My family and I offer our respect and thanks to America's Vets!
God only knows what the world would be without them.
Happy Birthday Brother.
No one could improve on your remarks, DC. Semper Fi, and same to you, Mr: Goomba.
Happy Birthday Marines!!!
What a wonderful post...thank you!
I salute you, Sir...and the Corps.
Happy 230th Birthday Marine and thank you for serving our country. Thank you too for being a part of why this is the land of the free.
Good morning, all. And thank you very much for the kind remarks. It is a great day.
Read this by Col. Bearor this a.m. Pretty interesting. It sounds a lot like what I am saying. You might say it's magic. Col. Bearor says it's "mystical".
Ronald Reagan, former President of the United States: "Some people live an entire lifetime and wonder if they've ever made a difference in the world. Marines don't have that problem.
" The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen..Thank God for the United States Marine Corps!"
Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the United States, 1945
At dinner each night, my wife and 3 kids say a prayer for all of you and give you praise. Thank you for everything.
Semper Fi, Mark.
Happy Birthday, Sir!
Great post!
Semper Fi.
Excellent post - Happy Birthday to you and your Marine brothers and sisters around the globe. Thanks for your service, and thanks to your family for the sacrifices you all make!
... even though my dad was army and my mom was air force, all us kids were raised with a deep and abiding respect for the marines ...
semper fidelis ... and be safe!
A moving post, DC. Excellent.
Note to all ... My USMC time is done, long ago in fact. But others press on today.
Send them your regards and pray for their success and safety.
Mark:
Eleanor had used some of these words before in describing the Kennedy family.
The pounding feet of the formation seemed to get louder and louder. When the pounding became almost like thunder, it dawned on me, like the bright sun of the day that had just begun: It was simply magic.
Although my first experience with this magic was at Parris Island, the only place “Real Marines” come from, it was just as you described it. Marching was just the same.
Semper Fi, Marine.
Nicks
Rhod,
That is good. So, are you trying to lure Mark out in the open and start a keyboard firefight on the USMC b-day? Not sure the ol' Marine is going to fall for that trick and get into it with the "Savior Thesaurus".
You know, I was thinking Teddy actually might be Motor T material.
Nicks,
I like your spirit, and I know you understand. Of course, officers can't march, so I had to bring up running in formation.
You mentioned how "real" Marines were trained at PI. Reminds me of how tough Marines can be on fellow Marines ... all in good fun, of course. Like our jodies about 1st plt's panty hose while running right behind them. Good memories.
Not bad - for an officer! 
I'll link to this.
Semper Fi
All right, Gordon. Thanks. Your post on the USMC b-day celebration was fantastic. Now, the rest of that stuff on your blog, we gotta talk. But today, just happy b-day, Marine.
Rhod
You mean 'chappaquidick Fats' and the rest of that bunch from Baston commons.
Yeah, normally the “Real Marine” comment gets tossed at our Hollywood type brothers. I don’t get much opportunity to lob it in the window of a Quantico Marine. Thanks for your comment on my post at Brutally Honest.
Semper Fi
By an Anonymous US Marine: "I recently attended a Kansas City Chiefs football game at Arrowhead Stadium. It was their annual Veteran's Day tribute so members of all the services were asked to participate in the festivities.
A color guard for the National Anthem was provided by the Buffalo Soldiers Association. They looked very sharp in their 1800s-era US Army Cavalry uniforms. Following that, the Navy parachute team put on an impressive display that brought cheers from the 78,000 football fans in attendance. Shortly thereafter, we were treated to the truly awesome sight of an Air Force B-2 Spirit stealth bomber flyover as well as a few other aircraft.
All of these sights -- but especially the B-2 -- were truly appreciated by the crowd who let it be known by their cheers.
I expected that was all we would see of the US Military that day. I thought we would see a high school or college marching band during half-time. Few watch those shows anyway because they have to go to the head or grab another beer during the intermission.
