth the time to sit down and enjoy and a pretty down to earth book.




To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY