Little story of the power of the Interwebz

OTC Mike · February 10, 2014

So, I had a pretty awesome experience with the good ol' interweb this weekend, in spite of a pretty terrible reason, that I thought I might share.

Now, first thing I need to say that I really don't use internet for anything other than gaming, this forum and browsing YouTube and Facebook. I know some of you are members of other forums (gaming or otherwise) and have heard of some great experiences, but never really cared to use the internet in any other way than I currently due. So with that said, here goes.

On Saturday morning my wife's grandfather passed away. He was 91, had dementia and was in poor health due to being 91 and having dementia, so his passing was no real surprise, and is looked upon as a good thing in our family, as the last few months have been hard on him. He's also a WWII Marine Vet. And as some of you know I'm also a Marine Vet, so while shoveling my driveway Saturday afternoon I thought I would pay my respects the only way I knew I could, and that was by wearing my Dress Blue uniform to his funeral. The only problem is that I don't own one anymore.

So, I needed some and I needed some fast. Getting a full set of dress blues sized correctly with all medals and ribbons mounted in 3 days is about as easy as your wife getting ready to go out to dinner in 3 minutes. I did some google searching for some local military surplus stores, but nobody had what I needed. Feeling pretty bad, I tried one more search...And found a full set, brand new, with all the works (blues have tons of buttons, belt and accessories) on eBay. But their shipping policy wouldn't get it here on time. So I messaged the poster...

And he's where the story gets good. He messaged me right back with his phone number and I gave him a call. I explained the situation to him. He told me he would take it off ebay and ship it overnight from California that night and I could just pay him through paypal. I was kinda nervous about that, but he had a positive rating of 99.5% with over 400 items sold, and is a former Marine himself, so I took my chances and went for it. We exchanged a few texts and I checked the fedex tracking number this morning and the package will show up this afternoon.

Well, I also need my ribbons and medals mounted, which is still no easy task in a short timeframe. Well, as it turns out, the guy who sold me the dress blues, knows another former Marine in Arizona who does just that. He passed along this other guys contact info, and a couple of calls later I’ve got a full set of medals and ribbons on the way.

So in short, I was able to get something done that seemed impossible. A full set of dress blues while being nowhere remotely close to anyplace that sells it, from 2 guys who I never met, but who were both former Marines who did everything they possibly could to help out a fellow devil dog. All so I could wear a uniform for 3 hours.