Dec. 15 - USMC Gen. Kelly's Speech to Semper Fi

   The following speech was given by Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly, commander, Marine Forces Reserve and Marine Forces North to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis.
   The Semper Fi Society of St Louis creates, nurtures, and sustains a Marine culture within the greater St Louis community in order to support all Marines and their families, act as a liaison for all Marine organizations in the community, and, serve as the strategic reserve to the active duty Marine Corps component for all community affairs.
  In the speech, Kelly talks about the patriotic youth who answer the call to serve their country. He discusses in detail the deaths of two Marine heroes he posthumously recommended for the Navy Cross for heroism.
   But the speech is as extraordinary for what it doesn’t say, as for what it does say...in that Kelly does not mention the death of his son, USMC First Lieutenant Robert Michael Kelly, who lost his life in Afghanistan on Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2010, and was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, Nov. 22, 2010.
     
Speech  to Semper Fi Society of St. Louis
November 13, 2010

By Lieutenant General John F. Kelly
Commander, Marine Forces Reserve; and
Commander, Marine Forces North
 
 Nine years ago two of four commercial aircraft took off from Boston, Newark, and  Washington. Took off fully loaded with men, women and children—all innocent, and all soon to die.
These aircraft were targeted at the World Trade Towers in New York, the Pentagon, and likely  the Capitol in Washington, D.C.. Three found their mark. No American alive old enough to  remember will ever forget exactly where they were, exactly what they were doing, and exactly who they were with at the moment they watched the aircraft dive into the World Trade Towers  on what was, until then, a beautiful morning in New York City.
Within the hour 3,000 blameless human beings would be vaporized, incinerated, or crushed            in  the most agonizing ways imaginable. The most wretched among them—over 200—
driven mad by heat, hopelessness, and utter desperation leapt to their deaths from 1,000 feet  above Lower Manhattan. We soon learned hundreds more were murdered at the Pentagon, and ina Pennsylvania farmer’s field.
 
