Serving.

First of all, thank you Veterans for serving our country! And many happy returns of the day to the Marines worldwide who celebrated their 235th birthday on the 10th. I am often humbled when people thank me for my service. Generally the people that do so fall in to two categories: 

            1: People who really don't know what serving in the military entails, but love/appreciate us anyhow. 

           2: People who served long before I was born in places like Bougainville, Iwo Jima¹ , the Bulge, the Chosin Reservoir² , Hue City, and Grenada, who for some reason deem me worthy of their thanks, when in reality they've seen much more war than anyone of my generation.

Those Marines who have fought battles all around the globe since 1775 are a different breed. The ones that are still alive who fought in the Pacific in WWII, in Korea in the '50s, and in Vietnam in the 60's and 70's are the ones that we owe our freedoms to. Not to take anything away from the ones who came before them, but these warriors are still with us. We can never do anything to thank them enough. My "service" pales in comparison to theirs.

I often do not know how to respond when people thank me for my service. I would like to say that I joined out of a sense of duty to the body politic of the United States. Or, that I felt compelled to defend those who cannot do so themselves. I really just had an inkling that I should serve nine years ago, so I enlisted. I've stayed in because I've met some of my closest friends in the Marines and because I have fun doing it. 

1: (Image) "The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years."
- James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy (February 23, 1945)

2: "All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us... they can't get away this time." 
- Marine Lieutenant General Lewis B."Chesty" Puller (when surrounded by 8 enemy divisions)