This is long but some stirring words for Marines and Americans. . .
Camp Lejeune, North Carolina
26 July 2003
The Currency of Freedom
by Captain Allen C. Allen, CHC, USN
Semper Fi, Marines.
What we do here this day may be the finest thing we do in
our lives if we do it right. For we have come not only to
remember and honor 26 fellow Marines who died in service to
the Corps and the country -- we come to set ourselves right
in the face of death and loss - to reach out and let the
truth of eternity touch us in this time and this place -- to
acknowledge that in our grief and loss that we are a part of
a divine reality beyond our understanding.
We will remain faithful, always.
We must grieve the loss of these Marines. Honesty and truth
demands it. It is a sad and tragic day when the nation loses
her young defenders, the Corps loses its warriors and
families give up their sons, fathers, husbands, uncles,
grandsons and nephews.
We honor our fellow Marines with our prayers and presences
this evening.
We pray for comfort for these families and offer our
condolence.
Marines are not saints; in fact they are very often lavishly
outrageous sinners. But Marines are heroic at the core
simply because they have chosen for a period of time to
place others before themselves. Marines know all there is to
know about service and sacrifice. They are illustrious
warriors with a rich heritage of noble service to the cause
of freedom. We honor our dead today not to make them saints,
but to acknowledge their spirit of sacrifice and service.
Winston Churchill observed that -- at any moment in history
the world is in the hands of two percent of the people, the
excited and the committed.
Marines are counted among the committed - Semper Fidelis --
always faithful - is more than a slogan -- it is a
commitment, it is a daily challenge -- on the eagle, globe
and anchor Semper Fidelis is inscribed on the streamer held
in the beak of the eagle - but more importantly at Parris
Island, San Diego and Quantico it is embossed on the margin
of the heart of each Marine.
"Always" is a long time because it is every time there is a
challenge.
"Always" is a long time for it is for now and forever.
Keeping faith is an all season's kind of commitment. One
cannot be faithful every now and then. It is full time,
lifetime commitment and even unto death.
Thomas Jefferson said "The tree of liberty must be refreshed
from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
For well over 200 years Marines have made sure that it is
mostly the blood of tyrants that is shed to protect our
liberty.
But you know better than most that the currency of freedom
is blood.
The money minted for use in our nation's commerce may be
dollars and cents - but the coin of the realm in the land of
the free and the home of the brave is the blood of her sons
and daughters.
For 227 years U.S. Marines have bled to death, starved to
death, burned to death, frozen to death, drowned and crashed
to their deaths for this nation and the cause of liberty and
freedom.
For 63 years 2nd Marine Division Marines have paid the
price. These 26 Marines that we memorialize today join 3052
2nd Marine Division Marines killed in action and 42 MIAs.
Remote and distant places have a deep and abiding meaning
because of the price paid there to defend freedom here.
Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian, Okinawa, Beirut, Iraq
are important places on this side of the globe because 2nd
Division Marines bled and died there to protect those that
breath and live here.
The spirit of the Corps binds us to the past; "always
faithful" means keeping faith with those who have gone
before us. Freedom is not now nor has it ever been free.
These young men we honor today join a silent division of
Marines who have preserved for us this land with their
lifeblood...
The currency of freedom is sweat.
General George Patton said, "A pint of sweat saves a gallon
of blood." And even though he was in the army, he was right.
You know well the reality the more you sweat the less you
bled; the more you train the better you fight. The will to
win is the will to work.
Patton may have not gotten it right ounce for ounce, but
there is a direct correlation between the two. "Always
faithful" means that in a land that is increasingly
undisciplined you must be more so. There is no substitute
for guts; and fortitude is developed through, constant,
steady and focused training.
Napoleon observed that "morale is to material as 2 is to 1."
And even though he was a Frenchman, he was right.
Warriors can, in fact, do more with less if morale is high.
You know that better than most. Esprit de Corps, the spirit
of the corps, has always seen us through hard times with
less - but warriors of the richest nation in history, now
facing global and shadowy threats, should not have to do
more with less to protect their nation.
It is unacceptable, it is unconscionable, that military
training be sacrificed to save dollars when it is so very
clear that reduced training dollars means less sweat
expended in training issues in more blood expended on the
battle field.
The significant power of diplomacy and the fine art of
states craft are possible only when a free nation has
warriors trained, equipped, well-lead and willing to fight
for the cause of the nation. The wily old politician in DC
with the bad comb over is deeply in debt to the young
warrior citizen with a high and tight in the field here at
Camp Lejeune.
This land is not about perks and privileges; it is about
service and sacrifice.
Nowhere is the essence of our national heritage more present
than right here, right now. As we honor these Marines we
acknowledge the ineffable aspiration of the human spirit for
freedom&but we also acknowledge that the commitment to
remain "always faithful" requires the national courage and
will to equip and train the brave and faithful.
Marines, the currency of freedom is tears.
You know better than most the tears of separation, good-bye
tears; welcome home tears, followed too soon by more good
bye tears, tears shed at the piers and airfields of North
Carolina; Morehead City tears. Tears that wet the pillows of
a thousand dark lonely nights across the land; bitter tears
of grief and loss, tears of stark fear in dangerous places
around the globe. The emotional cost is enormous, beyond
calculation and accounting.
"Always faithful" means keeping faith with family and loved
ones, and our national heritage of freedom is encrusted
white with the salty tears of the faithful and the loved
ones of the faithful.
If the currency of freedom were only issued in the
denominations of blood, sweat and tears it would be okay. We
would still prevail.
But there is more:
We are a nation of faith.