Shortly before half-time, however, I looked down on the sidelines near the end zone and saw the Marine Corps' Silent Drill Team forming up. As the half-time show started, the players left the field and the announcer came on the public address system to advise us of the Drill Team's performance. Many of us Marines have seen these performances in the past and they're always awe-inspiring. I didn't expect that the large civilian crowd of football fans would be as appreciative of the Drill Team as they had been of the high-tech B-2 or the daring of the Navy parachute team. However, I was on the edge of my seat. As the Drill Team marched onto the field, the crowd grew noticeably quieter. Soon, the team was fully into their demonstration. The stadium was absolutely silent.
From high in the stands' upper reaches where my seats were, I was able to hear the "snap" and "pop" of hands striking rifles. Both big screen "Jumbotron" scoreboards displayed close ups of the Marines as they went through their routine. As they completed their demonstration and lined up for the inspection, the crowd began cheering as the Marines twirled their rifles in impossible fashion. Then came the inspection. Again, the crowd fell silent and watched intently as rifles were thrown, caught, twirled, inspected and thrown some more. Each well-practiced feat brought a "wow" or "did you see that?" from those sitting around me.
I sat there in silent pride as I watched my brother Marines exit the field. A young girl behind me asked her mother a question about how the Marines learn to do the things they just did. The mother replied, "They practice long and hard and they're Marines; they're the best."
Semper Fidelis!!!
Thought this one was especially good.
Howlin' Mad Smith said that the only way to tell a PI Marine from a Dago one is to watch 'em abandon ship. The only difference between 'em is that at PI they taught 'em to hold their nose when they jumped off, and at Dago they taught 'em to hold their crotch. Or vice-versa. No functional difference.
DC, today our political differences are forgotten, and our sins in each other's eyes are forgiven. Tomorrow we can take the scabbards back off our bayonets.
I wish our country's leaders could learn something about brotherhood from us as none of them were ever in the service.
Ooh-rah, Mark!! That is excellent. I am planning on taking my family (and boys, especially to DC in the next couple of years. One of the highlights of the trip will be to see the Silent Drill Team. They are absolutely spectacular.
Man, what a great day. Great to hear from you all.
Nicks,
Get in here and clean up the glass on the deck!! That's okay ... we can take it.
And Gordon, Thanks a great quote from H.M. Smith. I understand the the point you are making. The bayonets will be out again ... but tomorrow.
DC:
Luring Mark into a rhetorical firefight would be...unwise. We already did some of that on one of the Vets blogs during the campaign. Mark is all camo, guts, guile, armor plate and bristle.
He should be. He has more than one war under his web gear, where I only have one, and he's all ready for another one. Even more, he's good at the blood-and-guts pose but there's an intellectual hiding inside Mark FROM Mark.
Somewhere deep it nags just a little bit to praise The Corps, but even my sons are doing it, having come across Marines in Jump School and Air Assault School. At Fort Leonard Wood in the winter, for God's sake, Marines at the MP School stroll around in rolled-up shirt sleeves.
But, I'll just chew on the edge of my canteen cup here and say Happy Birthday Marines! And mean it.
Rhod,
That is a great comment re: the intellectual Mark hiding from Mark. Oh, man. Watch out. With all the Marines checking in today you might pull some brain muscles. You know we are not the sharpest tools in the shed. Are you taking advantage, Rhod?
I appreciate, continue to learn from, and be inspired by vets like yourself who have put it all on the line ... and at a time when it certainly wasn't fashionable to do so. I never had to. When I consider your service and the continuing service of your boys, I just have a deep sense of gratitude and respect. I know you must be so proud of them.
Rhod;
Thanks, I appreciate it and don't know what to say, except the next case of Hamms is on me, and I will even bring the fire-extinguisher.
and Rhod , Stay well.
Semper Fi.
Happy Birthday, Marine!
Last Summer a former Marine up the road from us died suddently at the age of 69. His name was Norman, but we called him Nobby, for reasons unknown to me.
He ran nearly every day, bicycle- raced, could still do almost 100 pushups, built his own house with a fieldstone tower beside it, rode a Harley, was bright, educated, kind to a fault, and because this is Connecticut, he was our only neighbor with unfailing support for our sons and the Iraq War. He never failed to ask about them.
Even in this foggy liberal swamp, something vanished with Nobby, and it effected everyone for miles around, everyone who knew him. We all thought he'd go on forever, for one thing. But I also believe that everyone felt secure in knowing that such men existed, even the Clintonoids and Kerryites.
