Semper Fi!!

“Some spend their entire lives wondering if they have made a difference in this world. The Marines don't have that problem.”

~Ronald W. Reagan

Ever since I was young I have always known a few things, but the most important thing is that I love the United States of America.  As my father would say even with all America’s problems the United States is still far better than whatever country is in second place.  As I have grown up I understand this phrase and I have embraced it more and more.  One of the reasons that the United States is so great is our home grown heroes. 

This piece is about those men, and women, who are known from the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli.  We call them Devil Dogs, Jarheads, and Leathernecks, but all in all they are Marines. 

Unlike the other branches of our Armed Services the Marines are never former Marine or ex-Marines, from the day they graduate from basic until they are laid to rest, usually by their fellow Marines, they are Marines.  Ever since Captain Samuel Nicholas formed two battalions of Continental Marines on November 10, 1775 in Philadelphia, PA Marines have defended this country with their lives, they are the heroes that everyone should look up to.  In my life I have had the privilege to know many Marines and count them as some of my best friends. 

When I was in high school my sister came home from a School trip in DC and she showed me her pictures she that she had taken.  There was this one picture that I keep coming back to, a large bronze statue of six men planting our flag into the ground.  At that time, I did not know that it was a representation of the most iconic photo of the 20th century, or even that Iwo Jima was a real place nor the story of those six boys.  All I saw was an icon of America.

In the past few years I as I have started taking pictures I have noticed a few things, any place that the Eagle Globe and Anchor is placed on a memorial to Marines it is ALWAYS shined and kept clean.  Most people would never notice this, but when you are looking at photographs you start noticing things.  So I asked my friend Tom a question about it.  Tom is a Marine that I work with and he told me that Marines have so much pride in their emblem that they will go out to a memorial, clean the emblem and polish it and Marines will never allow it to be tarnished, be it by the elements or through dishonor.

 

So on the 237th anniversary of the Marine Corps founding let us honor these men who have always done what the United States has needed them to do.  If you see a Marine today wish them a Happy Birthday and Semper Fi!  

“Of the Marines on Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue.”

~~Chester W. Nimitz