“Every Marine is one link in a chain that started in a tavern in 1775. The chain only breaks if we forget what it cost to forge it.”
Today the only armed service founded in a bar celebrates its birthday.
And yes… it is kind of a big deal.
On November 10, 1775, the Marine Corps was born at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia. Two hundred and fifty one years ago. Think about that for a second. Before this country was even a country, Marines were already standing up to go fight for it.
I got to be one small part of that story. 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines. Weapons Company, CAAT platoon. 0331, heavy machine gunner.
The deployments, the long days, the weight of that gun… none of it compares to what the Marines before us carried. But it teaches you something you never unlearn. The title is not given. It is earned, and then you spend the rest of your life trying to live worthy of the men who earned it before you.
President Ronald Reagan once said, “Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But the Marines don’t have that problem.”
He was right. No Marine has to wonder. The difference is written in 251 years of history, in places most people only read about, by men and women who stood up when it counted.
Michelle and me just went to the National Museum of the Marine Corps to honor that history. You walk those halls and it gets quiet inside you. Every exhibit is a name. Every name is a family that gave something they never got back.
That is what today really is. It is not just a birthday. It is a roll call of 251 years of men and women who raised their right hand and meant it.
So happy birthday, Marines. To the ones still serving, the ones who came home, and the ones who did not… we remember, and we carry it forward.
Semper Fi.
#MorningThoughts