Once the buildings had collapsed and the immensity of the attack began to register most of us  had no idea of what to do, or where to turn. As a nation, we were scared like we had not been  scared for generations. Parents hugged their children to gain as much as to give comfort.  Strangers embraced in the streets stunned and crying on one another’s shoulders seeking solace, as much as to give it. Instantaneously, American patriotism soared not “as the last refuge” as our national-cynical class would say, but in the darkest times Americans seek refuge in family, and in country,remembering that strong men and women have always stepped forward to protect the nation  when the need was dire—and it was so God awful dire that day—and remains so today.
There was, however, a small segment of America that made very different choices that day… actions the rest of America stood in awe of on 9/11 and every day since. The first were our  firefighters and police, their ranks decimated that day as they ran towards—not away from—danger and certain death. They were doing what they’d sworn to do—“protect and serve”—and went to their graves having fulfilled their sacred oath.
Then there was you Armed Forces, and I know I am a little biased in my opinion here, but the  best of them are Marines. Most wearing the Eagle, Globe and Anchor today joined the unbroken ranks of American heroes after that fateful day not for money, or promises of bonuses or travel to exotic liberty ports, but for one reason and one reason alone; because of the terrible assault on  our way of life by men they knew must be killed and extremist ideology that must be destroyed.
A plastic flag in their car window was not their response to the murderous assault on our country. No, their response was a commitment to protect the nation swearing an oath to their God to do  so, to their deaths. When future generations ask why America is still free and the heyday of  Al Qaeda and their terrorist allies was counted in days rather than in centuries as the extremists  themselves predicted, our hometown heroes—soldiers, sailors, airmen, Coast Guardsmen, and Marines—can say, “because of me and people like me who risked all to protect millions who will never know my name.” 
As we sit here right now, we should not lose sight of the fact that America is at risk in a way it  has never been before. Our enemy fights for an ideology based on an irrational hatred of who  we are. Make no mistake about that no matter what certain elements of the “chattering class”  relentlessly churn out. We did not start this fight, and it will not end until the extremists  understand that we as a people will never lose our faith or our courage. If they persist, these  terrorists and extremists and the nations that provide them sanctuary, they must know they will  continue to be tracked down and captured or killed. America’s civilian and military protectors  both here at home and overseas have for nearly nine years fought this enemy to a standstill and  have never for a second “wondered why.” They know, and are not afraid. Their struggle is your struggle. They hold in disdain those who claim to support them but not the cause that takes their  innocence, their limbs, and even their lives. As a democracy—“We the People”—and that by definition is every one of us—sent them away from home and hearth to fight our enemies. We are all responsible. I know it  doesn’t apply to those of us here tonight but if anyone thinks you can somehow thank them for  their service, and not support the cause for which they fight—America’s survival—then they are lying to themselves and rationalizing away something in their lives, but, more  importantly, they are slighting our warriors and mocking their commitment to the nation. 
Since this generation’s “day of infamy” the American military has handed our ruthless enemy  defeat-after-defeat but it will go on for years, if not decades, before this curse has been eradicated. We have  done this by unceasing pursuit day and night into whatever miserable lair Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their allies, might slither into to lay in wait for future opportunities to strike a blow at  freedom. America’s warriors have never lost faith in their mission, or doubted the correctness of their cause.
They face dangers everyday that their countrymen safe and comfortable this night  cannot imagine.
But this has always been the case in all the wars our military have been sent to  fight. Not to build empires, or enslave peoples, but to free those held in the grip of tyrants while at the same time protecting our nation, its citizens, and our shared values.
And, ladies and gentlemen, think about this, the only territory we as a people have ever asked for from any nation we have fought alongside, or against, since our founding, the entire extent of  our overseas empire, as a few hundred acres of land for the 24 American cemeteries scattered  around the globe.
It is in these cemeteries where 220,000 of our sons and daughters rest in glory  for eternity, or are memorialized forever because their earthly remains are lost forever in the  deepest depths of the oceans, or never recovered from far flung and nameless battlefields.
As a  people, we can be proud because billions across the planet today live free, and billions yet  unborn will also enjoy the same freedom and a chance at prosperity because America sent its  sons and daughters out to fight and die for them, as much as for us. 
Yes, we are at war, and are winning, but you wouldn’t know it because successes go unreported, and only when something does go sufficiently or is sufficiently controversial, it is highlighted by the media elite that then sets up the “know it all” chattering class to offer their endless criticism. These self-proclaimed experts always seem to know better---but have never themselves been in the arena.
We are at war and like it or not, that is a fact. It is not Bush’s war, and it is not Obama’s war, it is our war and we can’t run away from it. Even if we wanted to surrender, there is no one to  surrender to. Our enemy is savage, offers absolutely no quarter, and has a single focus and that  is either kill every one of us here at home, or enslave us with a sick form of extremism that  serves no God or purpose that decent men and women could ever grasp. 
St Louis is as much at  risk as is New York and Washington, D.C.. Given the opportunity to do another 9/11, our  merciless enemy would do it today, tomorrow, and every day thereafter. If, and most in the know predict that it is only a matter of time, he acquires nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, these extremists will use these weapons of mass murder against us without a moment’s hesitation.
These butchers we fight killed more than 3,000 innocents on 9/11. As horrible as that death toll was, consider  for a moment that the monsters that organized those strikes against New York and Washington, D.C. killed only 3,000 not because that was enough to make their sick and demented point, but  because he couldn’t figure out how to kill 30,000, or 300,000, or 30 million of us that terrible  day.
 I don’t know why they hate us, and I don’t care. We have a saying in the Marine Corps and  that is “no better friend, no worse enemy, than a U.S. Marine.” We always hope for the first,  friendship, but are certainly more than ready for the second. If its death they want, its death they will get, and the Marines will continue showing them the way to hell if that’s what will make  them happy. 
Because our America hasn’t been successfully attacked since 9/11 many forget because we want to forget…to move on. As Americans we all dream and hope for peace, but we must be realistic and acknowledge that hope is never an option or course of action when the stakes are so high.  Others are less realistic or less committed, or are working their own agendas, and look for ways  to blame past presidents or in some other way to rationalize a way out of this war. The problem  is our enemy is not willing to let us go. Regardless of how much we wish this nightmare would go away, our enemy will stay forever on the offensive until he hurts us so badly we surrender, or we kill him first.
 To him, this is not about our friendship with Israel, or about territory, resources, jobs, or  economic opportunity in the Middle East. No, it is about us as a people. About our freedom to  worship any God we please in any way we want. It is about the worth of every man, and the  worth of every woman, and their equality in the eyes of God and the law; of how we live our  lives with our families, inside the privacy of our own homes.
 It’s about the God-given rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and “that all men are created equal, that  they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” As Americans we hold these  truths to be self-evident. He doesn’t. We love what we have; he despises who we are. Our positions can never be reconciled. He cannot be deterred…only defeated. Compromise is out of the question.
It is a fact that our country today is in a life and death struggle against an evil enemy, but  America as a whole is certainly not at war. Not as a country. Not as a people. Today, only a tiny fraction—less than a percent—shoulder the burden of fear and sacrifice, and they shoulder it for the rest of us. Their sons and  daughters who serve are men and women of character who continue to believe in this country  enough to put life and limb on the line without qualification, and without thought of personal  gain, and they serve so that the sons and daughters of the other 99% don’t have to. No big deal,  though, as Marines have always been “the first to fight” paying in full the bill that comes with  being free…for everyone else.
 
