Today is my Birthday. Not really, but it’s close.
Today the Marine Corps turns 251. As a Marine, I celebrate this day every year. Some years, the old crew and I get together to share memories, embellish stories, catch up on life, and just experience the joy of each other’s company. For most of us the hair has turned greyer, if there’s any hair left at all. Our midsections are a little thicker, and our tattoos have faded. And yet we are still “Devil Dogs.”
The “we” in that sentence is the most important to me. They say “Once a Marine, Always a Marine.” In some ways that’s true. Being a Marine Corps Infantryman certainly has shaped not only who I was, but also who I continue to be. I am disciplined. I like to do hard things. I can be a little salty, and I still think of myself as just a little better than veterans of other branches.
In reality, however, I am a far different man than the hard charger in 1993. My politics, ethics, theology, and hopes have radically shifted. The Marine in me is still there, but it exists as more of an echo that is fading in the distance.
That is why the “we” remains so important. The helicopters, the weapons, the unpleasant conditions have faded, but there is still the “us.” That is the true gift of being one of the few and the proud…the community.
Birthdays are times of reflection. On this Marine Corps Birthday, I am thankful to have been blessed with being part of a true community. We are different races and genders. We are liberal and we are conservative. We are rich and we are poor. We are highly educated and we are suspicious of those who are. We are all of those things and so much more. But first and foremost, we are Marines. All of us. I love all of them, even if I couldn’t stand some of them.
I find myself looking for community at this stage of my life, and I am in the process of asking what am I looking for? On the surface, it’s easy to slip back into nostalgia and long to find something that I used to have in the military. I desire to be doing life with people from a variety of backgrounds, viewpoints, and ideas.
But as I said, birthdays can be a time of reflection. Sure, we were a community with a great deal of diversity, but we never really talked about it. Those with the loudest position (or maybe highest rank) barked out their opinions, and the rest of us kept silent. When we were together, our common mission overrode our individual selves. Showing too much vulnerability would be seen as weakness. We were a community that didn’t argue very much, even though we fought plenty. The Marine Corps is not a place that appreciates individual thought, and it certainly doesn’t value the opinions from the bottom.
My point is not to dump on the Marine Corps on our birthday. I still love and miss those knuckleheads. It’s more of a reflection of what I call “nostalgic communities.” For me it is the Marine Corps, for others it might be the way church used to be. I often hear about a desire to go back to the days of the early church, as if that was some sort of utopia. If that’s what you think it was, I encourage you to take another peek at the Book of Acts. Once one begins to look beneath the surface, we might discover that the peace we experienced in fellowship was based upon an unwillingness to deeply engage each other, or on an overt or subversive hierarchy of power dynamics, or on some other dysfunction.
The Marine Corps community was the community I needed at the time, especially given our mission. I’m trying to imagine our squad sitting around a circle passing a talking stick and engaging our personal thoughts and feelings. I’m not against the practice, but that stick would have turned into a weapon by person 3. I am forever grateful to that group of people and all the other communities that have been so important on my journey,
But today, I wonder what I am really looking for in an authentic community? I don’t think I am alone in this endeavor, and I could also use a little help discerning. I have figured this much out, I am looking for a community in which the peace of the whole does not come at the expense of any individual. I am looking for a group in which the pilgrimage of each member is encouraged and valued, and in which individuals are allowed to journey without losing their belonging.
I wonder what other qualities would be important? Any ideas?
5 Responses
I can’t answer your final question, but I note that tomorrow is the Minor Feast of St. Martin of Tours. It should not surprise that the Christian faith found many converts in the Roman army. Many parallels in being a soldier with being a disciple, as in today’s St. Luke reading in the Daily Office lectionary.
Living into a common and challenging (scary) purpose is one of the glues of community.
You raise an important question, as expressed in your last paragraph, especially in “looking for a group in which the pilgrimage of each member is encouraged and valued, and in which individuals are allowed to journey without losing their belonging”. Even though the closed nature of my CRC youth has lost its allure, the support and closeness of the community was certain, even if built on a basis of not stepping out of bounds. Now, those kinds of groups are harder to attain, as witnessed in both our denominational and societal structures. We find our community in personal friendships within the larger structures; friendships that allow the journey that we have been on in our lives, even when a bit different than others. The support and love is unspoken, but present. Thank you for framing this conversation so well.
Thank you for this testimony to your own experience of ongoing spiritual transformation. ” Be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds.” We are all products of our own experiences and we attach pieces of those who gave us those narratives. We continually preserve or discard various pieces. Those of us who claim “scripture alone” tend to forget that our scripture came to us in a particular wrapping ( or wine skin). Doubling down on our own wrapping is not what we are called to do.
I am reflecting on the word community you describe in your last parapraph. There are several words with the same root word: communion, compromise, accommodate, comprehend, comply, etc. The concept of the common good is central to the gospel. Everyone has a story and a journey to share. Community is not realized by a 51 to 49 vote.
Thanks for your leadership, Chad.
Chad: I normally like, and benefit, from your posts here in the RJ. But today I can’t. I am a veteran too, but a generation older that you. I was commissioned an officer in the Army in 1963. We were aware of the haughty opinion that Marines had of themselves, but we consoled ourselves by knowing that while you all were tougher we were smarter. In your search for community you must, at least for this Vietnam-era soldier, repent of the belief, as you say, that you’re better than veterans of other branches. I dare you to go to the black wall in Washington and look over the many names — some of them my friends — and say that you’re better then them.
I am an American citizen so I am the only member of my extended family to serve in the US forces. Others served in the Newfoundland regiments of the Canadian forces. Tomorrow is Veterans Day, and I will proudly wear my poppy, which is was is done in Canada, Britain, New Zealand and Austraiia. It is in memory of the essential WWI poem, “In Flanders Fields” by the Canadian veteran, Col John McCrae. “In Flanders Fields the poppies blow between the crosses row on row that mark our place…we are the dead.”
You say that as a Christian you are in search for community. Tomorrow, Veterans Day, might give a hint of what that community might look like: it is international and made up of people who are glad to receive God’s grace and do not think of themselves better that others, and where even a tough old grunt like you would be welcome.