From the Front -- Marines salute fallen comrade

Tonight we had a memorial service for a fellow Marine who died in training. After forming the battalion into formation on the parade deck, we marched up one of California's coastal mountains that overlooks our camp. We reached the top at sunset. The blue-gray mountains surrounding us slept under a blanket of haze; the burning sun extinguishing among them. The calm sky was stratified into ribbons of magenta, scarlet, orange, and peach. Two days ago Sergeant Adams was manning a machine gun from the turret of a Humvee when the Humvee rolled one-and-a-half times and crushed him. He takes leave of his wife and two small children and his parents. Sgt. Adams died doing what he loved, what we all love -- defending others, defending the freedom of people he didn't know. Centered in the formation on the mountain was an empty pair of boots, an inverted rifle in the dirt, and the photo of the young man. His team approached and placed his helmet on the rifle. We saluted, staring over the quiet valley and the yellow lights of our camp below. A 21-gun salute was fired and taps played behind us. I love taps. I tell myself that this is just life. If our battalion of a thousand Marines had stayed at home in the Midwest, one of us might well have died in a car accident anyway. But we are not in the Midwest. We are here preparing to preserve order in a country where some people want to kill us. Every person we lose, even in training, is a victory for the enemy. I didn't know Sgt. Adams well, but we are a close-knit unit and his loss is felt. There were no tears shed as the Major eulogized our brother, but all hearts were cut in two. Sgt. Adams' name was read for role call one last time. Then the battalion filed by in two ranks, one on each side of the memorial, every Marine sharply saluting as he passed. A bagpiper played "Amazing Grace" and each note echoed off the mountains around us before fading into the evening.

Tonight taps plays again across the base for lights out. As I lie safe in my rack, I think only of all the men and women for whom that haunting song has played before --men and women who loved this country so much that they gave her all they had. It is their determination and their sacrifice that motivates us to go out and train even harder and better tomorrow.

-- Sgt. Jeff Tidyman has been activated with the U.S. Marine Corps and has agreed to share occasional columns on his experience. A reservist with a Des Moines, Iowa, unit, he is the son of Larry and Carla Tidyman of Benkelman and a civil engineer in civilian life.