Sometimes We forget what's really important

[bummed-n-Md]

I happen to know these Marines and the ship they are sailing on (I was on it the last time it 'sailed' to the same place) and I said my 'goodbyes' just before they left.

 

I wish you all "fair winds and following seas" during your transit.

 

Most of all, I can say all that really needs to be said with a simple

 

SEMPER FI Marines.

 

   :thumb:

 

bummed.

 

 

 

"Super Bowl battle is dwarfed by what band of brothers faces"

by Bryan Burwell

St. Louis Post Dispatch

1/22/2003

 

SAN DIEGO - It was just around midnight Tuesday night,  and the outdoor

courtyard at Dick's Last Resort was throbbing with the rowdy  energy of a

spring break bacchanal. There was loud rock music blaring out of the stereo

speakers, and the air was filled with the distinct and somewhat

revolting  aroma of deep-fried bar food, cigarette smoke and spilled beer.

 

Dick's is  the sort of bar-restaurant ideally suited for Super Bowl week

mischief,  because it has a down-and-dirty roadhouse feel to it. The

waiters, waitresses  and bartenders are charmingly rude, and the wood floors

are covered with sand  and all sorts of indistinguishable debris.

The clientele on this evening is a  fascinating mix of twenty-something

college kids, thirty-something  conventioneers and 40-something Super Bowl

high-rollers.

 

Yet there was  one table in Dick's courtyard Tuesday night that was

noticeably different  from the others. There were six young men at the

table and one young woman, and  while they were drinking like everyone else

in the room, there was something all  too serious going on at this table

that let you know that their thoughts were a  long way from the mindless

frivolity of Super Bowl week.

 

Maybe it was the  close-cropped "barracks haircuts" that gave them away. All

the men's heads were cut in that familiar look of a professional

soldier, skin-close on the sides,  and on top a tight shock of hair that

resembled new shoe-brush  bristles.

 

"We're Marines," one man told me. "And tomorrow we're boarding  a ship for

... well . . I really can't tell you where, but you know."

 

Of course we knew. In less than an hour, they would report back to a ship

docked along the Southern California coast, then on Wednesday head across

the Pacific Ocean, bound for a potential war in Iraq. So this was no Super

Bowl party for them. This was their last night out on the town. One Marine

was saying  goodbye to his wife. The others were not so lucky. They all just

sat around the table, throwing back beers and wrestling with the

sobering uncertainty of the  rest of their lives.

 

"We're going to war and none of us knows if we're ever coming back," said

another Marine, a 28-year-old from Southern Illinois.  They all requested

that I not use their names. "Just tell 'em we're the men of  (Marine

Aviation Land Support Squad 39)," they said.

 

On Super Bowl Sunday, the men of MALS 29 will be watching the game from the

mess hall of their ship. "That is, if we're lucky and the weather is

good and it doesn't interfere  with the satellite signal," said the Marine

with the bald head and burnt-orange  shirt. "But I gotta tell you, I'm not

that big a sports fan anymore. It's going to be the first pro football game

I've watched in . . . I can't even remember."

 

 Why is that?

 

"Well, here's my problem with pro sports today," he said. "I don't care

whether it's football, basketball or baseball.  Guys are complaining about

making $6 million instead of $7 million, and what is  their job? Playing a

damned game. You know what I made last year? I made  $14,000. They pay me

$14,000, and you know what my job description is? I'm paid to take a

bullet."

 

When he said those words, it positively staggered me.  Fourteen thousand

dollars to take a bullet.  Not a day goes by that I  am not reminded of

what a wonderful life I lead.  I m paid to write about sports and tell

stories on radio and television about the games people play. But

sometimes, even in the midst of a grand sporting event, something happens to

put  the frivolity of sports into its proper perspective, and this was it.

 

Fourteen thousand dollars to take a bullet.  As I sit  here writing from my

hotel room, I can look out my balcony window and I see a  Navy

battleship cutting through the San Diego Bay, heading out to sea. I can see

the sailors standing on the deck as the ship sails past Coronado Island,

the San  Diego Marina and the downtown Seaport Village, and I wonder if any

of the men  from MALS 39 are aboard.

 

It was only 12 hours ago that I was sitting at the table with my guys,

buying them beers, and listening to their soldier  stories. The Marine from

Southern Illinois who sat to my right pointed to the bald Marine in the

orange shirt who was seated to my left. "You know, I don't  even know this

guy, can you believe that? We just met a few hours ago when we came into

Dick's. Oh, I've seen him on the base, but I've never met him  before

tonight.  But here's what's so special about that man, and why I love that

man. He's my brother. Semper Fi. I know a guy back home, and he is my  best

friend.  I'm 28 years old and we've known each other all our lives.  But

today, that friend is more of a stranger to me than that Marine sitting

over  there, who I've never met before tonight. That's why they call us a

Band of  Brothers."

 

The little Marine in the orange shirt lifted his glass toward the Marine

from Southern Illinois and nodded his head. "That's right," he said.

"That's my brother over there, and I'm gonna take a bullet for him if I have

to."

 

He said it with a calm and jolting certainty.  There was a moving, but

chilling, pride in his words.   All around them, people were drinking,

shouting and laughing. The college kids and the conventioneers and NFL

high-rollers were living the good, carefree life. Across the street, a

storefront that was vacant two weeks ago was now filled with $30  caps, $400

leather jackets, $40 mugs and $27 T-shirts with the fancy blue and

yellow Super Bowl XXXVII logo embroidered on it.

 

From every end of the streets of downtown San Diego's fabled Gaslamp

Quarter, Super Bowl revelers toasted the Raiders and the Bucanneers with

grog-sized mugs filled with beers  and rums. But just around midnight in the

middle of the courtyard of Dick's Last Resort, a far more deserving

toast was going up to the men of MALS 39. We clicked our glasses together,

and a few minutes later, they quietly slipped out the courtyard gates.

 

Suddenly, the Super Bowl didn't seem so important anymore.

[GMC4me]

So true!!

 

SEMPER FI Marines!

[City_Slicker]