We Don't Make Compromises [Steve Schippert]

Sorry Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard: The Marines own military advertising and marketing.

It's almost unfair, because it doesn't really take a lot of imagination. I mean, is it even possible to screw up dress blues, the silent drill team, or a rock-hard drill instructor in a smokey? (I suppose if someone tried to pitch it as a "Corps of One," perhaps that would harden the cider in short order.)

Think about the ease with which the Corps's marketing advisors must operate. No other service has such branded images. The Navy flashes an aircraft carrier, the Air Force a fighter jet, and the Coast Guard a helo and a cutter in a hurricane. The Marines show men. That's our branded, marketable image. And it's not simply a marketing gimmick. It's heritage.

The Marines don't show you something you can ride on. They show you men—something you can be a part of, not a passenger aboard.

I'm a humble guy. But damn I'm proud to have been a Marine Corps sergeant. Nothing spectacular by any measure of a career. No machine gun nests rushed, no rooms full of insurgents and terrorists neutralized, no Silver Stars. But no matter what the sum of my life tallies up to in the end, I will go to my grave knowing that, at least once, I did the right thing and for the right reasons. I could have done any number of things. I chose that.

May we all feel that about our service past and long to live up to it in service present, regardless of branch or billet.

We Don't Make Compromises: We Make Marines


Latest USMC ad debuts on CBS during the 2008 Men's NCAA Basketball Tournament Final Four. It's a slam dunk.

http://our.marines.com/cms_content/showblogvideo/rel_id/517/id/1579

Ellie

Why is this in the Missing Marines forum?