The Professional

(This is a tribute to all Marines of the past, the present, and the future. I speak of a Man, with the understanding that there are women who are also in harms way. However, in regards to my experience in the Marine Corps, I served solely with Men. Semper Fidelis, God Bless, and Welcome Home, my brothers.)

Under a foreign sky there is a man who stands ready to do harm on the behalf of his nation. His movements are spare, his manner neat. His body is a finely-tuned machine, trained in the arts of war and kept ready and strong by his own will. His hands are rough, those of a warrior; they have been clenched in anger and held steady under moments of intense crises. They move over his weapon with a deft assurance that one normally sees with less violent objects. He knows his weapon inside and out and he knows its limitations and the devastation that may be wrought from the muzzle of the weapon, and he shoulders the responsibility of carrying such an item with the knowledge that, for now, it must be used.

His heart is full of pride and faith in his brothers; too, he carries the memories of those who have fallen in the heat of combat everywhere he goes, and he has vowed to carry their memory to his own grave and beyond. With every beat of this noble heart he feels the intense weight of the realization that his brothers are relying upon him, even as he relies upon them. He will go to the ends of the earth for them, carry any burden for them, fight any battle for them, share his last meal with them, give them the last drop of his water, and share words of wisdom, courage, and humor with them.

His soul is firm and prepared for the work he has to do, brimming with the sort of courage that is oft misunderstood. Courage is not the absence of fear; it is not the ability to overcome the jitters,
to quell fear, or to conquer the desire to run. It is the ability to know what is, and is not, to be feared. For he knows that fearing death is useless; death comes to us all, whether in the cold, sterile halls of a nursing home or while making a last, desperate charge against a determined foe. Courage, to him, is fearing dishonor, for he knows that to lose his life but preserve his honor is the only thing within his power. To fear disgrace but not death, to fear dereliction but not duty; that is courage to one such as he. The truly courageous do not live in constant fear from morning to night. The truly courageous are calm because they know who they are. And this professional knows who he is.

His steely eyes reflect this knowledge that he carries in his soul for he has looked Death and Fear in the face, and overcome them both. Too, his eyes are older than most, for he has seen in a single day more than most see in their entire lifetime. He has watched his brothers die, he has seen his brothers triumph, and he has seen all this as he has labored alongside them in their tasks. He has seen naked vengeance in all its horrid forms; he has hated and he has loved, and he has wept when he has felt there were no more tears to give.

Where his feet tread, so too has his flag been. Upon his shoulders is the flag of his Nation, and he is the bearer of this Ensign and the adjudicator of his people. He carries the standard that has stood for freedom and justice, that is far older than he . Within that standard is the blood of all those who have gone before, who have fought in every clime and place, who have asked for naught in return for their willingness to shed blood for their Country, and he stands ready to carry that standard to the very gates of Hell itself, and beyond, should he be asked to do so.

He is that which entire libraries of tomes have been written about, that which poems and odes have been penned. In his veins flows the blood of a consummate professional, of a timeless warrior.

He Is A Marine.


(Photos, from top to bottom: Lance Corporal Dane Brown, Republic of Vietnam, 1964-1969; Sergeant E.A. Schrumpf, Iraq, 1997-2004; Gunnery Sergeant Mike Cheramie, Iraq, 1983-2003; Gunnery Sergeant Mike Anderson, Al Asad Iraq, 1992-Present; Myself, Sergeant, Iraq, 1999-2003)