Semper Fi

Today, while touring Arlington National Cemetary with my brother, E2, I came face to face with the human face of war.

E2 served two tours in Iraq - one in '03 and one in '04. As a result, I have not been able to watch visual news coverage from Iraq or any coverage of funerals or families back home. He came back. Many did not. It doesn't make it any easier to realize it could have been you captured in profile in the local paper, mourning a fallen relative, failing to appear as stoic as you feel you should. Likewise, I find it difficult to talk to E2 about anything war-related. It makes me sound horribly selfish, but I don't want to know what he saw, what he did, what it was like.

Without even thinking about a destination, we wandered through the cemetary, until we came to the area in which the Faces of the Fallen exhibit is housed.

Without preamble, E2 began searching for the men with hom he served, as a Marine, in the arid deserts of Iraq. Standing next to him while he pointed out countless fallen comrades was harrowing. We walked down the line and he continued to call my attention to greater numbers of memorials to men with whom he had fought side-by-side. I had to remind myself to breathe.

This time, I saw not memorials, but people. Snapshots of lives full of promise frozen in their prime. Tearful notes from classmates, spouses, children, friends, comrades.

However, there was one memorial which brought the whole kaleidescope of emotions to a crescendo. E2 stopped at that of Capt. Richard Gannon II. In a voice rough with emotion, E2 whispered, "He was my commanding officer."


Capt. Gannon, age 31, from Escondido, CA, is the reason E2 went back to war. After the ambush, E2 couldn't leave "his men" to fight and mourn alone. Putting all selfish interests aside, he voluntarily returned to the harsh, violent desert to serve another tour. Today, for a fleeting moment, in the still autmn sunlight surrounded by portraits of the bravest souls, I finally understood why.

Surrounding Capt. Gannon's memorial, were memorials of other Marines - all from E2's unit. All ambushed. All young. All brave. All gone.

I saw each one of them through E2's eyes today - as friends, colleagues, heroes, fathers, sons, brothers, friends, lives cut short in their prime. Passionate, valiant, stubborn, skilled men. My heart mourned each of them for a minute, and I silently whispered a prayer of gratitude that my brave, noble brother had been able to return home and share with me this moment of introspection and homage.

A quote by Admiral Chester Nimitz sums it all up: "They fought together as brothers-in-arms. They died together and now they sleep side by side. To them we have a solemn obligation."

I will never forget. I will never forget Capt. Gannon - the obvious impression he made on E2, the family he left behind, the sacrifice he and his men made, the men and women who continue to press forward in pursuit of freedom and liberty and valor.

Semper Fi.