Tag: U.S. Marines

Military Remembrances

Happy 246th Birthday, US Marine Corps

Marine tradition holds that the Marine Corps was formed in a bar. The story dates back to November 1775, when two newly commissioned Captains, Samuel Nicholas and Robert Mullan, reportedly organized the first Marine Corps muster at the Tun Tavern, a popular bar in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. According to the tale, the two officers enticed potential recruits with mugs of beer and the promise of adventure on the high seas.

These recruits made up the first five Marine Corps companies that served aboard Continental Navy warships. Some historians maintain that a pub called the Conestoga Wagon was the more likely recruitment site; however, that is also a bar, and so, this tale remains a part of Marine lore to this day.

The National Museum of the Marine Corps in Virginia even features a restaurant appropriately named “Tun Tavern.”

Somehow, given the reputation of the US Marines as “life takers and heartbreakers,” this seems oddly entirely appropriate. I mean, how many other US military services can brag they were formed in a bar?

All joking aside, if you see a Marine today, wish them a Happy Birthday, and maybe buy them a beer!

Happy Birthday, Marines!

PTSD
Support Our Veterans

A Poem on PTSD by U.S. Marine, Frank Lazzaro

PTSD and the Vietnam War!

A former Marine I recently met, Frank Lazzaro, who’d served in the Vietnam war. shared this poem he’d written on PTSD some time ago. He told me I could share it if I wished to. I did think it was pretty good and definitely worth sharing, so I decided to post it here. I hope you enjoy it.

Shadow

What is it I see in the recesses of my mind?

A form, eerie and frightful,

From which there is no escape.

A shadow that follows me

From age to age

Haunting me, beckoning me,

Seducing me with its dream-like call.

Never ceasing, always present,

Chilling me to my very core.

Twilight to dawn this shadow waits,

Eager to pounce once more,

To render me scared and helpless. 

I resist to tears but to no avail

For this shadow is fearsome and relentless.

It has no face that I can see,

No form of hate.

A vapor not human, yet all too real

Ever there … haunting, haunting.

In the night it touches me,

Rousing me from sleep.

Sweat, like a mist, covers me.

Tears flow with soundless screams not heard

Like the dead that surrounds me.

I jump to met my adversary

But it’s only a shadow.

A memory of long ago

When youth was changed,

And time stood still.

Of death and loss so vivid.

Of war so fearfully fought so far away.

Now only a shadow that haunts me

In the recesses of my mind.

~ Frank Lazzaro