Marines aren’t supposed to be funny. 

Try telling that to Marine Corps Reserve Lt. Col. Dave Rosner. He’s a Marine, an Iraq War veteran – and a stand-up comedian. 

Rosner, who bills himself as “the only Jewish Marine comedian,” has performed at veterans hospitals and military bases in the United States, Kuwait, and Iraq. Rosner served in both Iraq wars and advocates on behalf of veterans with traumatic brain injury.

Here are 5 questions for … Dave Rosner.

1. Have you always been funny?

“Not according to all my teachers in Hebrew and Sunday school or middle and high school. They were all at their wits end with my antics. At age five I was cracking edgy jokes and I didn’t even understand why they were funny. I just knew they got me attention. The neighbors behind our house were Chinese and their last name was Jew. They had a mean dog in their yard so I didn’t like them. I asked my parents, “Why can’t those Jews go back to their own country?” Hilarity ensued. Accolades received. A star is born.” 

2. Why did you join the Marine Corps? 

“This is very simple: To serve my country, to go to war, and to shut up anti-Semites who say Jews don’t serve in the military, let alone the Marine Corps. I also knew that I would end up in some creative field and that the military would add a perspective that the majority in that field do not posses.” 

3. Did your drill sergeants think you were funny?

“Unfortunately, they didn’t and I got into lots of trouble for it both summers at Marine Corps’ Officer Candidate School. The first summer we did skits on the last day of OCS, I ripped apart some of the drill instructors with my imitations and exaggeration of them and one time when it was my turn to call the cadence for the platoon, I blurted out at tune I knew from the kid’s show, The Electric Company, ‘Conjunction, junction, what’s your function. Hooking up words, and phrase, and clauses.’ The second summer of OCS I almost got kicked out for laughing. My tag as someone who laughs caused the senior drill instructor to ask me in front of the junior drill instructors if I thought one of them was funny, which I did. The smart and easy thing would have been to say that he was not funny. But I mistakenly, answered the question with a question, very Jewish. I asked, “directly or indirectly?” He said both. So I said, “Well, Sgt So-And-So is directly not funny but indirectly he is funny.” The other two drill instructors begin laughing at the one I just insulted. Then the drill instructor I just insulted started yelling at me and let me know he would do everything he could to end my time at OCS. ‘You’re mine Rosner! You’re mine!’”

4. Where will you be performing next?

“Long Beach and San Diego, Calif., on reserve duty orders for the Marine Corps at Individual Ready Reserve Musters. The audience is made up of Marines who have been discharged but are still under contract to the Individual Ready Reserve. You’ll see me in an upcoming independent short film, ‘Bert’s Plan,’ in the lead as Bert. Keep a look out for that and other shows on www.daverosner.com, www.facebook.com/DaveRosner1, and watch me on www.youtube.com/bigmacher.”

5. Ok, tell us a joke.

“My family was worried about anti-Semitism in the military when I signed up. They convinced me to not say I was Jewish. So on the religion section of my dog tags it said ‘No Preference.’  When I got to the Middle East for the war, I was like, forget this, I’m proud. So I went to the personnel office and had my dog tags changed to ‘Jewish.’ Then a few days later the personnel officer came up to me and said, ‘Ah, yeah, now that we know you’re Jewish, we’re going to transfer you to the banking department.’”