You’ve heard of Fleet Week. Now there is also Marine Week. There has been Marine Week for eight years now. It was in Nashville last year. And this year it’s in Detroit. The opening ceremony took place yesterday, on a cloudy afternoon, at Campus Martius in downtown Detroit.
Why Detroit? That’s a question that came up at the planning meeting. The Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Robert B. Neller, who was born in East Lansing, according to his Department of Defense bio, explained that like the Corps, Detroit is tough and has overcome adversity.
But it boiled down to General Neller saying so. Command has its privileges. He is nostalgic for the days when his family went to the Hudson department store in downtown Detroit before heading to Tiger Stadium to watch Al Kaline in action.
After the Marine Band from San Diego played some Sousa selections, Lance Corporal Grant O’Connor, a supply clerk, introduced each of the speakers. A color guard brought in the American flag and the Marine Corps flag as the band played the National Anthem.
After a Navy chaplain said a prayer, General Neller spoke, followed by Lt. Governor Brian Calley (R-Michigan), who thanked the Marines for defending our freedom.
Calley touted the opening ceremony as an example of all First Amendment rights. The opening prayer by a chaplain who is presumably Christian of the Protestant variety is an example of freedom of religion, according to Calley. Um… yeah, okay, sure.
As for redress of grievances, Calley invited people to talk to him after the ceremony. I took him up on the suggestion and asked him about Enbridge Line 5, suggesting, perhaps with no subtlety whatsoever, that it would be a good idea to shut it down before the 2018 elections.
Calley responded that Line 5 is an unacceptable risk to the Great Lakes and that the administration is carefully weighing alternative means of doing things like delivering propane to the Upper Peninsula for heating in the winter (something I didn’t even know about, though I knew Line 5 carries stuff other than light crude oil).
As part of the ceremony, Calley read a proclamation honoring the Marines, signed by Gov. Snyder, who would have gotten a slightly warmer welcome here in Detroit than he would have gotten in Flint. Then Calley presented the proclamation to Brigadier General Raymond Descheneaux, commanding officer of the Marine Week task force.
And then the pièce de résistance of the opening ceremony was a performance by the Marine Silent Drill Platoon. The old M1 rifles made plenty of sound, but the Marines said not a word, and the crowd was almost as silent. I’ll twirl a rifle for you, but if it’s got a bayonet attached to it, I pass.
Even the other Marines were impressed by the Silent Drill Platoon, which mostly consists of young enlisted men near the end of their first enlistment (Lance Corporals who have medals for National Defense, Global War on Terrorism and Good Conduct).
The sign language interpreter made gestures to signify the applause of the crowd and even the train whistle of the QLine streetcar. Anyone not completely deaf would have heard those sounds very clearly as the Silent Drill Platoon performed.
After the Silent Drill Platoon left, the ceremony closed with the band’s rendition of the Marines’ Hymn, a tune co-opted from Genevieve de Brabant by Jacques Offenbach.
Per General Neller's encouragement, the civilians talked to the Marines after the ceremony, not just the officers and senior enlisted men, but also the junior enlisted.
You might have noticed that women Marines now wear the same “covers” (hats) as the men. This is one of the improvements made under President Obama.
The corporal I talked to said she got hers in 2014, when the change was made. I think she said she never had the old style women’s hat.
Of course when the idea was first proposed in 2013, right-wing nutjob publications like the New York Post whined that Obama wanted male Marines to wear girly hats.
It was then up to Stars & Stripes, a military newspaper that spoke out against President Bush on at least one occasion, to debunk the false girly hats story. The Marine Corps made the change because the company that made the women’s hats was going out of business.
Now the Marine Corps is considering further changes to make uniforms more unisex, but judging by the changes made so far, those changes will probably be more along the lines of making the women’s uniforms more like the men’s.
It would make uniform decisions for transgendered Marines a little less loaded. Though now it’s uncertain if they can even serve at all, given the tweeted decree by the dumbass who so sorely tests servicemembers’ resolve to obey Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
I talked to a Marine officer who served in the White House (she had the Presidential Service Badge on her uniform). She didn’t explicitly say she was never assigned to the White House under the current administration, which would mean she served in the White House of a real president, not an out-of-touch pretend billionaire who thinks the Marines and the Secret Service agents are his palace guards.
It rained a tiny bit and the civilians dispersed. Not that they’ll have to wait long to talk to Marines again, as Marine Week continues to Sunday. Go to usmarineweek.com for the schedule of events.
The next event is reveille at the Spirit of Detroit Plaza at the ungodly hour of 6:00 a.m. As a civilian I seldom have reason or inclination to be up this early. I asked the computer to post this at this time.