MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan -- The Marine Corps celebrated its 235th birthday on Nov 10.
Venues of various sorts across the world were decorated to host the traditional Marine Corps Birthday Ball for Marines to celebrate the occasion.
Following suit, Marines here were chosen and directed to prepare the IronWorks Gym sports courts here for the Marine Corps birthday balls hosted Nov. 8, 9 and 10.
Forty-one Marines from different units around the station were responsible for turning the gym’s sports courts into a venue fit to celebrate a night filled with traditions and camaraderie.
“(The Iwakuni birthday ball) is very unique compared to any other balls that you‘re going to go to,” said Larry Mask, Marine Corps Community Services special events entertainment manager. “(MCCS and a handful of Marines) go through and set up the whole show and do everything. In the states, a lot of units set up their own and go through different hotels, but no one really does it the way we do.”
The Marines started work on the gym on Oct. 18 and worked hard for nearly three weeks.
In an effort to accomplish their goal, the working-party Marines also sacrificed some of their weekends.
Mask said the ultimate goal for the working party was to provide the best possible birthday ball for the station Marines to celebrate in.
The working-party Marines labored hard in laying down blue sheets to protect the gym floor, putting down red carpet throughout the gym hallways and setting up hundreds of tables for the ball. It took the Marines nearly three days to zip-tie hundreds of feet of cammie-netting together and hang it from the gym walls.
Cpl. Jacob Mays, a Provost Marshal’s Office military police officer and a birthday ball working party supervisor, said the hardest part in setting up the gym was the beginning stages of getting to know the other Marines and keeping their morale up throughout the working party.
The Marines spent days and hours obsessing on the smallest details of the ball. They used strings and measuring tapes to cover and align the tables, chairs and silverware. Nothing less than perfection was expected from the Marines as they worked to align the tables.
“The hardest thing (to set up) was definitely the tables,” said Mays. “Everything from the place mats, to the cups, to the mementoes — everything is all aligned. Everything is lined up perfectly in every single way. It‘s pretty tedious.”
After the work was done and the Marines looked at what they accomplished, many did so with some pride.
“When I look in that room, I look back at day one and I think this was a gym with gym equipment, and how we transformed it into pretty much a hall, it makes me feel good,” said Mays. “Making it perfect for our guys to have a good Marine Corps birthday — nothing compares to (the feeling).”
Combat Logistics Company 36 and Marine Wing Support Squadron 171 had their ball on Nov. 8. Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron had theirs on Nov. 9. Marine Aircraft Group 12 and Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 12 Marines had their ball on Nov. 10.
The Marines had to redecorate the gym after the first two balls. Tables and chairs were realigned while floors and silverware were re-cleaned.
Pvt. James Zimmerman, a Marine Aircraft Group 12 small arms technician and workingparty Marine, said he still felt pride that the Marines were only able to have their celebration because of the work he was involved in, even though it involved a lot of work only to be redone the next day.
“I only hope they think it looks pretty nice and realize we did a lot of hard work,” said Zimmerman.
After the last ball, the workingparty Marines are slated to spend a week breaking down the decorations to turn the ballroom back into a gym’s sports courts.