The parade grounds at Marine Corps Recruiting Depot San Diego is a vast stretch of nothing. In the beginning, the emptiness is palpable. It is a void, and voids do not belong in nature. Then the playing of the band wafts in. The band marches and plays, but such is the size of the grounds that the people on the outskirts only hear the band in fits and starts, snippets carried on a favorable breeze.
The company marches in, divided by platoons. From a distance, they are a machine, legs and arms swinging to some unheard cadence, bodies moving in unison, a long mass flickering in the haze of the morning heat. Seeing the platoons is to see a war machine* in its nascent state. This is the beginning, the machine newly born, still wet from its cocoon. Born deadly and growing deadlier.
As they march past, the illusion of a machine fades and faces come into focus. Young faces. Young men. Looks of determination made with varying degrees of success, military bearing worn like a new hat. But the machine never fades entirely, never vanishes completely. The cadence is still there, that drumbeat guiding their legs to pound the ground in unison, willing them to be one thing rather than four-hundred-and-forty-one men.
The parade continues, inspections are made, speeches are given, and then marines are released, set free. The war machine dissolves into four-hundred-and-forty-one men. Families stream from the bleachers, walk onto the sacred parade deck. Military bearing, that bulldog face so tied to the image of the Marine, is transformed into smiles of relief and accomplishment. As I watch them love their family and get loved on in return, I can't help but think that the machine is still there, in these men. They are forever part of it now, will always feel the cadence in the distance, thumping, driving the rhythm of their lives.
We talk afterwards, over dinner. I tell him I'm proud of him. That what he's done is hard. Harder than anything that I've done. Harder than anything I think I can do. He says that I can or could. Later that night, I realize I hadn't said what I really meant. What I said was that I couldn't do it, but what I meant was that I wouldn't do it. I do not know if I could do what he did, but I know for certain that he did something that I would not do. He did something that most would not do.
Ever since he was a boy, since he was my son's age, he wanted to be a Marine. What I saw on Friday was not just a birth of the American war machine, but the birth of a dream. I am proud of my brother-in-law. I am more proud than I have words for.
I have faces for each branch of the military, people I know and love that are or were active duty service members. When I hear on the news that the Navy is being deployed, I replace “the Navy” with the name of my friends. Now, when I hear that the Marines are being sent into harms way in this place or that, I will replace “the Marines” with “Mark.” And I will worry for him as one worries for a loved one who is in harms way. But I will not wish him home early. Because he has chosen this life, and to wish him away from danger when duty calls is to wish him to be less than he has made himself to be.
He is part of the war machine now. He is a warrior. He is a Marine.
*I use the expression “war machine” in this post with no intended negative connotation. The US military is a vast, interconnected organization that can be viewed as a machine. It is a machine designed for war. And it is very good at what it's designed for.
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