The comforting news for every American is that our men and women in uniform, and every  Marine, is as good today as any in our history.

As good as what their heroic, under-appreciated, and largely abandoned fathers and uncles were in Vietnam, and their grandfathers  were in Korea and World War II.

They have the same steel in their backs and have made their  own mark etching forever places like Ramadi, Fallujah, and Baghdad, Iraq, and Helmand and  Sagin, Afghanistan that are now part of the legend and stand just as proudly alongside Belleau  Wood, Iwo Jima, Inchon, Hue City, Khe Sanh, and Ashau Velley, Vietnam.

 None of them have  ever asked what their country could do for them, but always and with their lives asked what they could do for America. While some might think we have produced yet another generation of  materialistic, consumeristic and self-absorbed young people, those who serve today have broken the mold and stepped out as real men and real women, who are already making their own way in life while protecting ours.

They  know the real strength of a platoon, a battalion, or a country that is not worshiping at the altar of diversity, but in a melting point that stitches and strengthens by a sense of shared history, values, customs, hopes and dreams all of which unifies a people making them stronger, as opposed to an unruly gaggle of “hyphenated” or “multi-cultural individuals.”
And what are they like in combat in this war? Like Marines have been throughout our history. In my three tours in combat as an infantry officer and commanding general, I never saw one of them hesitate, or do anything other than lean into the fire and with no apparent fear of death or  injury take the fight to our enemies.
As anyone who has ever experienced combat knows, when it starts, when the explosions and tracers are everywhere and the calls for the Corpsman are  screamed from the throats of men who know they are dying—when seconds seem like hours and it all becomes slow motion and fast forward at the same time—and the only rational act is to stop, get down, save yourself—they don’t.
When no one would call them coward for cowering behind a wall or in a hole, slave  to the most basic of all human instincts—survival—none of them do.
 It doesn’t matter if it’s an IED, a suicide bomber, mortar attack, sniper, fighting in the upstairs room of a house, or all of it at once; they talk, swagger, and, most importantly,  fight today in the same way America’s Marines have since the Tun Tavern. They also know whose shoulders they stand on, and they will never shame any Marine living or dead.
 
