WHAT MAKES A MARINE 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 (it’s 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 and 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 "you’re 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, (a lot 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, 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. Theyhad 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 sheer 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 hadn't been invented yet, 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 bitches, 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 so anachronistic on the twentieth-century battlefield 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 (EG&A) and claim the title 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 without seeing action, but if the word is given you'll charge across that Wheatfield! Whether a Marine has been schooled in automated supply, or automotive mechanics, or aviation electronics, is immaterial. Those things are secondary - the Corps does them because it must. The modern battle 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", Edar 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 may 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 in the red flash of battle or 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.

 

Passed on to a Marine from another Marine!

 

SEMPER FI BROTHERS AND SISTERS!

Former Sgt. Nick Sparacino 2/9 Viet Nam 1966

D. Chief of Police Oak Forest Il.

 

Comments

[SeaDog_52]

I was in Platoon 289 at P.I. June-September, 1968, and we had about the same attrition rate and for the same reasons. I have been privileged to know younger Marines, one of my clerk's sons was on the assault of Kuwait Airport - the times and ages may have changed, but the 'Marine' is still the same - steeped in the history and honor of their Corps.

[Pincher]

Thanks for the post Major... Brought tears to the eyes and pounding to my heart.. There is nothing like a Marine... Now and for always. Semper Fi!

[Mike P]

Quite possibly the best that I have ever heard it expressed. As I have said before, if I have to explain, you wouldn't understand. Semper Fi.

[Blaine C]

quite the coincidental time line - 2210 in 1968 - because i was in 2209 from Nov to mid-Jan of 1967. Semper Fi major, sir.

[bbogg10559]

Awesome description of what makes a Marine. My son is a new Marine and is at MCT in Camp Pendleton. I didn't want him to be in the military and neither did his mother, but he didn't care. He came from a good home, he has an older brother that he idolizes, he was going to be a junior in college, and he just told us it was his calling. I didn't understand his decision, nor do I understand any Marines decision, to put his life in jeopardy, but that's what makes a man a Marine. I am very proud of my Marine, but scared for him. I was against the military for selfish reasons, because my sons are the best gift I've ever received, the thought of losing one of them is something I can't even fathom! God bless all of you warriors, you are truly a rare breed. Now that my son is a Marine, I have a sense of pride that I can't even put into words.

[Maj Pain]

Thanks for the comments warriors!
bbogg-FYI there was a certain "Major" that was excepted to the Air Force academy to play football however his parents didn't tell him until the day before it was too late. They hesitated because they didn't want him to go into the military. That Major then happen to go & enlist into the Marines, become a Pvt, then Cpl before applying for an officer program in the Marines. Strange how things work out. I wouldn't have changed it for the world. Semper Fi

[Anon]

Did you ever get to play college football? Many college coaches would like to have Marines play for them as they go through process of becoming Marine Officers.

[John F. Connelly Jr.]

Outstanding Enlightening Piece. Thank you
John F. Connelly Jr. 0103415 5th Marines An Hoa 1968-69

[Dale Wilson]

Semper Fi, Marine!!

[Cory Buckley]

I passed this article on to a retired Army Col that I know and this is his reply. I am a 20 year Marine Corp Vet (Grunt) and am pretty offended to say the least.

C.W. Buckley (GySgt USMC Ret)

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The marines are a great military service, few will dispute that claim.

The first refuge of the insecure is to designate an enemy and then try to tear them down. We have all seen the coward who picks out someone who is bigger (sic, 'better'- economically, intellectually, professionally, more respected, take your pick) than he is, then, usually behind their back, say stuff that makes the coward feel bigger about himself. Most of what sparacino (if that's who really wrote this- it is the 'internet' after all) says about the other services is incorrect, again reflecting the predictable ignorance of those who would claim superiority over other whole classes of people. Racists, tyrants, and other demagogues rely on disinformation, self-aggrandizement, exaggeration and other stereotypical methods of propaganda to sway their hoped-to-be-compliant audience. In our American culture, fortunately, we have a level of objectivity and education that sees through these shallow attempts to slander those who do not deserve it, even if it purports to promote your own tribe.

Who does he have to prove anything to? Who do any of us have to prove anything to? I say "ourselves," and the real enemies who see who and what we are through actual performance. That does not require denigrating our best friends.

Healthy competition is good. Sparacino does not understand that. He would turn brothers in arms (& sisters) into opponents. All apparently to feed his "little man" ego, his deep sense of inferiority. I call it an effort to establish himself as the subject matter 'taliban.' In this case his self-proclaimed superiority. Subscribe to his perverted sense of what to believe and you are little better than a soldier, sailor, airman or coastie whom he tries to demean. Some call it brainwashing.

He says "passed to a marine from another marine" - Well, I give my marine friends more credit than to buy this brand of folderal. My conclusion is that agreeing with what he wrote is to be ignorant, believing his brand of inferiority is to be stupid.

check out http://www.military.com/news/article/medal-of-honor-recipient-john-f-baker-dead-at-66.html?ESRC=army-a.nl and google Audie Murphy.

Ray Roth
rayr36@mail.com

[Joeseph]

Its OK Cory-Look what the Major post about what "Army" Colonels are also saying. Apparently they are off the mark.
http://www.onemarinesview.com/one_marines_view/2012/02/truth-lies-and-afghanistan.html