Never take it for granted

from One Marine’s View

Shit happens fast and before you know it things have changed for certain that cannot be changed back. You must never take for granted what you are doing. For, what you are doing is consuming resources that you only get a limited supply of. Stop and look at what you are doing. Is it really what you should be doing? Are you doing what you really want to do or have to do at this time?

When we lose a warrior, a part of you goes with them. You may not have known everything about him or known his favorite color but you do know he is a Marine and willing to sacrifice everything to make something bad better and make a difference. Unfortunately, in the line of work we do, sometimes that is exactly what happens. I cannot imagine the heart ache of those who lost hundreds in one day in previous wars. I can only imagine their will to continue and to sharpen their steel that much more to ensure those warriors sacrifice was for not.

I can tell you first hand, although tragic and inconceivable, of the pain experienced by the fellow family members when their loved one is lost, I know their sacrifice is not wasted. The enemy here despises us as we are kicking the living dog shit out of them. It’s not the superior technology in this type of war that wins, it’s the Marine conducting the light infantry skills he was born to know. We continue to cut off the enemy's decision making ability faster than they can make it, find IED cells while processing materials and destroying them before 90% of them ever make into the ground, and of those 10% that make it into the ground, we find over 80% of those before they are detonated.  The enemy capitalizes on the coward ways of indiscriminate tactics like IEDs that wound innocent kids, and when they do muster enough intestinal fortitude to face us one on one they shoot from behind innocent civilians.  Know your young warriors utilize the utmost discipline and skill to bring the wrath onto the enemy and when they have them in their sights, it’s not the stealth aircraft above, the millions of dollars in technological equipment, it’s the smart young warrior that hunts the enemy down and doesn’t allow them to escape. 

Your Marines are doing this every single day here. Despite the challenges both physical and mental as seen in the above tactics, your young warriors are winning in the counter insurgency fight. The enemy cannot stand toe to toe with the young Americans and they are learning that the Marines are a professional, dedicated fighting force that they would rather not tango with.

From the smiles of children walking down a street of a recently liberated village to the compassion of our young Marines that tend to those same children after recently slugging it out with the enemy, I often ask “Where do we get such men?"  Such men that will sacrifice themselves to protect others they have never met? To demonstrate a nearly inconceivable wrath of weaponry onto the enemy and in a split second later help a young child or elderly man out of the street, sometimes even before the battle is over?

He is a Marine and willing to sacrifice everything to make something bad better off and make a difference. They will not be forgotten. Semper Fidelis.