CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — While conducting training at the Camp Lejeune M.O.U.T. (Military Operations in Urban Terrain) town over the weekend, the Marines of 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment were surprised to find the simulated-Middle Eastern village occupied by Air Force hipsters.

The first squad to infiltrate the town square reported seeing a horde of men in skinny capris and conflict-free fabrics riding around on Lime scooters, drinking ethically sourced artisanal Soy Chai lattes and perusing the latest from McSweeney’s on their iPhone 11s.

“I kick in a door expecting to see OPFOR, but it turns out to be a craft microbrewery with an escape room and an ax-throwing range in the back, only with nobody who looked like they would be good at throwing axes,” recounted point man, Lance Cpl. Mike Jefferson. “I accidentally shot one of them in the neck with a sim round, so he had his dad sue me and then doxxed me on the internet."

The Marines nabbed one of the interlopers for questioning, Jericho Chesterfield, a 2016 Air Force Academy graduate from Boca Raton and the MOUT's premier reclaimed shipping container tapas mogul.

The young entrepenuer and social media influencer revealed that the entirety of his cohort were Air Force junior officers on temporary schoolhouse orders to Camp Lejeune who banded together to form a retro-chic living experience.

“This place has everything: Distressed brick, open concept communal zoning, ironic bombed-out school bus art installations,” Chesterfield explained, “We started moving in in droves, pursuing our quirky yet trendy hobbies, and blowing out the Yelp reviews.”

Sources indicate that the socially conscious, college educated, mostly white twenty-somethings displaced the indigenous OPFOR, which represented Middle Eastern ethnic minorities, by pricing them out with officer base pay, BAH, and Air Force hardship duty pay for being stationed on a Marine base.

One hundred percent of the Air Force officers expressed vague feelings of anger on behalf of intersectional populations oppressed by a hierarchical, capitalist power structure, yet 0 percent of them offered to leave the MOUT town.

Sources say that the Air Force’s gentrification plans extended even further: filling all of the water buffalos with Pamplemousse La Croix, replacing the commissary with a Whole Foods, and playing reveille exclusively on vinyl.

At press time, the trespassing bohemians fled town after receiving internet blowback for cultural appropriation of the Marine Corps. The only squatter determined to stay put is Chesterfield, who claims that he is 1/32 OPFOR, as his great-great-great grandfather played a Confederate during a 10th New York Infantry Field Exercise in 1863.

Duffel Blog

Air Force gentrifies Marine MOUT