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When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going

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Col. Donald Myers

A Mind of my Own

Published: March 6, 2009

I don't recall who first uttered the words for the title of this article, but they are so apropos to the challenges we face today. There are two organizations in this world that I truly love — the United States of America and the United States Marine Corps. Each of those organizations faced countless challenges to their very existence throughout the years.

As a matter of interest to many fellow Americans, the Marine Corps is older than the country itself. Could it be that one of the reasons that we have country is because we had a military first?

We fought for our independence against the strongest nation in the world at that time and won. We again fought against England in the War of 1812 and saw our nation's capital burned. Again we prevailed. Later in that century we were wracked by a civil war that nearly ended us as a united country. Many more wars caused thousands of casualties and untold treasure, but as always, we prevailed.

The Great Depression lasted for a decade and caused serious damage to the entire country and to add to our misery, we had to fight another world war that finally pulled us out of that depression. The American people rose to the occasion each time. To top off the last century, we fought in Korea, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Iraq, Grenada and Kosovo.

In this century, we were attacked on our own soil in New York and saw thousands of our fellow citizens perish. The following collapse of the market and major companies along with the initial attacks against Afghanistan and Iraq caused serious financial challenges. As a nation we faced all of these and, with the exception of the last year, we continued to perform well in the economy. On the military side, we turned the corner in Iraq and are doing quite well.

The Marine Corps fought in every war. World War II saw the corps grow to six divisions and half a million men. As the Secretary of the Navy watched the flag being raised on Iwo Jima, he stated that that guaranteed the existence of the Corps for the next hundred years. Unfortunately, the Corps was fighting for its existence just a couple of years later because of a push to reduce costs.

In 1950, South Korea was attacked by the North and again we were at war. The First Marine Division was part of the troops that landed at Inchon and later attacked north to completely defeat the North Korean army. In November, it was near a place called the Chosin Reservoir south of Manchuria when the Chinese entered the war. The Marines were surrounded by 10 Chinese divisions and were about 70 miles from a port at Hamhung.

Most media in the country thought that the Marines would probably be destroyed, but the Marines fought their way to the sea through mountains in temperatures that were 20 degrees below zero. One unit, Fox Company 1st Battalion, 7th Marines held a pass through the mountains with 254 men. The Marines were attacked by several Chinese battalions for days and were outnumbered by at least 10 to one. They prevailed and were instrumental in the division being able to move to the sea.

In Vietnam, Marines at Khe Sanh were surrounded by overwhelming enemy forces for months. The media liked to compare the situation to Dien Bien Phu where the French were defeated by the same type of forces in 1954. Again the Marines prevailed.

The point of all of this is that we have faced tough times in the past and each time Americans have stepped forward and ordinary people did extraordinary things. The sky is not falling. There are many people who are in difficult situations, but that is not unusual. It is time to do what has always been done in the past. Families help each other, friends help and churches help.

Those are some of the reasons that this country is so great.

Donald J. Myers, a retired colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps, is a regular columnist for Hernando Today. He lives in Spring Hill and can be contacted at dmyersusmc@aol.com.

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