We can also take comfort in the fact that these young Americans are not born killers, but are  good and decent young men and women who for going on ten years have performed remarkable acts of bravery and selflessness to a cause they have decided is bigger and more important than  themselves.
Only a few months ago they were delivering your paper, stocking shelves in the local grocery store, worshiping in church on Sunday, or playing hockey on local ice.
 Like my own  two sons who are Marines and have fought in Iraq, and today in Sagin, Afghanistan, they are  also the same kids that drove their cars too fast for your liking, and played the God-awful music of their generation too loud, but have no doubt they are the finest of their generation. Like those who went before them in uniform, we owe them everything. We owe them our  safety. We owe them our prosperity. We owe them our freedom. We owe them our lives.
Any  one of them could have done something more self-serving with their lives as the vast majority of their age group elected to do after high school and college, but no, they chose to serve knowing full well a brutal war was in their future. They did  not avoid the basic and cherished responsibility of a citizen—the defense of country—they welcomed it.
They are the very best this country produces, and have put every one of us  ahead of themselves. All are heroes for simply stepping forward, and we as a people owe a debt we can never fully pay. Their legacy will be of selfless valor, the country we live in, the way we live our lives, and the freedoms the rest of their countrymen take for granted. 
Over 5,000 have died thus far in this war; 8,000 if you include the innocents murdered on 9/11.  They are overwhelmingly working class kids, the children of cops and firefighters, city and  factory workers, school teachers and small business owners. With some exceptions they are from families short on stock portfolios and futures, but long on love of country and service to the  nation. Just yesterday, too many were lost and a knock on the door late last night brought their  families to their knees in a grief that will never-ever go away.
Thousands more have suffered wounds since it all started, but like anyone who loses life or limb while serving others—including our firefighters and law enforcement personnel who on 9/11 were the first casualties of this war—they are not victims as they knew what they were about, and were doing what they wanted to do.
The chattering class and all those who doubt America’s intentions, and resolve, endeavor to  make them and their families out to be victims, but they are wrong. We who have served and are serving refuse their sympathy.
Those of us who have lived in the dirt, sweat and struggle of the  arena are not victims and will have none of that. Those with less of a sense of service to the  nation never understand it when men and women of character step forward to look danger and  adversity straight in the eye, refusing to blink, or give ground, even to their own deaths. The  protected can’t begin to understand the price paid so they and their families can sleep safe and  free at night.
No, they are not victims, but are warriors, your warriors, and warriors are never  victims regardless of how and where they fall. Death, or fear of death, has no power over them.  Their paths are paved by sacrifice, sacrifices they gladly make…for you. They prove themselves everyday on the field of battle…for you. They fight in every corner of the globe…for you. They  live to fight…for you, and they never rest because there is always another battle to be won in the defense of America. 
I will leave you with a story about the kind of people they are…about the quality of the steel in  their backs…about the kind of dedication they bring to our country while they serve in uniform and forever after as veterans.
Two years ago when I was the Commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 “The Walking Dead,” and 2/8 were switching out in  Ramadi. One battalion in the closing days of their deployment going home very soon, the other  just starting its seven-month combat tour.
Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old  respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of  an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines. The same broken down ramshackle building was also home to 100 Iraqi police, also my men and our allies in the fight against the terrorists in Ramadi, a city until recently the most dangerous city on earth and owned by  Al Qaeda.
Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other  hand, was a middle class white kid from Long Island. They were from two completely different worlds. Had they not joined the Marines they would  never have met each other, or understood that multiple America’s exist simultaneously  depending on one’s race, education level, economic status, and where you might have been born.
But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and  because of this bond they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same  woman. 
The mission orders they received from the sergeant squad leader I am sure went something like: “Okay you two clowns, stand this post and let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass.” “You clear?”
I am also sure Yale and Haerter then rolled their eyes and said in unison something like: “Yes  Sergeant,” with just enough attitude that made the point without saying the words, “No kidding  sweetheart, we know what we’re doing.” They then relieved two other Marines on watch and  took up their post at the entry control point of Joint Security Station Nasser, in the Sophia section of Ramadi, al Anbar, Iraq.
  A few minutes later a large blue truck turned down the alley way—perhaps 60-70 yards in length—and sped its way through the serpentine of concrete jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of where the two were posted and detonated, killing them both catastrophically.

