Honor, Courage, Commitment
Americans are fortunate to have a warrior class willing to risk life and limb to keep the country free. I suppose certain elites do not agree. Heaven help us if they convince a majority. Among a batch of recent donations to the floating book shop was Making the Corps by Thomas E. Ricks. It is an account of a group of young men, early 1995, who wish to enter that vaunted branch of service, from Day One at Parris Island, South Carolina until their return to the real world on leave eleven weeks later. There are 63 at the start. Not all make it. They are a diverse mix, most from humble backgrounds. Although training is arduous, there have been changes in language, elimination of cursing. The author is objective, not fawning. Here are excerpts: “With their emphasis on honor, courage, and commitment, they offer an alternative to the loneliness and distrust that today seem so widespread…” Words from a Major: “… I’ve never been as frightened in combat as I was here on Parris Island.” “The 14 percent attrition rate for males on Parris Island is almost double the Army’s boot camp dropout rate…” From novelist James Webb, recipient of both the Bronze and Silver Star for actions in Vietnam, whose words fit perfectly almost 30 years later: “The problem of the eighties and nineties isn’t that corporate America abandoned the people, but that elites have decided to pick up their pieces and protect each other at the expense of everyone else…” “Unlike their counterparts in the Army, Marines don’t seem nearly so often to be chewed out by their commanders for speaking their minds, even to reporters. That’s partly because the Marines are long accustomed to ‘embedding’ reporters with their units…” “… Marines in particular, when looking at America, see a society weakened by selfishness, indiscipline, and fragmentation.” “About one-third of all Marines fail to complete their first term of enlistment…” Ricks’ style is journalistic, not literary. The book is a bit overwritten and repetitive. He occasionally veers from the central theme, which I didn’t mind until the next to last chapter, which is long and adds little. Still, this is a valuable book. I feel sheepish knowing I’m one of the selfish individuals Marines frown upon but are willing to die for, although I’m certainly not an elitist. They are better men than me. 447 users at Amazon have rated Making the Corps, forging to a consensus of 4.4 on a scale of five. I’ll go with 3.25… Born in Massachusetts, a graduate of Yale, Ricks has reported for the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. He has won two Pulitzers and has written six other works of non-fiction and a novel.
More evidence the left is winning, headline from nypost.com: “A quarter of all high school students no longer identifies as heterosexual: CDC report.”
I decided to take the floating book shop on the road today to avoid donations, since the inventory is ridiculous and I never refuse anyone nice enough to haul wares. It didn’t work out, but two good things happened. My thanks to Steve, who settled his tab, and to the sweet woman I hadn’t seen in years. She is ecstatic that her son, 60 and living in Arizona, has survived cancer, despite being in and out of ICU a year, longer than any other patient. She was 17 when he was born. He was a preemie, 3.5 pounds. She is a ray of sunshine.
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