crawfish407
12-10-2007, 06:47 PM
I did a little research on this and I admit I feel a little stupid for not doing it first. Turns out there is a reason for a Bulldog being a mascot. In WWI the German soldiers refered to the Marines as Teufel-hunden which means devil dogs. I always wondered where that name came from. The Marines kind of liked the name and started drawing cool pictures of what they thought it should look like. In 1922 an English Bulldog named Jiggs was made the unofficial mascot. Just for the record, Sgt. Stubby was the official mascot long before then. Jiggs died in 1927 and was repaced by another Bulldog that was renamed Jiggs II. He was reported to have been undiciplined to the point of biting people. He died in 1928. During the 1930's and 40's the dogs were all named Smedly in tribute to Gen. Butler. Around 1957 the dog was renamed Chesty after LT. Gen. Puller Jr. The first Chesty did a great job but his Son Chesty II was and undiciplined renagade. He even went AWOL once and was brought back in a police paddywagon. In 1979 Ms. Diann Wal-Willson drew a picture of Chesty the mascot as we see him now. In 1983 it was finally made the official mascot of the U.S. Marines. So, there it is. I am just wondering what happened to make them all forget about Sgt. Stubby? He was there before the Bulldog. He was an American to the point his breeding is at best decribed as mixed. He was a decorated war hero. He engaged in 17 battles,was wounded, saved mens lives and captured enemies. He met three presidents and a bunch of Generals. He is even given credit for the creation of half time shows during football games. He was also an official mascot to the 102nd a good 60 years before they made a Bulldog an official mascot. Oh well. I'm done! Learn something new every day. While I was researching all this I ran across another old timey mascot. Jack Brutus "Old Jack" was with the 1st Conneticut Volunteer Infantry Company K. He ain't no Bulldog! Thanks for all the input. God bless our troops.