While both of these are the best crowds to date, we're still looking for that killer weekend where 60K+ folks come partying through.

Macker will be pleased to know that I ran into the woman I'd been calling the SpikyWench, and not only got a few more pics of her, but actually chatted a bit with her. She's calling herself Hippolyta, after the queen of the Amazons. I pointed out that she'd have to have one of her breasts removed to pull that off in an authentic manner, but all present agreed that would probably be going a bit too far in the interests of realism. :-)

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Since then, millions of Marines have proudly worn the globe and anchor, and many thousands have, in that service, died far from home and family, some quickly, some only after prolonged agony. Others have endured wounds, physical or spiritual, that made a return to peaceful normality impossible, and suffered for their service until the day they died.

That is the harsh reality of the service; sooner or later, we as a political entity, the United States, for the greater common good, take some of our young men, and toss them into meatgrinders of fire and lead, hellholes like Belleau Wood and Tarawa and Inchon, and now, Fallujah and Tikrit, from which many will not return. They suffer and die so that we may continue to live in the peace and comfort that is the norm for most in our nation, and to try to extend that peace and comfort to those that do not yet have it.

Semper Fi, my DevilDog brothers, especially those of you that tonight will be far away from home - hot, cold, exhausted, dirty, afraid, lonely, hungry, footsore, blistered, chafing under the weight of that combat load, hating every minute of being stuck out in the boonies of some forsaken Third World country where they can't seem to get their shit together, where they can't leave behind the religious, tribal or ethnic hatreds behind, where some murderous asshole of a petty tyrant uses them to try and impose his grandiose visions on the locals, and the only thing preventing him from doing so is you and your buddies and your willingness to trek the Hard Road with your M-16, and shove it up his power-mad ass and pull the trigger if need be.

Hang in there. Someday soon you'll be back here in the Land of the Big PX, and you'll do what I'll be doing tonight - having a few beers for me, and then drinking a few for you, too, since I know that's what you'd want me to do. You too, will sit back and recall your old buds, those that made it back OK, and those that didn't, and toast them all, taking your place as another link in the long chain of the Men that have kept us free.

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