Happy 234th Birthday, Marine Corps!

“Freedom is not free, but the U.S. Marine Corps will pay most of your share.”

– Ned Dolan

Military analyst – and Marine – W. Thomas Smith Jr. writes at Human Events:

Happy Birthday and Semper Fidelis to “the world’s most exclusive gun club!” The Continental Congress authorizes the establishment of a force of American Marines for service on land and sea in the American War of Independence.

The legislation reads (unedited):

“Resolved, That two Battalions of marines be raised, Consisting of one Colonel, two Lieutenant Colonels, two Majors, and other officers as usual in other regiments; and that they consist of an equal number of privates with other battalions; that special care be taken, that no persons be appointed to office, or inlisted into said Battalions, but such as are good seamen, or so aquatinted with maritime affairs as to be able to serve to advantage by sea when required: that they be inlisted and commissioned to serve for and during the present war between Great Britain and the colonies, unless dismissed by order of Congress: that they be distinguished by the names of the first and second battalions of American Marines,  and that they be considered as part of the number which the continental Army before Boston is ordered to consist of.”

This directive heralds the birthday of the Marine Corps. The first recruits to enlist — two weeks later — will be a motley mix of young adventurers and street toughs captained by the barkeep of a Philadelphia alehouse.

Quickly whipped into a crack contingent of seagoing soldiers, the Marines will evolve into one of the world’s premier military organizations, or — as rocker Ted Nugent says in a 2008 tribute to the Corps — “the world’s most exclusive gun club.”