My Marine unit in the NY Times

The NY Times' CJ Chivers has apparently been hanging out with the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines - my old battalion. A battalion is about a thousand guys.

But more specific than that, one of is his articles is about Fox Company (a few hundred guys), and the platoon is third platoon, my old platoon! What are the odds? (Chivers also wrote a story on Golf Company of 2/8 - pronounced "two eight" - and I was in Golf Co. for a few months.)

Anyway, there's a photo slide show with audio, too. Pretty amazing.

I didn't see any guys I was in with. I went through all the names... nope, nope, nope. The sergeant in the story probably joined shortly after I got out. Different names, but everything else sounds the same.

I can't believe 2/8 is in Iraq again. They went in in 2003, during the initial invasion, then went to Afghanistan for their next deployment. It's hard to tell from the news coverage, but I think they were in Iraq at least one other time (before this one) as well.

That's got to be hard as hell on the families.

Hats off, guys.

p.s: the article makes a pretty signficant point out of the fact that a Marine didn't know who Rumsfeld was. When I was 19 (and a Marine), I knew who the SecDef was, but I am pretty sure most folks did not. Like the article says, it doesn't matter who's in charge that high up. And like the old poem says, "theirs is not to reason why..."

Semper fi.