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August 03, 2005
We few, we happy few. . . .
Donald Sensing offers an e-mail from a JAG officer recounting a day of valor earlier this year. The writer creates a vivid portrait of the courage of our Marines, and captures the motivation of warriors through the ages:
. . . The CO and some of Parello’s squadmates said some words; I guess the same kinds of things that have been uttered since men first went forward under a banner, but had to carry a comrade from the field.
The Spartans’ wives would tell them “come back with your shield or on it,” the Romans followed the legion’s golden eagle embossed “For the Senate and the People of Rome,” an outnumbered English king once proclaimed “We few, we happy few.”
Men of arms have died from time out of memory for a slogan, a flag, a tradition, a belief, a brother-in-arms.
Some in our country would ask what our Marines died and were maimed for; I am here and I would say that it was for all these things and, that if you can only believe it was for a strip of dirt in a grimy palm grove along the river of a country in which we have no business, you just don’t get it. . . .
With one quick link, treat yourself to the rest of this outstanding essay. If you remain unmoved by their sacrifice, you're a miserable, unfeeling, unpatriotic son of a bitch.
Posted by Mike Lief at August 3, 2005 08:03 AM
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