Semper Fi

I grew up in the sort of neighborhood that sent young men to the Marine Corps in bulk. Blue collar-lower middle class, preponderantly Irish Catholic. Two boys from my grammar school class joined the Marines right after high school. One boy - Kevin - was a distant cousin who for a while lived a few doors down from my family. They'd moved away by high school, so I pretty much lost track of him, but I think he served in Okinawa, not Vietnam. (Oddly enough, I just googled him and he died last spring. The obituary mentions his Marine service, but not Vietnam, so I'm guessing he dodged that bullet.) The other Our Lady of the Angels, Class of 1963, boy who joined the Marines, Jim, did not serve in Vietnam. I know this for a fact because, oddly enough, we connected on Twitter a few years back, and, although he now lives out of state, we've seen each other in person a couple of times. Jim didn't go to Nam, but his older Marine Corps brother did.

As I said, it was that kind of neighborhood.

My husband's brother (Irish Catholic, Vermont) and brother in law (Irish Catholic, NY) were Marines, as was his beloved Uncle Bill (Swamp Yankee, Massachusetts). 

In keeping with the Irish Catholic theme, father's first cousin Matt was a Marine who became (in)famous in the 1950's as the Parris Island drill instructor who marched his men into some nighttime swamp drill in which six recruits drowned. (I mostly knew Matt as our weekend milkman, his moonlighting job working for his brother-in-law whose family owned a dairy. As a kid, I thought it was customary for the milkman to sit down at the family breakfast table for a cup of coffee, as many of our milkmen were related to my father.)

My only other connection was being in an Irish pub in New Orleans when a large contingent of current USMC generals, and their wives, came in for a pint and a singsong. 

This about sums up my indirect history with the United States Marine Corps. 

Last Thursday evening, I was sitting in my living room reading when I heard incredibly loud helicopters whirring right over my head. It didn't sound like a medivac chopper, which sometimes fly nearby on their way to MGH. It didn't sound like a news chopper, either. What it sounded like was an invasion.

This is it, I thought. Trump has decided to invade blue cities and states, and was thumping into Boston to solve our crime problem which, as far as I can see, is composed largely of homeless addicts making a nuisance (and, admittedly at times, a criminal nuisance) of themselves; punky ahole kids riding unlicensed motorbikes; and punky ahole kids shoplifting at Macy's. Of course we have crime. But not the sort that calls for a military takeover. But it wouldn't have surprised me.

Trump hates our wonderful, gutsy mayor, Michelle Wu, because she stands up to him. And, naturally, he hates Massachusetts because the majority of our voters reject him. (And plenty of us, in addition to rejecting him at the ballot box, loathe and despise him.) But we're small potatoes compared to Chicago, which is a lot larger than Boston; is in state with a wonderful, gusty governor, Jay Pritzker, who stands up to Trump; and has a Black mayor. Thus, a much juicier target than Boston.

Anyway, through a quick google, I learned that Boston wasn't under attack. But we were one of a handful of cities who've hosted or will be hosting Marine Week, a 250th birthday celebration of the USMC. (Interesting, the other cities include Chicago - as I write this, under threat of invasion, and Los Angeles - currently occupied. Atlanta is also on the Marine b-day list. And since it's a blue city with a Black mayor, it's also squarely in Trump's occupation sights.)

Boston's celebration cite was the Boston Common, right outside my front door. Thus the noisome noise.

I walk through the Common on the way to my volunteer job and I stopped in a couple of times to gawk at the choppers, including the Osprey, a helicopter that can turn into an airplane. And, of course, to chat with a couple of the Marines on duty.

I kept the convos largely non-political, although I did mention to one young guy that I'd thought Boston was being invaded. He just shook his head and smiled.

I didn't catch the Marine's name, but he looked Hispanic and had a Cali accent. From what I understand, an awful lot of Hispanic Americans go into the service, including the Marines. Sort of like the Irish Catholic boyos of my yore. 

The Marines decamped, helicopters with them, early Sunday evening.

Alerted by the noise, I went out and watch the choppers take off, including the Osprey. One of the helicopters did a pass over the building two doors down, I swear no more than 6 feet above its roof.

I chatted with a neighbor, who had also initially thought we were being occupied.

I hope a few things.

I hope that that young Marine is never ordered to rough up civilians, whether those civilians are U.S. citizens or Haitian nursing home workers who've overstayed their visas or Mexican construction workers waiting around the Home Depot hoping to pick up a job. 

I hope all those young Marines I saw won't be sent off to fight in a half-arsed, studip war. And I really hope that, having been trained to fight in war - half-arsed and studip, or full-arsed and righteous - they will not be ordered to act as the police, hassling the homeless, the addicted, the ahole motorbike driving, the ahold shoplifting.

Push often comes to shove. Someone hurls a brick. (Someone starts the Reichstag fire.) Hair triggers get pulled. Someone gets hurt. Someone gets killed. 

And all of a sudden, we're Budapest. We're Turkey. We're El Salvador.

Are there many folks left who still believe it can't happen here?

Anyway, Happy 250th Birthday to the United States Marine Corps. 

Hope nothing happens.

Semper fi. 

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Image Source: NBC News (my pics of the Osprey were god-awful)