Less Than 1%

I’m not going to lie. America, in my opinion, is the best country to live in.

Now as you all know I serve in the United States Marine Corps. The best branch there is in the world. One thing that I always like to keep in mind is a speech that a Staff Sergeant gave to me and fellow Marines about 3 months ago.

After one training op our whole battalion was celebrating with whole lot of beer. One Marine stood up and said “this beer right here is for the best damn platoon commander that the Marine Corps has ever had. This one’s for Staff Sergeant, Oorah!”

He stood on a picnic table and gave this speech:

“Now we are out here having a great time, right Marines? We are out here training to kick some tail and take names so that others may one day understand what freedom is. Even if we sacrifice a life to give these poor bastards a glimpse of freedom then we have done our jobs. But don’t you ever forget the ones who are not with us today. The ones who did make the ultimate sacrifice who stood before our flag and stated ‘I will serve my brothers and sisters proudly’. And they gave it their all. But let’s not have that bring us down. It should never bring us down. I came into this world kicking and screaming with blood all over me and that’s exactly how I would want to go out of this world. Because we have all earned our freedom. We have all lived it the moment when we took our first breath of fresh air. Now its our job to let others have their time. The rest of America will never understand us because 1% of Americans serve their country. That’s 1%. But that’s because America doesn’t ask average people to be phenomenal. They ask for the best and we answered the call. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you are wrong. So lets raise our beers to our brothers, our sisters, and to the souls who dwell among us today. Semper Fidelis Marines! Oorah!”

I was proud to say that I was a United States Marine that day. But the unfortunate problem is that though I am part of America’s Marine Corps the people in charge could care less.

In recent events a Marine Sergeant is held in a prison in Mexico. No support, no justice, and no idea on how to handle it. What has this world come to? Again, less than 1% of all of Americans will serve their country. They chose to stand in front of the 99% and say “stand behind me, I’ll take watch from here”.

And we could not give him even the chance of being able to live a normal life after giving his time to us.

I want my children to serve during a time where America can be proud of its few brave souls who were willing to put it all on the line for everyone. I want my kids to know what its like to have a country to do whatever it takes to never forget them and what good they’ve done.

We cannot keep throwing our service members to the woods like this.

So I leave you with this video.

 

That’s all I got for you guys today.