Tell it to the Marines

Recently the etiquette of removing ones hat during the National Anthem was discussed over at The West Virginia Surf Report. For the record, I always remove my hat. But a usual, thinking about the story at length dredged up the memory of one of the most surreal experiences I’ve ever had.

I used to travel all over the eastern U.S. as a sales rep for a small company that is now part of a much larger company. I would spend somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 nights a year on the road. Since I was single it wasn’t a problem. And I had the opportunity to visit some really great places and see some amazing things.

I worked one of my trips to put my in Washington D.C. over a non-working weekend. I figured I’d take some time and see the sights in our nations capitol. I’d been there before but still hadn’t seen everything I wanted. So my plan for Saturday was to get up early, head to the Marine Corps War Memorial and from there walk to the Arlington National Cemetery. For those of you who don't recall, the memorial features the likenesses of the 6 men who raised the second flag over Mt. Suribachi during the battle for Iwo Jima during the closing months of World War II. For those of you who have never visited the memorial it sits on the edge of what resembles a good sized city park. The memorial kind of looks out over this field. To the right of the memorial is a loop for tour buses to drop people off and turn around in. The rest of the details are a little hazy.

I got there fairly early in the morning and there weren’t many other tourists around. There were however, a small number of Marines in their dress blue uniforms. Near the memorial was a Marine color guard quietly drilling for something. At the opposite end of the field was another group sort of milling around.

A marine sergeant was walking by and I stopped him and asked what was going on. He told me that across the park someone was getting married and part of wedding party was being photographed. The color guard was there for a retirement ceremony for an officer that would begin in a short time.

As an aside; I was talking to a marine non-com in his dress blues. I’ve never served in the military. I was standing there in my officially sanctioned tourist outfit (baseball cap, t-shirt, shorts) and he was calling me Sir as we talked. Now, I know that the military values courtesy, and it’s their way of life to be polite (when not actually shooting people or being shot at), and I respect and appreciate it. But to tell the truth I felt a little uncomfortable being called Sir by this man. When a store clerk say it, it’s meaningless. When a member of the military says it, it means a lot. I was uncomfortable because I don’t believe I’ve earned the right to be addressed by him as a superior. And I couldn’t call him Sir in return because he will be the first to tell you that he works for a living. And now back to the story.

Since I had plenty of time I decided to hang around and see what a retirement ceremony looked like. So I hung out as people started to filter in. Marine officers and their families started to arrive and mingle. The color guard formed up, waiting for the start of the event. And here’s where it gets weird.

A tour new looking bus pulled up in the circle drive. It was one of the big, luxurious motor coaches that actually lowers itself a little so that its passengers don’t have to step down too far to get the ground. Out of this bus pours dozens of Japanese tourists who looked like they right out of central casting. They were couples and a family or two, and honest to God every one of them was carrying an expensive looking 35mm camera and photography gear. Part of me thinks that I saw a few Mickey Mouse shirts, but maybe that’s just my imagination gilding the lily.

Anyway, here they come, oblivious to all the dressed up Americans milling around. They start taking pictures and then someone notices the color guard. Holy shit. I swear I am not making this up. They start inserting themselves in between the Marines in the color guard and taking pictures of one another. I didn’t know what to do. I mean here a all these Japanese tourists blithely having their pictures taking with the U.S Marines in front of the Marine Corps War Memorial which commemorates, among other things, KILLING JAPANESE!

I decided that I’d just shut up and follow the Marines lead. After all it’s their memorial. They seemed to more or less tolerate/ignore the shutter bugs. After a while I couldn’t take the weirdness anymore and took myself over to Arlington. Every time I think about that morning I shake my head and laugh.

Tell me about something wierd you saw while out of town.