During the first week of May, 1800 Marines were on a air craft carrier, located off the coast of a Southeast Asian nation. They were supposed to be part of a practice exercise, an exercise on how to deal with emergencies.
Now those Marines are hoping for word that they can participate in a true emergency exercise. They want to be part of the relief effort on Mayanmar. This is not the first time that U.S. Marines have had to deal with the effects of a tropical storm.
In 1889, the Americans, British and Germans all at gunboats off the coast of Samoa. As war looked all but certain, a tropical storm struck. It wrecked all but one of the American, British and German boats. Four hundred of those on the ships perished, including some Marines.
Those Marines who survived helped with the relief effort. Marines can fight the enemy; they can also unite with a former enemy to bring relief to innocent civilians. That is what they did there, off the coast of Samoa.
Today the U.S. Marines want to help in Mayanmar. Will the government allow that to happen? That remains to be seen. Marines do have experience dealing with despotic governments. I will write about that in my next blog entry.
