My Beloved Corps

[DavidI]

What's special about a Marine?

Ask a Marine what's so special about the Marines and the answer
would be "Esprit de Corps", an unhelpful French phrase that means
exactly what it looks like - the spirit of the Corps, but what is that
spirit, and where does it come from?

The Marine Corps is the only branch of the U.S. Armed Forces that
recruits people specifically to fight.

The Army emphasizes personal development (an Army of One), the
Navy promises fun (let the journey begin), the Air Force offers security
(its a great way of life).

Missing from all the advertisements is the hard fact that a soldier's
lot is to suffer and perhaps to die for his people, and take lives at the
risk of his/her own. Even the thematic music of the services reflects
this evasion.

The Army's Caisson Song describes a pleasant country outing. Over
hill and dale, lacking only a picnic basket.

Anchors Aweigh, the Navy's celebration of the joys of sailing, could
have been penned by Jimmy Buffet.

The Air Force song is a lyric poem of blue skies and engine thrust. All
is joyful, invigorating, and safe.

There are no land mines in the dales nor snipers behind the hills, no
submarines or cruise missiles threaten the ocean jaunt, no bandits are
lurking in the wild blue yonder.

The Marines Hymn, by contrast, is all-combat. We fight our Country's
battles, First to fight for right and freedom, we have fought in every
clime and place where we could take a gun, in many a strife we have
fought for life and never lost our nerve.

The choice is made clear. You may join the Army to go to adventure
training, or join the Navy to go to Bangkok, or join the Air Force to go
to computer school. You join the Marine Corps to go to War!

But the mere act of signing the enlistment contract confers no status
in the Corps.

The Army recruit is told from his first minute in uniform that "your in
the Army now", soldier. The Navy and Air Force enlistees are sailors or
airmen as soon as they get off bus at the training center.

The new arrival at Marine Corps boot camp is called a recruit, or worse,
but never a MARINE. Not yet, maybe never. He or she must earn the
right to claim the title of UNITED STATES MARINE, and failure returns
you to civilian life without hesitation or ceremony.

Recruit Platoon 2210 at San Diego, California trained from October
through December of 1968. In Viet Nam the Marines were taking two
hundred casualties a week, and the major rainy season operation Meade
River, had not even begun. Yet Drill Instructors had no qualms about
winnowing out almost a quarter of their 112 recruits, graduating
eighty-one. Note that this was post - enlistment attrition; every one
of those who were dropped had been passed by the recruiters as fit for
service.

But they failed the test of Boot Camp, and not necessarily for physical
reasons; at least two were outstanding high school athletes for whom
the calisthenics and running were child's play. The cause of their
failure was not in the biceps nor the legs, but in the spirit. They had
lacked the will to endure the mental and emotional strain, so they would
not be Marines. Heavy commitments and high casualties not withstanding,
the Corps reserves the right to pick and choose.

History classes in boot camp? Stop a soldier on the street and ask him
to name a battle of World War One. Pick a sailor at random to describe
the epic fight of the Bon Homme Richard. Everyone has heard of McGuire
Air Force Base. So ask any airman who Major Thomes McGuire was, and
why he is so commemorated.

I am not carping, and there is no sneer in this criticism. All of the
services have glorious traditions, but no one teaches the young soldier,
sailor or airman what his uniform means and why he should be proud of it.
But ask a Marine about World War One, and you will hear of the wheat field
at Belleau Wood and the courage of the Fourth Marine Brigade, fifth and
sixth regiments.

Faced with an enemy of superior numbers entrenched in tangled forest
undergrowth, the Marines received an order to attack that even the
charitable cannot call ill - advised. It was insane. Artillery support
was absent and air support had not yet been invented, so the Brigade
charged German machine guns with only bayonets, grenades, and
indomitable fighting spirit. A bandy-legged little barrel of a gunnery
sergeant, Daniel J. Daly, rallied his company with a shout, "Come on you
sons a *****es, do you want to live forever"?

He took out three machine guns himself, and they would give him the Medal
of Honor except for a technicality, he already had two of them.

French liaison officers, hardened though they were by four years of trench
bound slaughter, were shocked as the Marines charged across the open
wheat field under a blazing sun directly into the teeth of enemy fire. Their
action was anachronistic on the twentieth-century battlefield; so much so that
they might as well have been swinging cutlasses. But the enemy was only
human; they could not stand up to this. So the Marines took Belleau Wood.
The Germans called them "Dogs from the Devil."

