I’ve just learned about challenge coins.
Should I give my son a Recruit Training Regiment challenge coin at MCRD graduation, or do challenge coins actually mean something a little later as they represent other bonds–campaigns, companies, etc?
I’m new to this. Talk to me about challenge coins.
The boards seem to be acting up today. I’m bumping this to the top to make sure people see it.
There would be absolutely nothing wrong with giving your son a challenge coin. Marines get challenge coins for promotions, deploying with their unit, graduating USMC and DOD schools, the Marine Corps Ball, etc.
Sometimes Generals, Sgt’s Major, MOH awardees, Old Corps veterans, and others will have personal challenge coins that they give to Marines at their discretion.
So you end up needing to have a dozen different challenge coins in your pocket every time you go in a bar?
I’ve never actually seen that happen and I lived in Jacksonville, NC (aka Camp LeJeune) for 13 years.
So the tradition of an actual challenge is pretty much gone, and you can just keep them in a case as you collect them?
Maybe somebody else on this board has a different experience, but I’ve never had anybody pull a coin on me. To me they commemorate some hard times I spent with some good Marines… and yes. I do keep them in a display case 
Just so you know I’ve followed your posts about your son and I want you to know (although I already know that you are) that you should be very proud of him.
Thank you for those kind words. I am proud of him indeed. I’m looking forward to seeing him in a couple of days and giving him his first challenge coin right after graduation.
The last time I saw a challenge coin used in a bar was while I was in (State) OCS. After the training, a bunch of us Candidates were sitting at the post club when a retired SF guy came over and coined one of my fellow candidate who happen to be SF as well. My buddy had to buy him a drink.
That was also the first time I learned about the use of the challenge coin. I now keep my current unit’s challenge coin in my wallet just in case.
TL pretty much sums it up for me. If someone thinks I’m going to buy them a drink because they have some monopoly money with their unit on it, they are gonna have to knock me out and take the money. I don’t go to bars in jacksonville anyway.
I also tend to stay away from dudes w raging high and tights aswell. Good rule to live by.
Is this your view of military traditions/heritage/ceremonies/symbols in general, or just your view of challenge coins?
Depends on what’s traditions your talking about.
The MC ball? Fuxking awesome. Youngest and oldest cutting the cake.all the nco wearing their swords to cut the cake with. Its ball season gents!
Traditions like giving staff and officers pistol but never formally training them? Gay.still treating officers like they are royalty?gay. Drive your own dam car, SIR.
What’s the MC ball?
The Marine Corps Birthday ball. One of the few functions a Marine can wear the dress alphas (dress blues w medals).traditions include, Lejuene’s bday message, the CMC’s bday message, cutting of the cake by the youngest and oldest Marine present,guest of honor speech, and getting soo blasted your medals fall off and you barely make it back to your hotel room.if you show up sober, your not doing it right:happy:
The Marine Corps Ball.
So they got rid of the lash and the sodomy but kept the rum.
While the tradition of “coining” a fellow Soldier/Marine at the club has grown less prevalent over time, this hasn’t really changed the fact that most units still have them minted, nor has it made it any less signficant when one is received, since this is still recognized an informal form of validation and commendation in the profession of arms.
Personally, I would do it. It will mean a little bit to your son now, something less as he goes on to his first couple of operational assignments, and much, much more years later when he ends up with a display case full of them, sees it, and remembers not only his first days in the Corps as a young man, but also the fact that his very own “old Man” was the one who gave it to him. At that moment in time, it won’t really be about the coin, but rather the memory of the day on which Dad recognized him as more than just a man – the day he became a Marine.
I still have the coin from the Infantry Training Brigade that I was first assigned to some 26 years ago, and while I feel no special connection to that unit, the memories it evokes are significant to me now, as I draw nearer to the end of my life as a career Soldier.
AC
IMO, coining is dead. It is now common practice in Army units to offer coins for sale, for God’s sake.
It used to be a cool thing. Now it’s just overdone. There are PLATOONS that now have their own coins.
Typical Army idiocy, institutionalizing and therefore killing a good thing.
Kind of like giving Reservists funeral flags upon returning from OIF/OEF in the “Welcome Home Warrior” ceremonies.
“Warrior?” Like living on a FOB for a year makes someone a warrior… And WHY for the love of Mike did they pick the shadowbox funeral flag as a symbol?
Do you have any coins yourself that you cherish nonetheless because of their personal significance to you?
Ive gotten a few over the years, Ive got em all in a cigar box back home, nothing terribly hot to brag about, but they are mine, and I earned them.
My dad gave me a couple from his day, one of which is from a CPT. Schwarzkopf (dont ask, he wont tell).