I see all kinds of Marine swag and I like so much of it. But I haven’t seen anything created specifically for female Marines so I spent my morning making a few designs.

The cup in this photo shows where the female Marine sisterhood starts. Right on the infamous yellow footsteps at MCRD.

True story: I NEVER GOT TO STAND ON THE FOOTPRINTS! I feel kind of robbed. The six other girls, and myself, who arrived at PISC early in October of 1978, arrived six days early. The story of my life. I’m so terrified to be late that I was even early, WAY early, to bootcamp. LOL!

During that week we got ahead of our platoon mates by getting some of our uniform gear, sewing nametags into our gear, and learning how to march. We were put up, two to a room, in the permanent personnel barracks. I’ll never forget the night before the rest of our platoon arrived and they moved us into the huge, EMPTY squadbay. I’m not sure how much I slept that night. It was just so eerie.

All that said, someone left me a pin with the yellow footprints on my obviously USMC veteran car and I have loved the idea every since. So that was the first cup I created.

Then I decided that we need a red cup. So I designed this one.

On the other side it says, “FEWER PROUDER” because I believe that’s true and I love the saying.

I love how this cup is accented in red but super easy to read the black printing on the front.

Being a female Marine is interesting. Kind of like being a unicorn, there are so few of us. I had a guy at the gas station just stare and stare at me. “I was in the Corps for four years and I never saw a lady Marine”, he said. I know four others in our area and I’m sure there are a couple more that I haven’t met but we are far fewer than our Air Force sisters.

Finally, I did just a simple black and white mug stating, “Lady Leatherneck“. On some of my social media platforms, I go by the moniker Lady Jarhead. I feel like Lady Leatherneck is a nicer, fancier term so I chose that.

So, that’s what I did this morning and I’ll be excited to have swag denoting that not only am I a Marine but I’m a unicorn. I mean, a female Marine! 🙂