The way it was explained to me by an active duty Major was that it is strickly a business decision on the part of the Corps. They have realized that there is big money to be made by trade marking the Marine Corps emblem. They will still allow merchadise to be sold, except that the vender will have to pay the Marine Corps a fee for the rights to use it's symbol. Unfortunatly, it will affect a lot of other area's such as the web site I mentioned. This web site (togetherweserved) exsist only for the benefit of Marines. Care packages sent to Marines in war zones, Patriot Guards who escort fallen Marines home, legal advice to Marine veterans, support for active duty Marines in many ways from money to grief counceling. But, as of this week we had to remove our beloved Eagle, Globe and Anchor emblem from our web site. They told us we could use USMC beause there is no trade mark value to that.
Venders such as "Sgt. Grit" a Marine speciality store that supplies every thing from hat pins, MC flags, to Marine caskets will have to discontinue many of it's items because of the new law. Sgt. Grit made this announcement in the last catalog.
"The Marine Corps market is going to change. The marine Corps has decided to licence the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, "USMC", and U.S. Marine Corps", and derivatives. This will affect us and our customers in two ways, First, our designs must meet new licensing guidlines. There will be a royalty percentage that will require us to change price on many items. As this catalog goes to print, we do not know what that percentage willbe, or when it will start. Prices will be updated on the internet as soon as we have more information. Your patience and understanding will be greatly appreciated."
Improvise, Adapt, Overcome!
Semper Fi
Sgt Grit
As we all understand very well "A Marine can be the best friend you can ever have, a mad Marine can be the very worst enemy that you would ever want." There are a lot of very mad Marines right now about this.
