Sound Off

Till the Wheels Fall Off

From the Editor

The wheel is probably the single most important invention ever, which makes it an acceptable metaphor for the modern Marine Corps - at least in the following case.

So let’s roll.

It says here the leatherneck victory on Iwo Jima guaranteed a U.S. Marine Corps for the next 500 years. The National Security Act of 1947 didn’t quite spell it that way - it made the Corps more of a sidecar for the Navy on the National Military Establishment wagon. But the Corps has always prided itself on standing out, and Corps legend nevertheless rolls on immortally, with countless thanks to the Navy.

The modern Marine Corps effectively started rolling when Belleau Wood was cleaned out by the devil dogs of World War I. The wheel circled forth. The Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the Marines took to fighting in a bloody Pacific War. On the tiny island of Iwo alone, Marines and sailors earned 27 Medals of Honor; 14 of those posthumously. One of those medals belonged to a hard-charging machine gunner named Sgt. Darrell Cole, killed by a single enemy grenade.

Peel ahead 50 years to the launching of a ship named after Cole, a guided missile destroyer bombed a few years later by al-Qaida.

Here’s where the wheel’s tracks looks familiar:

Attacks on American soil. A Marine Corps transcending its traditional responsibilities and making good on those 500 years. A Medal of Honor for a brave machine gunner killed by a single enemy grenade, and a ship to be built in his honor.

USS Jason Dunham, like USS Cole, will be an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. May she sail unharmed in peaceful or stormy seas. And may the wheel never fall off.

Semper Fi,
Marines