By Blake Stilwell
In the grand tradition of bored Marines finding amazing ways of killing time, another one of Uncle Sam’s misguided children has topped any floor-waxer video ever produced by Marines anywhere in the world.
Redditor u/thatonefratboy uploaded a photo to the subreddit r/USMC on Oct. 1, 2021, that featured a young Marine sporting cowboy boots and silkies sitting on a barracks room bed with a full-grown cougar, the second-largest cat in North America.
The caption reads: “Never forget when we got a mountain lion in the barracks.” And nothing else.
As if anyone would forget the time they got a mountain lion into their barracks building, with the exception of whoever was working Charge of Quarters that night. That’s one CQ who is extremely unlikely to have put the cougar into the logbook. As many of the Reddit users note in the comments section, “If it’s not written in the logbook it never happened.”
Coffee or Die’s Eric Miller notes that there’s no way of determining whether the photo is real. There’s also no way of knowing if the cougar was real, or if anything is real at this point. Although, one commenter said it was a snapchat photo uploaded by someone in the 2nd Battalion, 6th Marines at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
Some commenters who appeared to have knowledge of the art of taxidermy noted that the cougar’s ears appeared to be sewn back, indicating that although it was once alive, it’s now a stuffed cougar.
Insert “stuffed cougar in the barracks” joke here.
The commenters also began sharing videos of other U.S. military engagements with wildlife, from Air Force Security Forces taking on a rat to soldiers clearing an armored vehicle of its raccoon insurgents. Others shared stories of herding geese or coyotes to screw around with their friends on firewatch.
Real or not, let this be a lesson: Never leave Marines unattended in the barracks. Or anywhere else.
