SEMPER FI

Warrior, Devil Dog, GRUNT…whatever you choose to call us it boils down to the same, MARINE! Some people have asked me over the last year or so why I chose the Marines over any other branch or why I chose the military in general. I was never able to give the a straight answer, I would just give some smart-alec remark about being the best and keep doing what I was doing. But here over the last few insomniac days of staying up till 4 or 6 in the morning I’ve begun to think about it. Why did I choose the military life over a civilian? What drove me to be a GRUNT?

I usually come back to a time when I was young and told my mom that I wanted to be an “army man”. She simply looked at me and said, “ Do you think you could kill another person?” Me being the good son, I said no, and that was the end of it. Then I watched a movie called, “Sands of Iwo Jima” with my favorite actor ever, Mr. John Wayne (a.k.a. Marion Michael Morrison). From that day on I knew that if I chose the military life, I wanted to be one of those MARINE’s! Fast forward quit a few years and mistakes, I come face to face with a choice, continue the path and end up in some trouble, or join the military and change my life. So I walk into the recruiter’s office in the hot month of July 2001 and told him, “Sir, I’m going to be a Infantry Machine Gunner, I need you to get the paperwork together!” Needless to say he was a little blown back by this. After taking the ASVAB over and scouring a pretty nice score he starts trying to talk me out of the Infantry. I let him talk and then said my peace, which went a little something like this…

“Sir, with all do respect, all the Marines I know were Infantrymen! I know that I have a skill of shooting and such that would be wasted if I were to get put into a job in admin or the air-wing. Besides those jobs are so cushy I bet they have a waiting line for them. I know for a fact that a normal person doesn’t want to be shot at...I’m not normal. I am an extremist, I have to push myself to the most extreme of whatever I do and being an Infantry Machine gunner is what I call insane.”

Well, after 9/11 happened and all the paper work was in I headed off to Paris Island, South Carolina. A place on earth that if you don’t like the weather wait 5 minutes and it’ll change. The rest is pretty much history. (Which I have a feeling I’ll cover in later blogs HA HA)

As I was sitting back thinking about all of this the other night it occurred to me. Not everyone is called to be a warrior, a grunt, or even a military person. Not to sound conceited, but it’s a calling that really does separate the weak of mind or body from the pack. To be a Marine Corps Infantry Machine Gunner (that’s all I know, I don’t know how to think like any other person/job MOS) you have to be missing a few screws, and be at a mental state that a civilian will swear that your crazy and your fellow 0331’s will swear your normal. When your sitting up in your Machine gun after/before/during sending mass amounts of rounds down range at your target, human or not, there is a sense of knowing that you ARE doing what you were born to do, that happiness is truly a belt-fed weapon, and that one day either you or your “brother” will be telling your kids/grandkids/niece or nephew about a fellow machine gunner and how that man was our best friend. The legacy will go on and on about the brother that lost his life or arm, or mind for that matter, and no matter how crazy things got he was always there for you. All in all, there was no greater friend, brother, or comrade than that machine gunner.