Yes, us.
November 10, 1775.
Tun Tavern, Philadelphia.
The birth of the United States Marines.
Yes, now I am a Quaker.
When I dropped out of college for the first time at age 19, I enlisted because I believed I had an obligation to serve.
The person I am today might make a different decision, because while I believe that under some circumstances my country may demand of me my life, it cannot demand of me that I take another - that is as personal as any decision one can make. Every Marine is first and foremost a rifleman, which means first and foremost we are prepared to kill other human beings. The person that I am today would no longer be willing to make that commitment, except to defend those entrusted to my care, specifically my adolescent students.
Yet I am proud of my service.
It has helped define who I am.
So below the squiggle a few thoughts on the Marines, from one who was once an active duty jarhead.
With a few exceptions during extreme war periods, all Marines have been volunteers.
We have always been a smallish (compared to the other branches) military force.
Originally created as sharpshooters and boarding parties for sailing ship military vessels, over the years our briefs have been expanded, to guarding capital ships, embassies and even the White House; to becoming experts in amphibious and jungle warfare; serving pilots and tanks drivers; being assault troops and being those who defend almost indefensible positions.
We have had those who have shamed us - on this day we ignore them.
We have had those who honor this country and all of us. Smedley Butler and Dan Daley each won the Medal of Honor twice. Five other Marines did as well, but these men won theirs in two separate conflicts.
Then there is the man who biography is simply "Marine" - Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, who left VMI during WWI to enlist in the Marines, who earned FIVE Navy Crosses, and who brought out all of his dead and wounded from "Frozen Chosin" in Korea.
Some of ours are notable for service both in and out of the Corps - Jim Webb and Chuck Robb, for example.
Others consider their service an important part of defining who they are, who they becoming. Think here both of Art Buchwald and Jim Lehrer.
My service was only stateside, albeit during a period of conflict (Vietnam).
I was in a band, and in computers.
But I was, as were all Marines, trained first and foremost as a rifleman.
I learned hand to hand combat, using a bayonet, and how to shoot.
Yet those lessons paled compared to others.
I learned about a real commitment to those around one, for in combat should we face it we would live or die together.
I learned that I was a lot tougher than I had thought, psychologically as well as physically. I had run cross country in high school and played soccer in college, but even at my best in season my physical conditioning paled compared to how I was coming out of Boot Camp and Infantry Training Regiment.
Oh, there were things to which I objected even then: the Marines realized after WWII that it was hard to get people to actually fire upon an enemy they could see as a fellow human, so while we were taught to respect our possible enemy ("Victor Charlie" as the phonetics for VC (Viet Cong), at the same time there was way too much racist demeaning which I will not repeat, and which I refused to adopt.
I have been out of service for well over four decades, yet my brief period as a Marine has helped define who I am. I suspect that is true for the vast majority of us who served.
Some of those I knew died in 'Nam, including at Khe Sanh. Others suffered wounds sometimes greater psychically and spiritually even than the vast physical devastation of lost limbs or vision in one or both eyes.
That a nation needs those willing to serve I have never doubted.
That this nation is oft too willing to waste that willingness to serve and sacrifice approaches the criminal.
But today that, like those whose antics diminish the Corps, is of less importance.
Today we honor those willing to serve, over more than two centuries.
"The Few, the Proud, The Marines."
Semper Fidelis
And especially given the willingness of all of us to die if necessary on behalf of this nation, I reiterate strongly my usual final salutation:
PEACE