From the Halls of Montezuma

The United States Marine Corps today celebrates the 234th birthday for the American fighting force that has spearheaded victories in battles from Mexico's 'Halls of Montezuma' to Africa's 'shores of Tripoli' and thousands of locales in between.

Whether in the Middle East today, or in the pre-Vietnam War days when my father, Matthew Veasey, served in the Corps, or in the World War II days, when my father-in-law, Robert Marshall, served in the Corps in the Pacific theatre, Americans have served their country in this elite group of warriors and marksmen.

On November 10th, 1775, at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, the 2nd Continental Congress resolved that a military group be formed to be known as the Continental Marines. The group would eventually consist of 131 officers and approximately 2,000 enlisted Marines.

Five days earlier, the Congress had commissioned Samuel Nicholas of Philadelphia as a 'Captain of Marines', the first officer commissioned for the group. He would become accepted in tradition as the first 'Commandant of the Marine Corps', the highest ranking officer.

Tradition also holds that much of the recruitment efforts for the group were held at Philadelphia's Tun Tavern. The tavern was a nearly century old gathering place at Water and Tun Streets, with a restaurant having been added a few decades earlier. The proprietor during the Revolutionary period, Robert Mullen, became the chief Marine recruiter.

The primary service of this Marine force would be to serve as on-board security for naval Captains and their officers. They would also position Marine sharpshooters at the tops of the ships' masts during naval battles with the assignment of taking out the opposition officers and other important ship personnel.

The first group, consisting of 5 companies with 300 Marines, met up with the Navy in the Caribbean in December of 1775, and under Nicholas they joined the Navy operations quickly undertaken in the Bahamas. Eventually, Marines would fight with George Washington's troops at Trenton and would participate in many other Revolutionary War actions.

At the war's conclusion, both the Navy and the Marines were disbanded in June of 1785. It would be 13 years before the now U.S. Congress finally permanently created the United States Marine Corps in 1798 as it prepared the military for a naval war with France. During these early years of re-establishment, the Corps took part in it's famous effort to capture 'the shores of Tripoli' during the First Barbary War against the African Barbary pirates.

During the War of 1812, the Marines were pivotal in what was largely a water-based series of battles with the British empire in the Atlantic Ocean off the American east coast and along the nation's inner rivers and other waterways. Particularly significant were their efforts to slow the British march to the nation's new capitol at Washington, D.C. and in the defense of New Orleans.

The Marines next fought in the Seminole Wars, particularly in the 2nd Seminole War of 1835-1842, when the U.S. was battling Native Americans for control of Florida. It was during their next efforts in the Mexican-American War of 1846-48 that the Corps battled into those storied 'halls of Montezuma' as the United States took control of the territory of Texas.

The Civil War in America from 1861-1865 saw the Marines do little but participate in blockades as many of their ranks split between the two battling sides of the temporarily split nation. In the decade following the Civil War, the Marine Corps emblem and the famous 'hymn' were each developed. Then in 1883 the Corps adopted it's famous motto of Semper Fidelis: Always Faithful, now frequently shortened to the famous cry of "Semper Fi!"

In 1898, the Marines played another significant role in the Spanish-American War, particularly in seizing a military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba which remains American territory to this day. During the early years of the 20th century the Corps saw action as far afield as the Boxer Rebellion in China and the Banana Wars in Haiti and Nicaragua.

It was during World War I that the Marines began to gain their modern reputation. Here the Marine Corps fought bravely at Belleau Wood near Paris, France during the German spring offensive in 1918. It became legend that the Germans so respected the Marines fighting spirit that they took to calling them Teufel Hunden, or Devil Dogs. The nickname stuck and has been a point of pride ever since.

The Marines did not go into hiding between the two massive World Wars, but instead saw the coming 2nd conflict and took numerous measures to study amphibious warfare and prepare for what they believed was a coming war with Japan. When the Japanese attacked at Pearl Harbor and the conflict in the Pacific broke out, the Marines were ready. It was during the WWII battle at Iwo Jima that the iconic image of 'Raising the Flag at Iwo Jima' captured 5 Marines and a Navy man raising the American flag over that hard-fought island.

Through both Korea and Vietnam, the Marines fought valiantly in defense of freedom around the world. As peacekeepers in Beirut, Lebanon during the early years of Islamic fundamentalism rising up, a bomb ripped through their headquarters building, killing 220 Marines and 21 other service members in what was the worst loss of life during formal peacetime in the Corps history.

The Marines have continued to fight on, leading the way in America's military battles against the forces of Middle East despotism and radical Islam from the Gulf War through to the ongoing War on Terror theatres in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

From those "Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli", the Devil Dogs of the United States Marine Corps have fought our country's battles in the air, on land, and sea. They fight for right and freedom, to keep their honor clean, in every clime and place where they could take a gun. Here's to their health and to their Corps. Happy Birthday, Marines!

9/11

"The British are Coming!" "Remember the Alamo!" "A Date Which Will Live in Infamy" "9/11"

All of these phrases are now burned by history into the collective American consciousness, automatically bringing us back to times when our nation was under attack right here on our own soil. However, the first three are actually a bit misleading in that regard. Neither the British attacks in the Revolutionary War, the Mexican attack in Texas, or the Japanese attack in Hawaii happened in an official state of the Union.