Every Marine knows this story and dozens more. We are taught them in
boot camp as a regular part of the curriculum. Every Marine will always
be taught them! You can learn to don a gas mask anytime, even on the
plane in route to the war zone, but before you can wear the Eagle Globe &
Anchor and claim the title "Marine", you must know about the Marines who
made that emblem and title meaningful. So long as you can march and
shoot and revere the legacy of the Corps, you can take your place in line.
And that line is unified spirit as in purpose.

A soldier wears branch of service insignia on his collar, metal shoulder
pins and cloth sleeve patches to identify his unit. Sailors wear a rating
badge that identifies what they do for the Navy.

Marines wear only the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, together with personal
ribbons and their CHERISHED marksmanship badges. There is nothing on
a Marine's uniform to indicate what he or she does, nor what unit the Marine
belongs to. You cannot tell by looking at a Marine whether you are seeing a
truck driver, a computer programmer, or a machine gunner. The Corps
explains this as a security measure to conceal the identity and location of
units, but the Marines' penchant for publicity makes that the least likely of
explanations. No, the Marine is amorphous, even anonymous, by conscious
design.

Every Marine is a rifleman first and foremost, a Marine first, last and
always!
You may serve a four-year enlistment or even a twenty plus year career
withoutseeing action, but if the word is given you'll charge across that
wheatfield! Whether a Marine has been schooled in automated supply,
automotive mechanics, or aviation electronics, is immaterial. Those things
are secondary - the Corps does them because it must. The modern
battlefield requires the technical appliances, and since the enemy has them,
so do we, but no Marine boasts mastery of them. Our pride is in our
marksmanship, our discipline, and our membership in a fraternity of courage
and sacrifice."For the honor of the fallen, for the glory of the dead", Edgar
Guest wrote of Belleau Wood,"the living line of courage kept the faith
and moved ahead."

They are all gone now, those Marines who made a French farmer's little
wheatfield into one of the most enduring of Marine Corps legends. Many
of them did not survive the day,and eight long decades have claimed the
rest. But their actions are immortal. The Corps remembers them and
honors what they did, and so they live forever.

Dan Daly's shouted challenge takes on its true meaning - if you lie in
the trenches you may survive for now, but someday you will die and no
one will care. If you charge the guns you may die in the next two
minutes, but you will be one of the immortals.

All Marines die; some in the red flash of battle, some in the white cold
of the nursing home. In the vigor of youth or the infirmity of age, all
will eventually die. But the Marine Corps lives on. Every Marine who
ever lived is living still - in the Marines who claim the title today. It is
that
sense of belonging to something that will outlive your own mortality, which
gives people a light to live by and a flame to mark their passing.

[Erakad]

!

Air Force song is a lyric poem of blue skies and engine thrust.

I don't know....seems to be talking about shooting and fighting to me. Ground guys always wish they were somewhere else.


Off we go into the wild blue younder,
climbing high into the sun,
here they come, zooming to meet our thunder;
at 'em boys, give 'er the gun!
Down we dive, spouting our flame from under,
off with one Hell-of-a roar!
We live in fame or go down in flame,
(shout)Nothing will stop the U.S. Air Force

[einreb]

Originally posted by Erakad
Ground guys always wish they were somewhere else.

My grandfather used to love telling the story of how he knew he was in the wrong branch of service in WWII... having just crossed the Rhine with the 777th tank batallion and running out of fuel and ammo he hears some air force guy on the radio biatching that the base was out of hot chocolate.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Erakad
!

I don't know....seems to be talking about shooting and fighting to me. Ground guys always wish they were somewhere else.

I had a roomie at a military school some years back, he was in the 82nd Airborne and called me a "leg troop". I tired of it, so finally I said look, I'm in Aviation. When I fly I make a round trip, you airborne guys fly one way and walk back, so who're you calling a leg troop? That one shut him up for a while.

[Halm]

DavidI, "Semper Fi" brother.

[jester911]

Yep, Semper Fi.
Did 3 years in corp. Defined who am to this day. I would not trade it for anything.

There is a special pride that most will never understand unless they are also a Marine.

