You've probably come across viral videos such as "S--- Marines in Twentynine Palms Don't Say" or the "Teach Me How to 03" rap homage to the infantry.

Now, meet the team behind "Terminal Boots,": a posse of three active-duty lance corporals who aim to translate Marine Corps culture into YouTube shorts with the help of an iPhone 5S and an extras cast of their buddies in uniform.

Terminal Boots is the brainchild of Lance Cpls. Deacon Gerard, John Davis and Joseph Jewett, all of 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion out of Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, California. Between the three of them, they've produced more than a dozen short videos and earned nearly a million combined views in just a year. And they do all of it while juggling their regular duties and the occasional ship float.

Gerard, 23, said he got the idea for the video series while watching a bunch of towel-clad Marines goof off in line for the showers at Light Armored Vehicle Training Company out of Camp Pendleton, also in southern California.

"All these situations, this is really hilarious if you take the time to step back and take a disconnected view," he said. "There's no one who has really thrown a camera up and done a sketch comedy version of life in the Marine Corps."

Gerard, who had participated in high school and community theater productions before joining the Marine Corps, compared notes with Davis, who had basic film editing experience. Their first production, "Teach Me How to 03," was filmed in May 2014 and featured Jewett and Davis rapping in the back of an LAV.

Production values are low and the camera shakes, but the lyrics are clever and delivered with natural camera presence.

"Doesn't matter if you're an '11 or a '52," Jewett, 23, flows, "You gotta 03 or else you're just a P.O.G."

The numbers refer to various military occupational specialties within the combat arms field, while the acronym P.O.G. — Person Other than Grunt — is reserved for those outside the infantry community and sometimes used as a pejorative.

You might think this very the idea — of a trio of foul-mouthed lance corporals illustrating Marine Corps culture for public consumption online — in humorous YouTube videos would chill any commanding officer's blood. B but the Terminal Boots crew said they've only had one run-in with their chain of command so far.

In September 2014, they released a video called "Hip Pocket Classes: Keeping it Gangster," which contained a little too much envelope-pushing humor. The short depicted, among other things, a Marine getting waterboarded with a bottle of beer, and a mock-Molotov cocktail made from a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor. The Marines were quickly approached by unit leaders and asked to edit the video or take it down.

They decided to comply with an edited version.

"Our principles were not worth the [non-judicial punishment]," said Davis, 22, said.

The Terminal Boots name, they said, reflectsed the fact that none of them has d deployed to a combat zone, and that all of them expect to finish their tours without having done so deploying downrange.

They've been on other pumps though, including a recent short trip to the Philippines for a bilateral exercise aboard the amphibious transport dock Green Bay. The three Marines decided to make the most of the occasion by making a mockumentary-style video highlighting the boredom and monotony of Marine life aboard Navy ships. In less than a month, that short has been watched more than 63,000 times.

Ideas for future videos are free-flowing, but the Marines said they want to keep experimenting with different methods and techniques.

"Each video that we do, we want to have different styles, cinematography," Gerard said. "Each has its own feel to it."

The Terminal Boots series may be relatively short-lived. Gerard, Davis and Jewett all expect to leave the Marine Corps at the end of their contracts and use their video production skills they've honed through their project in the civilian world. The videos will most likely stop at that point, they said.

But for Davis, Terminal Boots is more than just a way to pass the time. It's a way to help Marines connect and to bond over the unique culture that they share, he said.

"I believe I have done more for the Marine Corps by making these videos than bmy doing my MOS," he said. "I've trained, and I've been ready to go to war, but I've never actually served by country. But I think I've helped Marines in some fashion by making these videos."

You can find all the Terminal Boots videos at the Terminal Boots YouTube channel.

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