Twenty-four brick masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. A mosque 100 yards away collapsed.  The truck’s engine came to rest two hundred yards away knocking most of a house down before it stopped. Our explosive experts reckoned the blast was made of 2,000 pounds of explosives.  Two died, and because these two young infantrymen didn’t have it in their DNA to run from  danger, they saved 150 of their Iraqi and American brothers-in-arms.

  When I read the situation report about the incident a few hours after it happened I called the  regimental commander for details as something about this struck me as different. Marines dying or being seriously wounded is commonplace in combat. We expect Marines regardless of rank or MOS to stand their ground and do their duty, and even die in the process, if that is what the  mission takes.

But this just seemed different.

 The regimental commander had just returned from the site and he agreed, but reported that there were no American witnesses to the event—just Iraqi police. I figured if there was any chance of finding out what actually happened and then to decorate the two Marines to acknowledge their bravery, I’d have to do it as a combat award  that requires two eye-witnesses and we figured the bureaucrats back in Washington would never buy Iraqi statements.

If it had any chance at all, it had to come under the signature of a general officer.
I traveled to Ramadi the next day and spoke individually to a half-dozen Iraqi police all of whom told the same story. The blue truck turned down into the alley and immediately sped up as it made its way through the serpentine. They all said, “We knew  immediately what was going on as soon as the two Marines began firing.”
The Iraqi police then related that some of them also fired, and then to a man, ran for safety just  prior to the explosion. All survived. Many were injured…some seriously. One of the Iraqis  elaborated and with tears welling up said, “They’d run like any normal man would to save his  life.” “What he didn’t know until then,” he said, “and what he learned that very instant, was that Marines are not normal.” Choking past the emotion he said, “Sir, in the name of God no sane  man would have stood there and done what they did.” “No sane man.” “They saved us all.”
 
What we didn’t know at the time, and only learned a couple of days later after I wrote a summary and submitted both Yale and Haerter for posthumous Navy Crosses, was that one of our security cameras, damaged initially in the blast, recorded some of the suicide attack. It happened exactly as the Iraqis had described it. It took exactly six seconds from when the truck entered the alley  until it detonated.
  You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives. Putting myself in their heads I supposed it took about a second for the two Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. Exactly no time to  talk it over, or call the sergeant to ask what they should do. Only enough time to take half an  instant and think about what the sergeant told them to do only a few minutes before: “…let no  unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass.”

The two Marines had about five seconds left to live. 
It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their weapons, take aim, and open up. By this time the truck was half-way through the barriers and gaining speed the whole time. Here, the recording shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now scattering like the normal and rational  men they were—some running right past the Marines.
They had three seconds left to live.
For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines’ weapons firing non-stop…the truck’s windshield exploding into shards of glass as their rounds take it apart and tore  in to the body of the son-of-a-bitch who is trying to get past them to kill their brothers—American and Iraqi—bedded down in the barracks totally unaware of the fact that their lives at that moment depended entirely on two Marines standing their ground.
 If they had been aware, they would have known  they were safe…because two Marines stood between them and a crazed suicide bomber. The  recording shows the truck careening to a stop immediately in front of the two Marines.
In all of  the instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped back. They never even started to step aside. They never even shifted their  weight. With their feet spread shoulder width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as  they could work their weapons.
They had only one second left to live.
The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to their God. Six seconds. Not  enough time to think about their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their  deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty…into eternity.
That is the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight—for you.
We Marines believe that God gave America the greatest gift he could bestow to man while he
 lived on this earth—freedom.

We also believe he gave us another gift nearly as precious—our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Coast Guardsmen, and Marines—to safeguard that gift and guarantee no force on this earth can every steal it away.

It has been my distinct honor to have been with you here today. Rest assured our America, this  experiment in democracy started over two centuries ago, will forever remain the “land of the free and home of the brave” so long as we never run out of tough young Americans who are willing  to look beyond their own self-interest and comfortable lives, and go into the darkest and most dangerous places on earth to  hunt down, and kill, those who would do us harm.

 God Bless America, and….SEMPER FIDELIS!