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View Full Version : All for one, one for all: They're a trio



thedrifter
05-27-07, 07:37 AM
Last Updated: 8:24 am | Sunday, May 27, 2007
All for one, one for all: They're a trio
Brad Smith, Justin Huling, Troy Galbraith

Gung-ho. It is a phrase - a battle cry, really - that has had deep meaning in the U.S. Marine Corps since its Raiders fought their way through the South Pacific in World War II, shouting out a borrowed and mangled Chinese phrase.

Thanks to the Marines, it has passed into the English language; a bona fide word that Webster defines as "enthusiastic, cooperative, enterprising, etc., in an unrestrained, often naïve way."

Which might also define three young men - Brad Smith, Justin Huling and Troy Galbraith, soon to be graduates of Lakota West High School and soon after that, Marines.

"I can't wait; I want to go right now,'' said Brad, sitting with his high school buddies at the kitchen table of his West Chester home.

Heads nod around the table. All three seem excited enough to burst out of their skins any minute.

"We're going to be Marines. What could be better than that?"

All three say that after they graduate next month, they don't see a place for themselves in college, at least not now.

"I can't see myself sitting in a college classroom,'' Troy said. "I want to be out doing something. I want to be active. What could be more active than the Marine Corps?"

Joining the Marines in 2007 means a high likelihood of being deployed overseas - probably to Iraq, and likely in harm's way.

"Not a problem,'' Brad said. "We'll be ready."

It is more of a problem for his parents, Karen and Greg - particularly Karen, whose father was a young soldier who died in Vietnam.

"It's going to be very hard if he is over in Iraq,'' Karen Smith said. "But look at him - this is what he really wants to do with his life. How could we not support that?"

Ellie