Have you Marines seen this photo?
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  1. #1
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    Have you Marines seen this photo?


    Here's the story as told by a Marine Corps friend of mine who found the photo.

    "
    It seems that, way back during World War I, a skilled photographer named Arthur S. Mole, and his partner, a Mr John D. Thomas, traveled across the country and took very carefully planned photographs.

    What these two did was plan out very carefully a layout whereby vast numbers of people could stand on an arrangement of tape guides on the ground, and, when photographed from a great height at the top of an 80 foot tower, the proportions of the scene as viewed from that height would make a very clear, very easily identified symbol.

    The proportions are nearly perfect to my eyes, and looking at the photo, you would swear that it was a digital fake. But it’s not.

    They traveled across the country, as I said, and spent several weeks at each location, planning and arranging what came to be called “Living Emblems”.

    This photograph, called the “Living Emblem of the United States Marine Corps”, was taken in 1918, and the emblem is formed of the Marines of Parris Island, South Carolina, where the picture was taken.
    No fakery. No tricks. An honest to God image of the Marines at Parris Island in 1918.

    I would like to take the time, at this point, to remind my fellow Marines that June of 1918 is when the Battle of Belleau Wood took place.
    Marines know how important to our lore that battle was, but for the rest of you, let me just say that you may not have heard the quote “Retreat hell, we just got here”, which originated there, but you damn well heard the quote “Come on, you sons of *****es, do you want to live forever?”
    It is the Battle of Belleau Wood where the US Marines earned the nickname “Teufel Hunden”, or Devil Dog, supposedly what the German troops called the Marines who fought there, and Marines take pride in being Devil Dogs to this day.

    That is the same time period as this photograph. That is the history the US Marines were forging at the very moment when this photograph was being taken.

    I don’t know about anyone else, but damn if that doesn’t send chills down my spine to think of when I look at it.

    Here we are, 91 years later, and the afternoon they spent out in the sun is still alive to be remembered. A powerful image. The Marines of the United States Marine Corps of 1918, standing united together and acting as one. A lasting reminder of the tradition that each and every Marine living today keeps on carrying on. A reminder as well, that while the rest of the world forgets faster than a mayfly’s lifespan, what a Marine does now is part of a tradition that will be remembered by other Marines for as long as there remains a Corps.

    On a day when the world is fascinated with the false and the fake… my reminder of something that is hard as hell to hold, but all too real."


  2. #2

  3. #3
    Marine Free Member jungholee90's Avatar
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    Wow, that's crazy. This just made my desktop wallpaper. It's so beautiful.


  4. #4

    Ooorah

    Semper Fi!! Great Find Motivater


  5. #5
    that picture is actually in the P.I museum.very motivating!


  6. #6
    yeah I saw this on the MC museum webpage.

    very cool stuff... and BG pendleton was commanding at the time, which is always fun 'cause it's not only a cool photo but the guy eventually gets the largest base named after him.


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