In the first, the United States was not a fully formed, world recognized, independent nation, but instead was fighting for some type of independence from the British empire. It shouted a warning among the American colonists that British troops were approaching, and is usually specifically related to the midnight ride of Paul Revere. It also hearkens us back to a time when British 'red coats' were firing on Americans, burning homes and businesses, and marching across the land that we now know as the United States of America.

The battle at the Alamo mission also was not fought on what was then technically United States soil, but was fought between the Republics of Mexico and Texas in the aftermath of the Mexican revolution. It was a decade before Texas would officially become a U.S. state. The Texian forces fighting for their independence from the Mexican government where vastly outnumbered, yet fought off the Mexican troops valiantly before finally being overrun and massacred. The incident rallied Texians to eventual victory, and ultimately to statehood.

Again, the Japanese sneak attack in Hawaii did not technically take place on an official state in the Union. On December 7th, 1941, Hawaii was an annexed American territory and the site of an extremely strategic naval base located at Pearl Harbor. When the Japanese bombs and kamakazi pilots virtually wiped out the American Pacific Naval fleet that morning, it not only sparked our entry into World War II, but also showed the importance of Hawaii to our interests, resulting in full statehood by 1959.

Most people alive today know full well of the events of 9/11 as they relate to more attacks on American soil, attacks this time on an official state (New York) as well as on the seat of our government (Washington, D.C.), along with a thwarted attack that ended in the loss of American lives in Pennsylvania.

Here in Philadelphia and along much of the American east coast, today is a dark, gloomy day on which the rain pours from the skies. I will refrain from talk of it being tears for the lives of the nearly 3,000 victims lost that day. The only reason that I point out the bleak weather conditions today is to relate how stark the contrast it is with that absolutely gorgeous late summer morning, now eight years ago.

America awoke and began it's commute to work on that Tuesday morning with little thought of the radical Islamic assault that was fully planned and already operational. Despite repeated threats and actual attacks leading up to that day, most Americans had their heads in the sand regarding men such as Osama bin Laden and groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda. We were virtually untouchable and absolutely indestructible as a nation. All that went away in just a couple of hours.

Despite the magnitude and suddeness of those attacks, the loss of all of those lives, the televised attacks on and collapse of the iconic Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, a jet airplane ramming through the core of our national defense at the Pentegon, the grounding of American air traffic for almost a week, and the subsequent wars fought in Iraq and Afghanistan we seem to have learned little.

The radical Islamists who attacked us that morning were not representatives of any particular nation. We were not attacked that morning and at other times by Saudi Arabia, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Iran, or Libya, or Egypt, or any single Middle Eastern or Arabic nation or group of nations. We were attacked by radical groups operating within those nations who are inspired by the Koran and their faith to conquer the world on behalf of Islam.

In past wars and battles, whether fought to form the United States as with Britain, to expand the United States as with Mexico, or to defend the United States as with Japan the enemy was usually an easy to define nation-state. It had borders, populations, armies, resources, and allies that were usually easily definable. To win, you had to defeat the other guys in head-to-head physical combat. There was a measure of ideology that needed to be defeated as well, but ultimately if you won the physical battles and suppressed the enemy troops and their leaders, you were the clear winner.

I put it to you that it is no different now. We still need to win that physical battle. But as with those past conflicts, this is also a war of ideologies, and we must also win on that front to ever have a long-lasting peace. This war must be fought and won on two fronts, both of which we must be willing to support and sustain if we want to win.

On one hand we must support and sustain the ideological war that is raging within Islam itself. There are moderate forces within that religion, the 2nd largest on the planet with an influence over approximately 1.5 billion people, or almost 1 in every 5 people on the planet. The radical forces calling for that religion to control the world not only religiously, but also sociologically, financially, politically is growing. We must support in every way the forces within Islam that want to maintain it as a part of the whole where the world is concerned, not as a world domination ideology.

On the other hand, we must be willing to back that financial and rhetorical support up with our armed forces. The radical Islamist groups are heavily armed, well equipped, and train regularly. And their numbers and influence are growing, as is their technology. It is just a matter of time before nuclear weapons are in the hands of radical Islamic terrorist regimes. Once that happens, these groups will use these weapons to further their agenda in Israel, Europe, and here in America. Until such elements are effectively wiped out, we are going to have physical battles to fight.

There will be a number of remembrances across the country and around the world today on the 8th anniversary of those radical Islamic attacks on September 11th, 2001. There will be a few television programs this evening that will recall the events of that day. If you have not yet seen them, I can highly recommend four different films that you need to watch.

"9/11" was perhaps the best documentary on the day of the attacks, and is available by clicking on to the title of this article through Amazon. This and "United 93" are probably the two best films ever made to this point. "World Trade Center" is also a well made dramatic depiction of the New York attacks. Finally, the documentary film "Obsession" tells the full story of the radical Islamic problem across the world today.

9/11 was not the beginning of this world-wide ideological struggle, and we will not likely see the end any time soon, if ever. There will be further dates to remember, catch-phrases to live in infamy. Today we should remember those who lost their lives that day, as well as those who fought and continue to fight for victory in the continuing ideological struggle against the forces of radical Islam. Those forces are still out there, still bent on that same world domination, and the United States of America continues to stand as the best defense against their aggression.