A Good Weekend

[araine901]

During my one weekend a month for Uncle Sam, I was fortunate to be present for an awards ceremony. Now awards ceremonies are pretty common but, this one was different. First of all because some of the awardees were recent returns from Iraq. To make the situation extra special there was a distinguished visitor to present some of the awards. The assistant under secretary of the Navy came to present the awards. It is not uncommon for there to be a distinguished visitor but this one was extra special. I have had opportunity to meet him and hear him speak at a previous command. If I remember is introduction correctly he was a retired Marine Colonel who had been awarded the Medal of Honor in Vietnam as well as many others. If I remember correctly only three others received this honor in a non-posthumous manner. He earned it by saving three other marines while under fire and getting shot several times in the process. The three people he saved were the CO, the radioman and the corpsman that was wounded while helping the wounded CO and radioman. In addition he took charge of the three companies and his leadership and direct actions saved hundreds of marines that day.

Five of the sailors being honored were receiving a presidential citation bravery and honor in the line of duty in Iraq. My unit was perpendicular to the awardees so while standing at attention for 40 min during the ceremony I was able to have a good view of the people who were being honored. These five sailors were attached to a Marine Expeditionary Unit for the early combat in Iraq. As the XO was reading the letter from President Bush describing the circumstances in which these sailors were to be honored. I could see the one of the sailors had tears running down his cheeks as he was being reminded of his events in which he was being honored. He was a corpsman, I don’t know if he was crying remembering those marines in his unit he was not able to save or why what the real reason for his tears, All I know is my legs seemed to hurt less, my numb feet seemed to not bother me at all as though about what he had been through and how it compared to what he had been through.

As the distinguished guest finished the ceremony and thanked the sailors for their service, he said “we are engaged in a war with an enemy of the likes like we have never seen. We are fighting an enemy that is willing to strap bombs to them and blow up innocent civilians with the simple purpose of causing fear in others. This global war on terror will be fought for many years. Do you see these four little girls (there were four young girls there approx 4-8 years of age who were guests visiting for the ceremony) this is what it is all about. We are fighting this war in Afghanistan and Iraq so these girls can grow up in a world like we did. We are fighting an “away” game and do not want to be fighting another “home” game. Septepeber 11th was a home game. We do not want another one of those. That is why we are engaged in the away games.” It was a remarkable thought from a remarkable man.

And just for the record, this MEU did not kill any women and children. They did however kill many persons in civilian clothing. The difference was these “civilians” were pointing RPG’s and AK-47’s and shooting at them. Just a question, how many terrorists are not civilians?