My Friday Night: Spirit of America, Twilight Tattoo and Guinness with Jimbo

There are numerous benefits to blogging at TAH that you probably don’t know about. Obviously the fabulous wealth (I’ve made $1.27 since February), hordes of adoring women fans (thank God she likes nerds), the respect of your opponents (no link for you IVAW and VV), and drinking with your betters (by which I mean Jimbo and Matt.) Less well known though are invites to the swankee soirees. And such was my Friday.

It started when I left work to meet Jimbo at bar called the “Ugly Mug.” A more appropriate place for us to meet I challenge you to find (that isn’t a cantina on Tattoine). Hanging with Jimbo if you’ve never done so is awesome. We met a guy who claimed to be an army cook, who eventually admitted he’d served in the special forces. Hell of a nice guy. We also got to spend a lot of time with Viet Nam veterans, bike riders etc. Much was the fun. But, as wonderful as it was, I had a better place to go, and I left at quarter to seven.

I had to cross the street to go to the 8th and I Marine Barracks for their Twilight Tattoo (which is not like a tramp stamp, it is their silent drill team.) I was to be the guest of a group of people from the Spirit of America, more on them later. Shockingly, I was in the VIP section, which meant I was waiting in line with an Admiral with a Trident, and more stars than you generally see on a clear night. After showing the Marine at the garden gate my ID, I was spirited in to the Commandant’s back yard, where more refreshments were on the list. In the best of circumstances, I am a hermit, in most I am almost agoraphobic. Shockingly, I felt reasonably comfortable there. I was surrounded by brothers and sisters in arms, and those fighting the good fight even outside the confines of the military. I had a few beers in me, which eases my suffering in public, and met some unbelievably nice folks on vacation who were invited by friends. It was great.

After an hour we were escorted towards the bleachers. I can’t sit in bleachers. Or rather, I can, but I will spend the next week in traction or the ICU. As the Marine Captain (*a Marine Captain?, I thought*) escorted me to my seat, again, in the VIP section, I told him I just could not sit there. He informed me, no problem, you mind standing with some of my Marines? Mind? Hell, I could stand with Marines or sit with people in suits, of course I would stand.

I won’t go into the rest of the evening in such detail, but it was a very moving experience for me. Not just because the Marines who performed are shockingly flawless to my perception, nor because they honored a man who has done so much for the troops (again, later), but more because I essentially grilled the Marines around me for the rest of the evening. It just so happened that one Marine I was with is from the Marine Corps Institute, was from my home state of Maine, and was a lawyer. Poor guy probably wished he’d been waterboarded rather than be submitted to my ceaseless questions, but when I suggested that to him, he graciously waved it off.

Anyway, I was, as I mentioned, the guest of Jim Hake, the guy who runs Spirit of America. From their website, there objectives include:

* Increase the reach, scale and impact of the informal humanitarian activities that take place on the front lines in troubled regions.
* Contribute charitable goods that can have a positive, practical and timely impact in the local communities where American personnel are involved.
* Establish connections and strengthen bonds between the American people and those in countries struggling for freedom and democracy.

Go and look at some of their projects, and you’ll understand. Everyone asks what my most memorable experience was in Afghanistan. Well, this was it:

That movie brings tears to my eyes everytime, because when I read about how our effort there is doomed to failure, how we aren’t doing any good, I think to the kids who got bookbags, markers etc, and I honestly get mad. Spirit of America understands that this projection of “soft power” is what will bring long term successes. When you “Adopt an Orphanage in Iraq” you do more than help out just the Orphans, although you obviously do that as well. But you create something bigger than that, you create the realization in the people there that you really do care what we are doing.

I take crap from my buddies a lot over my little buddy Mokhtar from Tango 24 at Bagram. (For those who did time there, Mokhtar endeared himself to me early by fighting with the infamous gay Bob.) I brought that kid shoes and hand sanitizer, anything I could get my hands on. In return he gave me dyssentary from shish-kabobs, but that is neither here nor there. We may sit around and talk about the time we lit someone up, but the enduring legacy of our deployment wasn’t the Taliban we sent to their Virginians, it was the lives of the kids we touched. And that may take a while to bloom, but bloom it will.

So anyway, I wanted to thank Spirit of America, and commend to you to go check out their site. They are wonderful people doing wonderful things, and should be recognized for such, and I am glad that the Marines did just that.

Category: Politics