Happy 235th Birthday Marines!!!

On November 10th, 1775, in Philadelphia... the city of Brotherly Love, Captain Samuel Nicholas was commissioned to recruit and organize America's first Marines.  Little did Captain Nicholas know that his name would live as long as American Marines continued to draw breath, from one age into another.

 

Captain Nicholas certainly couldn't know that 235 years later, his creation would be known as one of the most fearsome fighting force the the world has ever known. 

 

How could he have guessed that these rough and ready soldiers of the sea would be the stuff of fame and legendary exploits like the assault on Chapuletec castle, or the storming of Peleliu, or of the invasion of Inchon?

 

Nicholas surely, in his whole life, couldn't have imagined Marine tanks smashing the Iraqi Republican Guard at Kuwait International airport, or laying the smackdown on Taliban forces in Al-Anbar Province in Afghanistsn.

 

Since the inception of his Corps... Our Corps, United States Marines have been putting the boot to the ass of our enemies, but good.  We have done it in the tropics of the Pacific, the sands of the Middle East, the frozen moutains of the asian mainland, and in the equatorial heat of Africa... truly, in "every clime and place" like we sing in our hymn.

I am as proud of my service in the Corps today, as I was when I graduated from basic training, in 1981.

Happy Birthday Marines.

 
“Resolved, That two battalions of Marines be raised consisting of one colonel, two lieutenant-colonels, two majors, and other officers, as usual in other regiments; that they consist of an equal number of privates with other battalions; that particular care be taken that no persons be appointed to office, or enlisted into said battaions but such as are good seamen, or so acquainted with maritime affairs as to be able to serve with advantage by sea when required; that they be enlisted and commissioned to serve for and during the present War with Great Britain and the colonies, unless dismissed by order of Congress; that they be distinguished by names of First and Second Battalions of American Marines, and that they be considered as part of the number which the Continental Army before Boston is ordered to consist of.”

 
(The Second Marine Division... My Division!)