Marines are like that. In their excellence they raise the average for us farther than it deserves to go, and the loss of one Marine removes the vicarious courage derived from him by ten other men. Without Nobby the rest of us have to stand on our own because there's no one to replace him.
I believe this to be true.
It never ceases to amaze me the extent to which people will go to justifiy the evil they inflict. For God. For Country. For Marines. For Shame.
When stuck into a pack, even the sweetest dog will learn to enjoy tearing off sundry body parts. For many of us, this is nothing of which to be proud.
As for keeping "us" free. Try something as innocuous as smoking a joint at a US sidewalk cafe someday.
Semper Rectus.
ahansen:
You needn't agree, nor have any connection at all to the kind of feeling imbedded in this topic. If you haven't the capacity, fine.
The difficulty with people like you, though, is the inability to recognize your inferiority, or to compose the slimmest moral argument to underwrite your cloying stupidity, your fatuous and moronic reduction of the topic to smoking a joint at a sidewalk cafe. But then, to a goldfish, the world is all water, glass and feces.
Your particular genius seems to be puffery and pretension; you're an habitue of the clean, well-lighted places provided for you by your betters. Plumage is all you have, and everyone around you knows it. One can hear the snickering and quiet laughter even now.
It remains true, and will always remain true, that self-indulgent assholes like you leave an oil slick wherever you go, and your post is one more grease spot on what is very likely a difficult, simple-minded and squandered life.
Cafe stooges like you should avoid subjects broader and deeper than your latest hair style, the virtue of Velcro over buttons, herbal impotence treatments, and Jasmine cologne that doesn't announce your arrival.
abensen:
Your gutless attack on the Armed Froces of the United States has been duly noted.
First dumb-ass, it is for God , Country and Corps.
But it is sons of bitches like you that take your freedom for granted, you have always gotten everything you have always wanted and never had to earn a goddam thing in your worthless life. Yet you are the first to condemn anyone who has pride in being an American.
I am a second generation American, and we were always taught at home, you know what home is where you have a Mother and Father, we were always taught that we as citizens we owe the United States a debt of gratitude, this was ingrained in me so much that I actually thought I had an obligation to serve MY country.
I didn't have to go to Vietnam, I was too short, but I felt I had this Obligation, a duty, it was necessary, nothing heroic just a real pressing obligation, so I extended my time in service to go.
Now you know how I feel about my country, heres what I feel about you.
You are a spoiled spineless-puke, that if left to his own devices would burn the flag, spit on soldiers, as long as they didn't rip off your F**king head and shit down your throat, because of your lack of guts to actually serve your country.
Freedom is not free, if Freedom is worth living for it is worth dying for.
You stupid dumb-ass.
Oh and Semper Fi MF
Abensen, et al,
As I have said before, you should know better than to swing by here and take a few wild shots, for the commenters lurk on the bluffs.
It always amazes me how some hardcore Leftists take days dedicated to the remembrance of insititutions beloved by Americans to attack those institutions.
Abensen ... you should take a look and the mirror and ask yourself why. No one here called any one out. There was no need.
Left unchecked, your rage will ultimately destroy you
DC:
Thirty-three posts elapsed on a thread devoted to the Corps before one of them landed here vulgar, vicious and ugly. And that was from a critic.
Ahansen's deformed pacifism and enlightenment is rationalized cowardice. He knows it and we know it, so the argument is about something he doesn't admit. He compares himself to Marines, falls short and then hates the Marines.
If he knew Latin, he'd also know that Recti are muscles, especially the kinds that give a Marine a six-pack on the stomach. Ahansen is not only a coward, he's too stupid to know that he's an idiot. What he was saying is close to Always Muscular.
I'd invite him to test his ideas by announcing to a group of Marines that they're Always Assholes. At the very least it would test the depth of his convictions.
And you're right. He's angry about things even he can't define.
I don't know why I came up annonymous, but it did.
Annonymous was me.
Mark,
I thought that sounded like you.
And Rhod, I thought that sounded like you, too. Ha.
You know, it's good to have Abensen's ilk with the opposition ... and men like you two on our side.
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