Shocking U.S. Marine Corp Massacre!

You are driving along in your Hum-Vee when all of a sudden the vehicle is blown to hell by a roadside bomb. You awake, after getting knocked out, to the sound of small arms fire and find that your buddy, also a U.S. Marine, has had his head blown right off of his shoulders and splattered over an area of about 100 square feet. The brain he had been using just 8 minutes ago to tell you a joke about a penguin and a priest is in little pieces some of which are stuck to your face, your uniform, and your boots. Do you take cover and hide until you can get rescued and get back to the safety of your base there in Iraq? Or, do you gather your wits about you as best as you possibly can, get up and start blowing away anyone who looks suspicious in the surrounding area, or anyone who would have been responsible for allowing the enemy to place the roadside bomb? Do you think about what you would do if you were back home in Bent Fork Alabama, or what the results will be for the families of the people you are about to kill? Or, do you simply go on autopilot and do everything you have been trained to do as a U.S. Marine to defend yourself and the assets of the United States of America that you are charged with protecting during this all out war?

The answer is that you do everything you have to do to stay alive regardless of what that means. Period. You beg, borrow, steal, kill, murder, hide, run, walk, pass "go", collect two hundred dollars, stand on your head, whatever. You do what it takes. Anything, and everything it takes, or that you think it will take to stay alive. You are a soldier. You are 4000 or 5000 miles from home in a war and fighting in a place where the only way for sure that you can tell the difference between an enemy and an ally is that people who want to kill you don't wear Marine Corps uniforms. So, anyone who isn't in a Marine Corps uniform at this moment runs a really high risk of becoming a casualty of war until your butt is 100% safe, sound, and secure. That is what you do.

Is it right? Is it moral? Is it correct? Is it just? It is war, and it is bigger than you. It is life or death, and a high percentage of the odds are say that you aren't likely to have a choice about staying alive, but you have that choice right now and you choose to do whatever it takes. That is what you do.

If you are shocked by the possibility that U.S. Marines were involved in what might turn out to be called a massacre, who cares? This is a war. If you want to support it, deal with it. If you want to end it, then get off of your butt and join the protesters, lobbyists, and anti-war factions that exist for the purpose of trying to end the war. But make no mistake: This is a war, and things like this happen during a war. They always have and they always will. And worse. And if you are living, you will be affected.