The photos on the cover page of yesterday's NY Times of Marines, coffins, and grieving friends and family left me with this thought: I'm glad it's the Marines who are in the thick fighting right now. They're the only service who made it through the late seventies/early eighties without having to deal with all those nasty disciplinary problems that plagued the military after Vietnam. The why of it was simple: they were The Marines. And that first shot on yesterday's Times, you see one of those white cardboard coffins marked "HANDLE WITH EXTREME CARE" rolling off the plane, and a small detachment of Marines is receiving it at attention...well, you could have the exact same shot in Army green, and it wouldn't have the same effect.
I guess I was so aroused by the shot because the Marines don't dishonor their dead by being un-martial/unmanly. It's that tradition-filled ordo salutis characteristic of all the old, elite units, paraphrased in Full Metal Jacket: "Most of you will go to Vietnam; some of you will not come back. But you will never die, because the Marine Corps never dies."
That is, surely, a disservice to many Marines, who wouldn't actually believe it. But for a pagan, it's the virile bronze-headed spear sort of paganism that can be truly moving.
I guess I was so aroused by the shot because the Marines don't dishonor their dead by being un-martial/unmanly. It's that tradition-filled ordo salutis characteristic of all the old, elite units, paraphrased in Full Metal Jacket: "Most of you will go to Vietnam; some of you will not come back. But you will never die, because the Marine Corps never dies."
That is, surely, a disservice to many Marines, who wouldn't actually believe it. But for a pagan, it's the virile bronze-headed spear sort of paganism that can be truly moving.
Comments
Post a Comment