Monday, May 23, 2005
We Marines and our flags
"When you're the finest, it's hard to be humble!"
--- USMC recruiting slogan
While at the store, I overheard a conversation between one of the company's vendors and two or three salesmen about military flags. I later asked the manager which military service flag was his biggest seller.
Of course, Columbia being a huge Army town (Fort Jackson, the U.S. Army's largest basic training facility, is located here; and a lot of Army retirees end up settling down here) I assumed the biggest seller would be Army flags.
Wrong!
By far, the biggest seller for service flags is the U.S. Marine Corps flag.
Why?
According to the manager, who never served in the military, Army guys are all proud to claim they "served in the Army" or were "in the service."
Marines, on the other hand, are all former Marines. It never leaves them, he said. Being a Marine is what defines all Marines: Active, reserve, retired, former, living, dead, even the ones who were kicked-out or given dishonorable discharges. Being a Marine is not just "service," it is a calling. And the title, Marine, is eternal and earned only after going through a difficult rite-of-passage. In fact, becoming a Marine is similar to would-be warriors becoming knights in the Middle Ages.
I then told the flag-store manager that I was a former Marine and he was correct on all fronts.
Now, this does not mean that soldiers, sailors, and airmen, are not incredibly proud of their service - all of which is noble - but it does mean that Marine culture and the "foreverness" of being a Marine is unlike anything else.
Oh, following is a picture of the best-selling military flag in Columbia, S.C. (and again, remember, Columbia is an Army town).
Semper Fidelis,
WTSjr
# posted by W. Thomas Smith, Jr. @ 10:48 AM 