The currency of freedom is faith.
Faith is a gift of Grace from God. We keep it alive within
us even though we rarely understand it; this gift sees us
through.
St. Paul says it well: "but we have this treasure in clay
jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary
power belongs to God and does not come from us."
We are afflicted in every way -- but not crushed.
Perplexed but not driven to despair.
Persecuted but not forsaken.
Struck down, but not destroyed.
And so we are always of good courage...for we walk by faith
and not by sight.
Always faithful, Semper Fi -- means that we keep faith with
a future we cannot see because we trust the God that holds
the future.
The central truths of faith are simply:
- We are not delivered from the trials of life.
- But they do not overcome us.
- We live by faith and not by sight.
- What we believe is more powerful than what we see.
So as we honor these Marines for whom the full price of
blood, sweat and tears has been exacted, we commit again to
remain faithful always.
Semper Fi, Marines.
(Captain Allen is the Force Chaplain, Marine Forces
Atlantic. He also has the distinction of being a former
Marine Corps CH-46 helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War.)
============================
Iwo Jima Sermon:
For those of you who are not familiar with Rabbi
Gittelsohn's Iwo Jima Sermon, here is a short essay on it by
Sheldon M. Young:
Rabbi Gittelsohn's Iwo Jima Sermon
The fight for Iwo Jima in 1945 was one of the bloodiest of
World War II. A tiny island in the Pacific dominated by a
volcanic mountain and pockmarked with caves Iwo Jima was the
setting for a five-week, nonstop battle between 70,000
American Marines and an unknown number of deeply entrenched
Japanese defenders. The courage and gallantry of the
American forces, climaxed by the dramatic raising of the
American flag over Mt. Suribachi, is memorialized in the
Marine Corps monument in Washington, D.C. Less
well-remembered, however, is that the battle occasioned an
eloquent eulogy by a Marine Corps rabbi that has become an
American classic.
Rabbi Roland B. Gittelsohn (1910-95), assigned to the Fifth
Marine Division, was the first Jewish chaplain the Marine
Corps ever appointed.
The American invading force at Iwo Jima included
approximately 1,500 Jewish Marines, and Rabbi Gittelsohn was
in the thick of the fray, ministering to Marines of all
faiths in the combat zone. He shared the fear, horror and
despair of the fighting men, each of whom knew that each day
might be his last. Roland Gittelsohn's tireless efforts to
comfort the wounded and encourage the fearful won him three
service ribbons.
When the fighting was over, Division Chaplain Warren
Cuthriell, a Protestant minister, asked Rabbi Gittelsohn to
deliver the memorial sermon at a combined religious service
dedicating the Marine Cemetery. Cuthriell wanted all the
fallen Marines (black and white, Protestant, Catholic and
Jewish) honored in a single, nondenominational ceremony.
Unfortunately, racial and religious prejudice was strong in
the Marine Corps, as it was then throughout America.
According to Rabbi Gittelsohn's autobiography, the majority
of Christian chaplains objected to having a rabbi preach
over predominantly Christian graves The Catholic chaplains,
in keeping with church doctrine opposed any form of joint
religious service.
To his credit, Cuthriell refused to alter his plans.
Gittelsohn, on the other hand, wanted to save his friend
Cuthriell further embarrassment and so decided it was best
not to deliver his sermon. Instead, three separate religious
services were held. At the Jewish service, to a congregation
of 70 or so who attended, Rabbi Gittelsohn delivered the
powerful eulogy he originally wrote for the combined
service:
"Here lie men who loved America because their ancestors
generations ago helped in her founding. And other men who
loved her with equal passion because they themselves or
their own fathers escaped from oppression to her blessed
shores. Here lie officers and men, Negroes and Whites, rich
men and poor, together. Here are Protestants, Catholics, and
Jews together. Here no man prefers another because of his
faith or despises him because of his color. Here there are
no quotas of how many from each group are admitted or
allowed. Among these men there is no discrimination. No
prejudices. No hatred. Theirs is the highest and purest
democracy...
"Whosoever of us lifts his hand in hate against a brother,
or who thinks himself superior to those who happen to be in
the minority, makes of this ceremony and the bloody
sacrifice it commemorates, an empty, hollow mockery. To this
then, as our solemn sacred duty, do we the living now
dedicate ourselves: To the right of Protestants, Catholics,
and Jews, of White men and Negroes alike, to enjoy the
democracy for which all of them have here paid the price...
"We here solemnly swear this shall not be in vain. Out of
this and from the suffering and sorrow of those who mourn
this, will come, we promise, the birth of a new freedom for
the sons of men everywhere."
Among Gittelsohn's listeners were three Protestant chaplains
so incensed by the prejudice voiced by their colleagues that
they boycotted their own service to attend Gittelsohn's. One
of them borrowed the manuscript and, unknown to Gittelsohn,
circulated several thousand copies to his regiment.
Some Marines enclosed the copies in letters to their
families. An avalanche of coverage resulted. Time magazine
published excerpts, which wire services spread even further.
The entire sermon was inserted into the Congressional
Record, the Army released the eulogy for short-wave
broadcast to American troops throughout the world and radio
commentator Robert St. John read it on his program and on
many succeeding Memorial Days.
In 1995, in his last major public appearance before his
death, Gittelsohn reread a portion of the eulogy at the 50th
commemoration ceremony at the Iwo Jima statue in Washington,
D.C. In his autobiography, Gittelsohn reflected, "I have
often wondered whether anyone would ever have heard of my
Iwo Jima sermon had it not been for the bigoted attempt to
ban it."
Source: American Jewish Historical Society |
