MetaChat - Aske Mecha: The Few. The Proud.

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15 August 2009

Aske Mecha: The Few. The Proud. →[More:] The Trusted. The Marines.

I swear, the slogan included the phrase, "The Trusted" just before "The Marines". Then at one point I noticed it was just, "The Few. The Proud. The Marines."

When did they stop being "The Trusted"? Why?

post by: Doohickie at: 11:05 | 16 comments

If it was ever in there it stopped before I first saw the slogan. That would have been 2001, because I had never been to the US before then.

posted by subbes 15 August | 13:31

Too many notes? I mean, syllables?

posted by Ardiril 15 August | 13:34

Heh, I thought this was going to be you announcing that one of your sons joined the Marines.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 15 August | 13:56

Googling for the phrase 'the few the proud the trusted' doesn't return a lot of results.

posted by box 15 August | 15:13

I am getting a fuzzy memory, Doohickie, of a rape case in the Phillipines at the time that ad was launched.

posted by Ardiril 15 August | 15:17

I can't ever remember them using "the trusted." *perplexed*

posted by moonshine 15 August | 15:18

I can't recall them ever using "the trusted" in the slogan.

posted by kellydamnit 15 August | 15:32

43-years old and I *never* heard "the trusted"

I plan to ask my Marine father-in-law though.

posted by terrapin 15 August | 16:03

terrapin... I'm just a few years older than you, but I swear that used to be part of the slogan. It's been gone for a long time. In fact it may have only been used for a year or two. I would say I associate it with my teens (I was born in '62).

I went to the the Marine Corps site sand typed in The Trusted and searched there and found nothing.

And Pink.... if either of my sons joined the armed services, I would bet on Air Force. Maybe Navy.

posted by Doohickie 15 August | 16:12

My Dad is a Marine (retired after 20 years in 1995) and he had never heard "the trusted".

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 15 August | 17:43

My father-in-law was in the Marines in the 60s and 70s, so he'll know.

posted by terrapin 15 August | 18:02

I don't recall hearing it either (almost the same age as terrapin).

posted by deborah 15 August | 18:28

I can find no evidence of it in Google Books or Google News Archive.

That's not to say it wasn't, say, a locally or idiomatically used slogan.

Here's a list of historically used slogans, including "A Few Good Men", the origin of the first part. A few more here and here. I feel that if "The Trusted" had ever been an official Marines slogan it would pop up amongst the rank and file here and there but it doesn't.

Sadly, one of them, "Once a Marine -- always a Marine!" is ingrained into my pysche as the drunken yell of a fella who used to sit on the back porch across the block all afternoon, killing his liver.

posted by dhartung 15 August | 18:58

Here is the exact reply I got from my Marine father-in-law

"Trust Me the trusted was never part of it. Never since I have been a Marine since 29 December 1958 :)"

posted by terrapin 15 August | 20:00

So... I guess it was either a local ad campaign or I was hallucinating.

Thanks for the info all!

posted by Doohickie 15 August | 21:04

I don't think you're imagining it, Doohickie. I seem to recall there being a commercial with a Marine doing all kinds of Mariney things, then hugging his little girl at the end when they got to "the trusted."

posted by jrossi4r 15 August | 22:29

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