On this date in history, in Philadelphia, in His Majesty's Royal Colony of Pennsylvania, in a local dive bar (where else?) near the wharf, at Water Street and Tun Alley, the first Marine to enlist for service with the regiments authorized by the Continental Congress under command of the first Commandant of the Marine Corps, Capt. Samuel Nicholas, turned to the second Marine to sign up, and said
"Listen up, boot, the Old Corps was tougher back when I came through..."
In the 241 years since, they've made some wee mark on history by handling their enemies with all the tender loving care a tyrannosaur visits on a side of fresh meat, giving lesser mortals something to which to aspire, and turning no small number of formerly directionless miscreants into professional, disciplined killing machines seldom if ever surpassed in the annals of fighting men.
To every one of them, past and present, who earn the title they bear every day, we hoist a ceremonial tankard, wish them our best, and bid them recall, as by the blood stripes we ourselves earned, to salute our absent comrades left behind in every clime and place their nation and their duty called them.
May we all be in heaven half an hour before the Devil knows we're dead! Semper Fi!
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