Happy Birthday Marines!!!!**

The United States Marine Corps was born on November 10, 1775. Every year around this time Marines around the world put on their dress blues and go to the Marine Corps Ball.  The drink, they eat, they remember the fallen, honor their brothers, recognize their service and the service of their fellow Marines.  I am proud to say that I have been to many Marine Corps Balls, the tradition, formality, and raw emotions that I have and see in the Marines that are present is unlike anything I have ever witnessed in any movie or event in real life. 

"The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, filthiest minds, highest moral, and lowest morales of any group of animals I have ever seen.  Thank God for the United States Marine Corps!" -Eleanor Roosevelt

The wonderful love of a beautiful maid, The love of a staunch true man, The love of a baby, unafraid.....have existed since time began.  But the greatest of loves, The quintessence of loves, even greater than that of a mother, is the tender, passionate, infinite love of one drunken Marine for another.

I have had a few special and personal experiences with some very special marines.  My Best Friend Forever, Kelsey, wanted to join the marines all of her life.  Finally a few years out of high school she did it.  I have admired her strength, her courage, and her resolve to live, work and exist in a man's world for 8 long years.  She has been deployed, has been stationed overseas, is a EXPERT SHOOTER for the Marines, and continues to passionately and fearlessly serve our country.

Lenny Cestaro, is the man responsible for the beautiful and happy marriage I possess today.  He has served the Marines for many years, has been deployed, and is unlike any other person I have ever met.  LEGS and I cherish his friendship and are forever in debt to him for his service and for bringing the two of us together.  

I have also known Marines that have served the Marine Corps and this country for most of their lives, have been seriously injured, or like my dear LEGS have gotten out of the Marines and now serve in another branch in the military.  It pains LEGS to say that he is serving in another branch, because of the fierce loyalty, pride and enthusiasm that ONLY Marines possess.  

I have been honored to know Marines that have given the ultimate sacrifice and are no longer with us. They leave behind, children, wives, girlfriends, mothers, fathers, siblings, and fellow marines who mourn and honor their deaths faithfully and pridefully.  "I pray that our heavenly father assuage the anguish of your bereavement and leave only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be your to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. " Abraham Lincoln

I have diligently, passionately and dutifully supported my BFF, My LEGS and any Marine that has served our country.  When LEGS was deployed I wrote him a letter EVERYDAY except Sunday and have the letters to prove it, when Kelsey was deployed I wrote a letter every week, whenever a Marine has needed food, shelter, or support in any other fashion I have offered it.  

8 years ago, I fell madly in love with a Lance Corporal in the Marines.  My Daddy told me I would never live a life of riches and my Mommy warned me I would never cheat, lie, or leave this man if he was the one I chose. "I found him, he who my soul loves, I held him, and I will not let him go."  It takes very special person to be a GOOD military spouse, it hasn't always been easy and surely wasn't the life that I had originally envisioned, but I embrace the challenge with pride in my heart, fortitude in my mind, and commitment in my soul for the apple of my eye. 

A Marine Wife

A marine wife is a special individual.  When she was a girl her dreams were bold, as bold as her fine free gaze; and every gift of grace and mind was her's in her younger days.  When she was a girl, a golden girl; with a soul as fine as fire, she could outshine the brightest jewel that a rich man's love might buy her. Yes, hers could have been the glittering path through a careless carefree life.  But she fell in love with a marine, so she became a military life.

Away from the home of her childhood she marched are her husbands side, For she chose a wide and winding road when she became a bride.  And sometimes the road was a hard one, so different from the one she planned; and sometimes she wept for the home she had left, as she lay in a foreign land; and sometimes her steps would grow weary as she followed him and the fife; but she set out making the world her home because she was a military wife.

She learned to build a hearth for them whenever her man was sent; And she knelt to plant a garden every time he pitched their tent. Yes, she always planted a garden, though she never saw it grow, for she knew before the flowers came that she would have to go.  But she left each garden gladly thought it cut her like a knife, for she hoped it might bring some comfort to another military wife.

To the hardships in her married life she brought one simple truth, A promise that was spoken once in the ancient words of Ruth; "Wherever you go, I will go.  Wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Thy people shall be my people and thy God shall be my God." She shared his joys and sorrows as they made there way through life, for she was proud to love a marine and be a military wife.

She raised a military family with the faith her love had taught her; she gave the pride she had inside her to her son and her daughter; and she taught them to love freedom and to know what it was worth; as they helped her plant her gardens in the corners of the earth.  And she never wished for better than the road they marched through life, because she was as much a marine as she was a military wife.