Tribute to United States Marine Corps
A
Quaker's Letter to Marines
Dear
Marines,
I worked nights as a waitress, paying my way through college, in Honolulu during
the early 80s. Between work and school, I didn't have much time to meet other
people, and my family was thousands of miles away. Several Marines frequented
the bar, and one GySgt. of a Marine sniper platoon, Larry Hatfield, sensed my
shyness and invited me to participate in a lot of Marine recreational events. We
became close friends, but I could never understand how a person could look
through a scope and willingly kill another human being. As a Quaker, the very
concept of a sniper troubled me. I was raised that killing is always wrong -
period. I often told him, and the other guys in the sniper platoon, my opinion
on this. They usually remained silent on the subject.
As time went by, I lost contact with the Marines I knew from that sniper
platoon, but I was privileged, later on, to be invited to produce tours as a
volunteer (USO/AFE) for Marines on various bases overseas. Those of you who have
met USO/AFE entertainers know that we are nowhere near the combat zones, and are
in fact well-insulated from the horrors of war. We have fun entertaining you; we
love eating with you at the mess halls or sitting out in the dirt and hearing
your crazy jokes; we do our handshake tours of hospitals and PR tents and feel
good and then are lucky enough to go home while you stay behind.
But Iraq was different. For the first time I found myself weeping at night after
I came back from doing handshake tours. I couldn't adopt the USO maxim of
looking the Marines in the eyes and shaking hands on the hospital tours, because
there were teenage Marines with no hands and no eyes. A bomb at a well while I
was there on my last tour left 200 women and children dead or injured at the
hands of their own countrymen. The image of a Marine, badly wounded, struggling
to carry a small 3 yr old girl to safety is forever seared in my mind.
I wondered - a lot - about the kind of sacrifice that it takes for a person to
volunteer in the Corps and experience this kind of tragedy on a regular basis.
Iraqi women refugees would tell me, through translators, about how the Kurdish
women would throw their infants from trucks on their way to being executed by
Saddam Hussein in the hope that strangers would raise the soon-to-be-orphaned
children, and how often it was only the U.S. Marines and military units who
would help them get medical care if they did survive the terrors inflicted upon
them.
This is what I have learned about war and the Marines: that I have never seen a
U.S. senator cry while telling me about holding a dying friend in his arms, and
there's precious few senators who come home from work missing a leg or two.
That I have never heard a U.S. congressman tell me what it's like to pass out
soccer balls and writing paper to children who have been denied an education
since birth.
That I have never heard any politician or corporate leader describe to me, as
one Marine did after a show, that she wanted a better life for her child back
home but wanted better lives for the children of Iraq, too.
Marines are living - and sometimes dying - for democracy, not just talking about
it for the CNN cameras. They do their jobs, and come home, quietly, to go back
to farming in Iowa or driving trucks in Kentucky , and, for the most part, don't
talk about it. And God knows we civilians don't get an accurate picture back
home of what is going on.
I still think killing is wrong, but I have come to understand that sometimes it
is necessary and that lack of intervention, especially in humanitarian missions
in oppressed nations, is tantamount to pulling the trigger on innocent civilians
who only want what we want: a safe home for their children and food on the table
and the right to be who they are.
I'm not naive enough to think that most of our political leaders go to war for
compassion (I think most of them want to protect corporate interests), but I do
believe, from knowing the Marines I have been lucky enough to know, that Marines
act from compassion, decency, and with hearts bigger than most people will ever
experience.
I understand now that a sniper - or any Marine, in any job supporting the ideals
of the Corps - does what he or she does because the Constitution of the United
States is not some remote piece of paper; the idea of freedom is real to a
Marine.
As one young lance corporal told me, as he guarded us during a show set-up in a
particularly volatile area (after our show had been cancelled the day before
because terrorists had blown up another 27 children nearby), "Don't worry - we
got your back."
It shames me to think that I had to leave my country on these tours in order to
understand what precious gifts I have as an American, that every day, somewhere
in the world, a Marine is watching my back. I never considered that a sniper, or
any Marine, may be asked to kill in order to save innocent lives but now I
understand.
So to all of you Marines out there, please accept this heartfelt thanks for what
you do. To the guys from the sniper platoon in Kaneohe - this is a late apology
for questioning you, and a thank you for what you have taught me, but I hope
some of you read this. In our American culture, we don't talk much about being
noble, decent, loyal and honorable. I have yet to meet a Marine who did not
possess all of those qualities. You are the big kids in high school who didn't
let the bullies hurt the little kids.
If you are reading this from Afghanistan or Iraq or Camp Lejeune ; if you are
reading this from a V.A. facility; if you are reading this from your home, know
this: that what you do is important. When you are feeling weary and discouraged,
remember that there are people in the world living in freedom because of you.
Not only the refugees from war - but me, too.
Sincerely,
Laura Minor