Marines and Jews: A Select Few

Marines and Jews: A Select Few

The world has its share of select peoples; two groups worth contemplating, and in this case even comparing are a couple that think highly of themselves: the Jewish people and the US Marines. Let me add that this author thinks highly of them in many ways as well, hence this article.

Why? Well, upon further review, both populations make some bold claims and try to accomplish their purposes as they see fit. In that sense, they are like [...]

 

BREAK: This has been my oldest unpublished blog post from Jan. 20, 2015. Perhaps last updated then, maybe even started in 2014...

 

5 years ago! I still have some good ideas on how I wanted to put this together, comparing the Jewish people, the few, the proud, with the Marines of the United State military: the few, the proud.

The avaunt guard of their kind, in a way. In many ways, which I will not address so much here, now.

But, I think I want to wrap it up sooner and publish.

I know that most or many of my original ideas are lost in the atmosphere of 2015, my brain and thoughts of me, the 44 year-old, the first year of not having my mom around.

I did learn more about the Marines in the amazingly sad but true book, recently The Frozen Hours, by Jeff Shaara.

The Chosin Reservoir region of North Korea in the late fall of 1950 became a terrible places of death and misery, for a mix of  U.S. army, as Shaara does not capitalize it, and the Marines, who he does. Shaara seems to favor the Marines in this account, by and large, which many people do.

Ned Almond was the villain, as was General Douglas McArthur, for unwittingly or pompously putting so many troops in harm's way, of both the deadly elements of the mountains in November and December and the hordes of Chinese soldiers, who fared much worse.

Jewish people and practitioners are at the vanguard of their beliefs and ways to serving God, and have been doing so for thousands of years. Is King David at 1,000 B.C. a good place to frame the Jewish story? Others would trace back further to the Israelites of Pharoah's Egypt, brought there by Joseph, son of Jacob, Israel, and from Isaac and Abraham. 

However, the people of Judah, for me, become entrenched as they more or less are today as the people of this one particular Israelite tribe, not Ephraim nor Manasseh nor Reuben or the others. 

Judah. Maybe that is too fight a fit for the descendants of Judaism. Us Christians and Muslims and non-believers certainly have our say about things.

Descendants of Abraham, almost the grand majority of the West. Sort of.

But the Jewish people are select, more select than the greater tribes and lines of Abraham. 

Like our devil dog Marines.

May they both ever be featured in the vanguard, and move on with boldness and esteem.

Hail and honor to both unique traditions.

Glory and respect, despite the hatred and calumnies over the centuries.

There, I said a few things, five years later. Better late than never, happy to be around to finally deliver it.

We assume that we will live for another day, another year, another decade. I want to live till 2076; or so I have told myself and others. That would be our nation's 300th anniversary. Tricentennial.

I would be quite old. I have only met two or three centenarians.

 

What else?

 

I took my daughter last school year, rather, at the end of 2019 (pre-pandemic), to a synagogue in Harrisonburg, Virginia. It was a Friday night Sabbath service in a good-sized temple, there was not a big gathering but we has a good time. I felt like there was a good spirit of love, respect, or I might posit that the spirit and presence of God was there, and my daughter and I enjoyed ourselves. The worshipers were friendly before, during, and after the service. We had nice food and treats after the main sermons and ceremony.

The few, the proud, the dedicated, the friendly. Outliers, in many ways, but inside of who we are as people.

The fighters for freedoms and dignity, which in my experience, has been many positive interactions with both groups.

Blogged it...