Speech at the 2007 Marine Corps Birthday Ball

November 17, 2007

Distinguished guests, members of the Embassy Bamako Marine Security Guard detachment, friends and colleagues, I am honored to be called to the tribune this year to celebrate the 232nd anniversary of the United States Marine Corps.  At the outset, I would like to thank the Marines for sharing their Birthday Ball with us, particularly at the end of an extremely busy week for the mission, which included a visit by Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and a large delegation to the Bamako Community of Democracies ministerial.  Thanks to everyone – Americans and locally engaged staff - for your hard work, including weeks of preparation in advance of the delegation’s arrival and long hours of support during the Deputy’s visit and the conference.   You have done us proud. 

This is an evening to celebrate with our Marines, but it is also a time to reflect on the spirit of sacrifice and patriotism that animates and motivates all who serve.  The first years of the 21st century have been demanding for the men and women of our armed forces, with the pace of our global engagement stretching morale, personnel and material resources, and giving rise to a vigorous dialogue on the home front regarding our deployments overseas.   This debate is the hallmark of a democratic society, in which we air our differences, sometimes with civility and at other times with fervor.  Amidst the clamor, however, we are united in support of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, wherever they are serving our country.

And as we salute our Marines, I would also like to pay tribute to the civilian members of our foreign affairs agencies, a large majority of whom are “forward deployed” along side our military brothers and sisters, from Bamako to Kabul to Baghdad and beyond.  We as Americans are proud of our collective service to our country, but at the same time, if our nation has learned any lesson since the terrible attacks of September 11, 2001, it is that the United States has need of strong allies in times of crisis.  In the Middle East, we have counted on our Russian friends to work constructively with us in the context of the Quartet to advance the Israel-Palestine peace process.  In Afghanistan, we are fortunate to have NATO troops from Great Britain, from the Netherlands, from Germany, from Denmark, from Spain, from France and from Canada working with us to help stabilize a country emerging from decades of civil war and oppressive governance.  Our brave Canadian allies have committed 2500 troops to this effort, and have suffered many casualties as they patrol some of the most dangerous real estate in the country.  We are honored this evening to have among us the commander-designate of Canada’s forces in Afghanistan, Colonel Denis Thompson, resplendent in his dress reds.  Welcome Colonel Thompson and Godspeed as you take on this important command. 

But let us return to our storied corps of Marines.  As we have discovered this evening, the Continental Marines were created by Congress in Philadelphia on November 10, 1775.  The Marines pioneered the modern notion of amphibious assaults during the Revolutionary War, landing on the Bahamas in 1776 and seizing guns, shells and supplies from the British forces on the island.  Two years later, Marines under the command of John Paul Jones carried out the first raids in Britain since the Norman Conquest, assaulting positions in Whitehaven, Cumbria.  Notwithstanding this raid in time of war, the Marines actually trace their heritage to Britain’s Royal Marines, and the two corps of Marines have a relationship based upon mutual respect.  This common heritage had a practical result early on in the life of our nation, with an incident that shows many sides of the famous “special relationship” that exists between the United States and Great Britain.  During the War of 1812, when British forces burned nearly every public building in Washington, DC, including the White House and the Capitol, they spared the barracks housing their United States Marine corps brethren.

I was not raised in a military family, and like many Americans of my generation, my early knowledge of Marine lore came from the John Wayne and Gary Cooper movies I watched as a child on television.  Wayne and Cooper played paragons:  laconic, dependable, utterly fearless, and generally successful against great odds.   I later grew to understand that if Hollywood had been complicit in promulgating a myth of the American warrior, the real live version can be found in the members of the United States Marine Corps.  President Ronald Reagan has been quoted widely commenting on the Marines, saying that “Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world…..Marines don't have that problem.”  The Gipper, another of my childhood television icons, as usual, had it right.

Indeed, the Marines make a difference, on land, at sea, and in every climate, in every place, including at American embassies overseas.  The Corps’ formal relationship with the Department of State dates back nearly 50 years, to December 1948, but Marines have supported American diplomacy since the dawn of the republic, and Marines have protected national security information and American diplomats throughout the world, from the Boxer Rebellion in China to Vietnam to Liberia.  Marines have been at the vanguard in war and peace, a tightly-knit corps and the smallest branch of the American military.  Small.  Proud.  Renowned.  An Army General, William Thornson, once said “There are only two kinds of people that understand Marines: Marines and the enemy. Everyone else has a second-hand opinion.”  I am neither a Marine nor the enemy, but I have first hand experience with the US Marine Corps dating back to my service in Niamey in 1985 and continuing through this current assignment in Mali, where we are proud to have the members of the Marine Security Guard Detachment serving alongside us.  To our Marines, and on behalf of the entire US Embassy to Mali, I would like to say that we value your service to our country, and that we are pleased to have you among us.  And so, in the name of your colleagues, and on behalf of all of us present here this evening, Happy Birthday Marines.  Semper Fi.  Thank you very much.