05/25/2026
Today we honor the great sacrifice of the few for the freedom of many.
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I did 5 tours to Iraq & Afghanistan as a Marine Captain, it's my job now to keep these great story fires lit. Let's remember & celebrate those we love who fell.
JUL11, I took this photo of this young Marine Infantryman, 1st Battalion 5th Marines before I too passed out from sheer exhaustion in the green zone NW of Sangin Afghanistan. Took from pre-dawn to late afternoon to move just a few miles as our & all nearby units were in constant contact with dug in & motorcycle mobile Taliban resistance via crew served, small arms, indirect & RPG fire. We had several Marine and Afghan Army casualties evacuated from the battlefield. Thankfully no KIA. Several EKIA. We approached, cleared, then secured an abandon compound and firmed up for the evening.
That was the easy part, as about 1900... we ran out of water.
Air was standing by to drop pallets of water, problem was the entire area around the compound was most likely seeded with Talib IED's. IED's which needed to be cleared, inch by inch, on foot. Bit after dawn 53's dropped pallets of water, outside the compound... in the area we didn't clear. Around noon we finally got to the water.
I hadn't experienced true thirst before then. You feel like you're dying. To date, that first sip of hot bottled water is the greatest sensation imprinted in my memory.
As wars in Ukraine & The Middle East rage on, I'm thinking about the absolute uncertainty prescribed for all involved & the pure horrors awoken in wake of war. As parents lose Son's & Daughter's, as Son's & Daughter's lose parents, as friends lose friends, as things that shouldn’t burn, burn, as "plans" suddenly dissolve & life becomes violently immediate, as things that shouldn’t be, become real & more disturbingly...common..
We have it good. Many of you have endured the photo below & know this, most of you have not & that is a wonderful thing, as I/we wish this on no one. War is a waking nightmare so I find the time to fully comprehend the wealth we recieve from the embrace of our friends & family and the laughter from our children.
Open your full refrigerator friend, turn on the faucet, look up at your intact roof, these things matter. We have it good.
"If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places, and there are so many, where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future." -Howard Zinn
Semper Fidelis ❤️
👊-Eric Kirsch 🇺🇸