Thanks for posting that.

[Oh Haha]

I never served in the service. If I was 18 again, I would join, hopefully to be a Marine, if allowed. I thank all of you Pelicans that have served our country in peace and war time.

I heard a poem on the radio today written or spoken by a Lance Corporal in the Marine Corp. I don't recall it all but one line, the last, stuck with me all day.

The Marine was being judged by God and the Marine told of trying hard to be fathful to the ten commandments, especially the "Thou Shalt Not Kill' part. He explains that is part of his job.
In the end, God tells him to come forward to Heaven as he has already been to hell. It was a very moving poem.

[Cdnone1]

David
If I ever have the honor of meeting you at a Pelican event I would like to buy you a drink, he!! all the drinks you want.
Thank you
Fastpat
If I ever have the misfortune to run into you I can only hope it will be a mistake and that I'm in my car
Steve

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Cdnone1
I'm in my car
Steve

Yeah, here's some audio about you in your car.
http://www.wandasykes.com/audio/03ImpoundCrap.wma

[Cdnone1]

Sorry Pat I only live for your Lew Rockwell links/cut and pastes.
Maybe you can find something he wrote about it and send another cute sentence and link with what Lew thinks about it
Steve

[Cdnone1]

Fastpat
You have a right to write what ever you want, but men like David and those that came before him gave you that right and continue to sacrafice so you continue to ....................well whatever it is you think you are doing.
Please highlight this qoute and come back with a single sentence response telling me something like , I'm wrong, I should educate myself whatever.
Notice how few people respond to your posts anymore?
steve

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Cdnone1
Fastpat
You have a right to write what ever you want, but men like David and those that came before him gave you that right and continue to sacrafice so you continue to ....................well whatever it is you think you are doing.
Please highlight this qoute and come back with a single sentence response telling me something like , I'm wrong, I should educate myself whatever.
Notice how few people respond to your posts anymore?
steve

David, Steve wants to have your baby.

[DavidI]

Thanks all.....Semper Fi.....

David

[Cdnone1]

David
You are welcome, and thank you again
Fastpat
Yawn
Steve

[Moses]

David,

My father is 82 this year. He joined the Marines at age 16. Made the August 7th landing on Guadalcanal as a machine gunner. After six months of combat he was wounded twice and spent nearly two years in the hospital. He is still a Marine. I'll send him a copy of your post. Thanks for sharing it.

[sammyg2]

I don't know what slo-pat said because he's on the ignore list, but I can imagine.
People like him need to realize that the only reason they have the freedon to say whatever they want to is because members of the armed forces fought and died for that freedom.

To criticize them seems hypocritical to say the least.
Even if you don't agree with the politics you should thank them for the sacrifices they have made and will make on your behalf.

[jester911]

I am with you sammy. I put you know who on the ignore list as well
Which brings me to a new name for you Pat.

Since we are beyond listening to you can now be known as...

Pastfat.

P.S. Quote this

[Superman]

I'm proud of the Marines. I did not serve in the military, but I most certainly respect that service and an grateful for the price that has been unselfishly paid for my freedom. Yes, Marines are the best. I recently informed a woman who seemed to think Rangers are tougher than Marines. I told her that the only people who think that are Rangers' girlfriends. Hehehehe.

[Moses]

There was this kid from my high school. Meanest person I ever knew. He'd rather fight than eat. He would beat people mercilessly without provocation. He was arrested half a dozen times for assault during his high school years. He was rude, contemptuous and dangerous. Pure evil. He joined the Marines.

When he got out we were all shocked. The Corps had turned him into a gentleman! No more fights. He would shake your hand and address others with respect. He now runs a successful small business and is well thought of in our community. Amazing transformation, really.

[Seahawk]

David,

We had a retirement ceremony at my farm last night for my best friend, a Marine LtCol...Cobra pilot, test pilot and one of the greats.

He and his wife are horse people...they have a ranch in Ridgecrest, CA and in Kennedy Meadows, up Nine Mile Road.

The picture below is one of the gifts we gave...it is a horse harness for working horses. I don't know if I'm going to get this right, but the presenter, another retired Marine, explained that this harness is for the trace horse, the horse closest to the wagon, the horse that pulls the load.

He turned to my friend and remarked, "You have always pulled the load."

Not a dry eye in the crowd.