Can you see him? I bet you can.

2015-07-17T22:35:40-04:00

Can you see it? Can you feel what it must have been like? Gunny Sgt and his team sitting there, enjoying a Marine Corps perfect day. Beautiful Tennessee. The spit and polished 'stract' Marines going about their duties on post, conducting those mundane but important things that make the unit ready to fight and capable to answer their country's call. Can you see? I can. I can see Gunny Sullivan glancing up from some paperwork, looking at Staff Sgt Wyatt, mid career, 2 tours to Iraq ,1 to Afghanistan, superb warrior, mid thirties, perfect uniform, perfect balance of clean cut chiseled marine with a soft side only his close comrades and family knew-- he would steal a glance at the picture of his wife and two babies and smile, a ready reminder of why he did what he did. The Gunny shifting his eyes to Sgt Holmquist, still so young, just 6 years into his Marine career -- but like so many of the Gunny's young marines-- as combat seasoned as they get, did a first deployment to Afghanistan then went back for a second, wanting to fight the good fight with his comrades, wanting to keep them safe and bring them home. Finally the youngest of the Corps finest. Lance Corporal 'Skip' Wells-- the picture of a marine. The affable Georgia boy, with the dreams of a better life, a great example to young high schoolers wondering what they will be in a few years from now, if they choose to take the road less traveled and join the vaunted long line of USMC grunts-- these were the Gunny's beloved Marines. Your Marines. The ones who have your back, who fight your wars, who protect your families, who protect the weak. These are the ones who pull out the hurting and scared from some overseas location, when countries crumble. Here they come. When hope seems lost, and you pray your last prayer for someone to save you, in comes an armed warrior, fierce in form, feared at first because of his warrior garb until those greatest of words leave his lips-- "It's ok, we're US Marines, we are here to take you home!" To the land of the free. To the home of the brave. Can you see him? Can you see Gunny Sullivan? Oh he's nearly 20 years in, but there's no jaded pessimism here. No sir. You may have thought so. Those 2 tours to Iraq might have ended a lesser man, but not this Marine. This Massachusetts native was as hardy as those men who went onto the Barbary coast and Tripoli; Those Marines who went into Belleau Woods in 1918 and fought off 5 Germans divisions, with guns and mortars and finally with fists and bayonets. Gunny Sullivan had two Purple Hearts - the first hadn't killed him and the second just pissed him off. Oh I can see him gazing out at his 3 men, his three beautiful beautiful grunts -- perfect in heart and form, no different than the ones climbing Mt Suribachi on Iwo Jima, or holding hill 861 at Khe Sahn. Oh how he must have smiled at how beautiful they were, how proud he was, how blessed. How much he believed our best days could still be ahead with men such as these. Yes, I can see them. And I can see the evil approach, I can see the bullets come. I can see the Gunny jump up to protect his men, i can see him get hit. I can see his concern for his beloved comrades, his brothers. I can tell he's trying to look for a way to fight back; to look for any way to save them. I can see evil spewing all its hatred, but Gunny simply cast his love. His love of country, his love of home and family and hope for a better future. He never gives up, he must not, his men need him, they are more valuable than any gem or precious metal. They are his warriors, his family, his beautiful grunts. But when the end is near, when he has done all that he can, and the evil still blazes away, spewing its hatred for all that is good and decent and free, all the beautiful things the Gunny represents, Gunny Sullivan isn't worried anymore. He's done all he can do. I see him. His eyes are focused on his brothers. He reaches out and takes the hand of the closest to him. He looks into his dying eyes, and he silently communicates with him in the language known only to a loving warrior-- 'It's all right my brother, I am here to take you home.'

Response by SCPO Private RallyPoint Member made Jul 17 at 2015 11:05 PM

2015-07-17T23:05:04-04:00

Just another day, huh? What a tragedy. And it doesn't take a talking head to convince me that there is much more of this to come. Dozens, then hundreds, then potentially thousands of these "Lone Wolf" attacks. One American will die in some attacks; potentially hundreds will die in others. In the end, we will have had to endure several 9/11s spread out all across this nation. The question is: when will Washington WAKE UP???