Sparrowhawk
10-01-03, 08:26 PM
AN NYC MARINE BIRTHDAY BASH
October 1, 2003 -- The Marines are looking for a few good ballrooms.
Well, actually one will do.
As long as it's in Manhattan, not overly expensive and available on the evening of Nov. 8 for the officers and men of Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 25th Regiment of the 4th Marine Division - late of Nasiriyah, Iraq, by way of Kuwait and Campe Lejeune.
And New York City.
They are reservists, signing on for a weekend a month and two weeks in the summer - but, in the end, getting much more than that.
Smoke was still rising from Ground Zero when 2nd Battalion was called to active duty. For the most part the 150 members of Weapons Company have been wearing Marine green ever since.
They were part of Operation Enduring Freedom - the stunningly quick reduction of the Taliban.
Most recently, they were part of Marine Task Force Tarawa, arriving at Nasiriyah on April 1, a week after a vicious battle with Iraqi Republican Guard armor and special forces killed 18 Marines.
The men of Weapons Company spent the rest of the campaign on high alert - not that they, too, hadn't lost a comrade in the War on Terror.
Cpl. Sean Tallon, a 2nd Battalion infantryman, was one of 343 New York City firefighters to die at Ground Zero - and the unit's Iraqi Freedom deployment was unofficially dedicated to his memory.
The outfit was - is - top heavy with firefighters and cops, most from New York City.
For sure, they were in a New York state of mind last summer, at Nasiriyah, when the subject of the annual Marine Corps Birthday Ball came up.
A birthday party?
Actually, the Marines are a state of mind, too - steeped in ritual and tradition born of pride and accomplishment on a timeline stretching back to the founding of the corps on Nov. 10, 1775.
For more than 80 years now, tradition requires that, on or about that date, Marines take an evening to honor their past, to reflect on the present - and steel themselves and their families to whatever lies ahead.
Thus will the men of Weapons Company gather this year, on Nov. 8.
The question is: Where?
They want it to be in New York, New York, the town they serve and protect - some as cops; some as firefighters, all as New Yorkers and Marines.
Alas, it is a very expensive town. Too expensive for a birthday ball to be supported simply by subscription, especially from cash reserves depleted by nearly two years of active duty on the not-overly-generous wages paid by the Pentagon these days - even counting combat pay.
Staff Sgt. Trent Narra, now back with the NYPD, sums it up: "We were in the desert, and got talking about how great it would be to have the birthday ball in Manhattan," he said - "if we got back in time."
Well, Weapons Company is back - and suffering severe sticker shock.
Narra and other senior non-commissioned officers have been making the Manhattan rounds - mostly hotel ballrooms.
It's been an eye-opener: "The going price is about $125 a head," he says - which, in the event, is way over his head.
There was talk, says Narra, of restaging the eternally famous Times Square V-J Day kiss, and then quietly ending the evening. But this fails on two levels.
One, Weapons Company deserves better. It was there for New York and the nation when it mattered - and New York, at least, can do better.
More to the point, there likely will be no iconic conclusion to the War on Terror - no Times Square celebration, nor anything remotely like it.
That's not how wars are fought these days.
Weapons Company will need about $40,000; Narra says there is $15,000 committed, including ticket sales and a $5,000 contribution from the Stop & Shop supermarket chain.
That leaves $25,000 in cash or in kind - an eminently reachable goal.
So, New York.
How about it?
E-mail: mcmanus@nypost.com
October 1, 2003 -- The Marines are looking for a few good ballrooms.
Well, actually one will do.
As long as it's in Manhattan, not overly expensive and available on the evening of Nov. 8 for the officers and men of Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 25th Regiment of the 4th Marine Division - late of Nasiriyah, Iraq, by way of Kuwait and Campe Lejeune.
And New York City.
They are reservists, signing on for a weekend a month and two weeks in the summer - but, in the end, getting much more than that.
Smoke was still rising from Ground Zero when 2nd Battalion was called to active duty. For the most part the 150 members of Weapons Company have been wearing Marine green ever since.
They were part of Operation Enduring Freedom - the stunningly quick reduction of the Taliban.
Most recently, they were part of Marine Task Force Tarawa, arriving at Nasiriyah on April 1, a week after a vicious battle with Iraqi Republican Guard armor and special forces killed 18 Marines.
The men of Weapons Company spent the rest of the campaign on high alert - not that they, too, hadn't lost a comrade in the War on Terror.
Cpl. Sean Tallon, a 2nd Battalion infantryman, was one of 343 New York City firefighters to die at Ground Zero - and the unit's Iraqi Freedom deployment was unofficially dedicated to his memory.
The outfit was - is - top heavy with firefighters and cops, most from New York City.
For sure, they were in a New York state of mind last summer, at Nasiriyah, when the subject of the annual Marine Corps Birthday Ball came up.
A birthday party?
Actually, the Marines are a state of mind, too - steeped in ritual and tradition born of pride and accomplishment on a timeline stretching back to the founding of the corps on Nov. 10, 1775.
For more than 80 years now, tradition requires that, on or about that date, Marines take an evening to honor their past, to reflect on the present - and steel themselves and their families to whatever lies ahead.
Thus will the men of Weapons Company gather this year, on Nov. 8.
The question is: Where?
They want it to be in New York, New York, the town they serve and protect - some as cops; some as firefighters, all as New Yorkers and Marines.
Alas, it is a very expensive town. Too expensive for a birthday ball to be supported simply by subscription, especially from cash reserves depleted by nearly two years of active duty on the not-overly-generous wages paid by the Pentagon these days - even counting combat pay.
Staff Sgt. Trent Narra, now back with the NYPD, sums it up: "We were in the desert, and got talking about how great it would be to have the birthday ball in Manhattan," he said - "if we got back in time."
Well, Weapons Company is back - and suffering severe sticker shock.
Narra and other senior non-commissioned officers have been making the Manhattan rounds - mostly hotel ballrooms.
It's been an eye-opener: "The going price is about $125 a head," he says - which, in the event, is way over his head.
There was talk, says Narra, of restaging the eternally famous Times Square V-J Day kiss, and then quietly ending the evening. But this fails on two levels.
One, Weapons Company deserves better. It was there for New York and the nation when it mattered - and New York, at least, can do better.
More to the point, there likely will be no iconic conclusion to the War on Terror - no Times Square celebration, nor anything remotely like it.
That's not how wars are fought these days.
Weapons Company will need about $40,000; Narra says there is $15,000 committed, including ticket sales and a $5,000 contribution from the Stop & Shop supermarket chain.
That leaves $25,000 in cash or in kind - an eminently reachable goal.
So, New York.
How about it?
E-mail: mcmanus@nypost.com