Belly of a plane
I crawled into the belly of a plane once in my dress blues. Marines stand taller when they wear their dress blues. They stand dignified and proud. It is because they know that when they put on that particular uniform, they represent something greater than themselves; that they are filling a mighty big pair of shoes, shoes that had been worn by fine men before them. It would take some very unusual circumstances for a Gunny to get down on his hands in knees and crawl around in his blues. My circumstances at the time happened to be that I needed to unfold the flag and spread it out over the coffin before the remains of a fallen Marine were rolled out to his waiting family. The young, rowdy and seemingly reckless passengers became sober, grave and reverent.
On my way to escorting this brother to his home in Nebraska I had to change planes in Chicago. After supervising the transfer of the coffin to another aircraft, I had a few minutes to grab a cup of coffee. (A security guard who had served as Marine, took the watch from me). A mid-thirties businessman sipping on an iced latte pointed at me and said “I know you’re military…but what kind?”. What kind?…interesting way to phrase it. I replied “You’ve never seen a Unites States Marine?” He casually replied “Nope, so are you going on some kind of vacation or something?” “Negative sir, I’m escorting the remains of a fallen Marine home.” “Fallen?… Oh, he died? How did he die?” “In Iraq.” Taking another sip of his iced latte…“Iraq?…Really?…Wow. Yea, I guess there are still guys there”
I had neither the patience nor the emotional restraint to continue the conversation. I felt like we lived in two entirely different worlds. I abruptly ended it with “good day sir” and walked away. I went down to where the casket was in holding, pulled up a folding chair and sipped my coffee. I sat in silence. I don’t remember exactly what my thoughts were, but I felt somber and a kind of heavy. I sat there with the silent, fallen Marine until it was time to ceremoniously load the coffin into the next aircraft.
His older brother was a Marine who had served during the initial push to Bagdad, then did a second tour in Iraq. The younger brother felt the call to be a warrior as well, he chose the Marines. He chose the grunts, the infantry. I happened to be serving in assignments as the younger brother graduated from the school of infantry. I received a call from his First Sergeant who requested I send the Marine to a particular battalion where his older brother was assigned. I thought to myself “if my kid brother was a Marine, I would want to fight beside him, keep an eye on him”. I issued the orders. The older brother extended for a third deployment…to keep an eye on his kid brother and fellow Marine. They were both mortarmen and ended up in the same platoon. They deployed together. He kept an eye on his kid brother.
He called in the medevac for him when he was hit. That’s a different kind of heavy.
When the call came for a volunteer to escort the younger brother’s remains home, I stepped in. Not only did I feel involved for having issued the assignment orders to that unit; I had been shot and wounded in the same town on my previous assignment while serving in the same regiment. Some of my guys fell in the same place. It was all incredibly familiar. It was personal.
It was a rough time; though I suspect that as a Marine and a grunt it would have been a lot tougher to have not been involved; to not be a part of it. It was during that time that I adopted a quote on my email signature that did not change for the rest of my career. “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother”.