They Came In Peace

241.

Marines killed. Families affected. Trees planted in their honor along NC Highway 24 here.

It's all the same number.

Twenty-five years ago today, a terrorist truck bomb leveled the barracks of the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit (as it was then known), based here at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

I barely remember seeing news reports the day it happened. Marines and sailors, barechested, scrambling over the massive pile of rubble and digging, clawing, tearing away the dirt and debris with a sense of urgency I'd never seen before - hours after the blast. A reporter who, after asking a Marine why they were doing it - and hearing the response "Because my brother's in there" - couldn't comprehend that he was talking about anyone lying under that pile of concrete and steel.

There's been volumes written about why it happened, where the failure was, where the blame should lie, and dozens of other circumstances surrounding this tragedy (travesty?) that quite frankly just don't concern me. What does concern me is that the men who fell that day are remembered.

That being said, I'm also mindful of the 85 French paratroopers who were killed minutes later by another bomb. "For he who sheds his blood with me this day shall be my brother."

I do my best to take a moment every year, on the day, and remember what happened in 1983. I can never fully understand what it means for the families of the fallen, Marines who were there, unable to save their brothers and unable to fight back. Those here stateside who heard the news and were also helpless to do anything about it.

There's nothing I've ever been through that could even compare to any of those situations... but about ten years later, my thoughts of those Marines and my vague impressions of that day were a significant factor in my decision to enlist in the Marine Corps.

I know I can honor the comrades, families, and memory of those 241 men. I only hope that my service in this uniform is a credit to them all as well.


Quotation of the Moment: "Valor is of no service, chance rules all, and the bravest often fall by the hands of cowards." - Tacitus, The Histories