What is more important, the person who comes up with a vision or the second person who hears it and gives it wings? Both are equally important. And what happens when someone across the way has been working toward the same thing all along? Master Sergeant Joe Moore, Gunnery Sergeant Juet Duckworth and Master Gunnery Sergeant Jeff Dyson found out when they helped build an annual Marine Corps birthday gathering at National Harbor.
I met Dyson after I printed the first version of this story, and that’s when I learned he was one of the founders.
Moore and Duckworth were longtime friends who used to celebrate the Marine Corps birthday on November 10 by going to formal events. The suit-and-tie affairs weren’t their cup of tea. More than 30 years ago, Moore stepped out in faith and decided to host a get-together at the Gaylord Hotel. When I spoke with Duckworth, he told me he was the first to accept the invitation.
The next year, two became four. You could still hear echoes reverberating off the walls, but at least there was progress. For the first couple of years, Moore and Duckworth paid for the food and drinks out of their own pockets. They kept at it, giving their fellow Marines a place to show up, grab a bite and spend time with people who understood them.
While Moore and Duckworth were building their gathering, Dyson was organizing one of his own. He didn’t know they were doing the same thing. When the two groups crossed paths, the three Marines chose to work together. Each group had put time and effort into building something of its own. What mattered to all three men was giving Marines a place to come together.
Gunny Duckworth told me something else that made me realize I had to write about this blessed happy hour. Men have a hard time asking for help when they’re hurting. What we do is run to dependencies since we have few we can depend on to be there for us. Along with celebrating the Marine Corps birthday, Moore wanted the gathering to reach veterans who were suffering in silence. Today, it brings together more than 500 Marines.
It’s like Moore was writing a response to “Silent Salute,” a poem I wrote 11 years ago when I was homeless. I’ve lived on both sides of that fence. I know what it’s like to work as an IT consultant at the Pentagon. I also know how a few missed paychecks can leave you scrounging for change on sidewalks, invisible to the people passing by. That’s why I care about what these three Marines built. A get-together can be the place where someone finally has a person to talk to about what they carried home from war.
You know who I thought about when Duckworth told me he was the first to say yes? Jesus and John the Baptist. Jesus let John baptize him, and John bore witness. I think about what it means to put your faith behind someone else’s work. Duckworth did that when he answered Moore’s invitation. And when Dyson’s gathering crossed paths with theirs, all three got to practice that same humility by joining forces.
Earlier that day, before I realized it was the Marine Corps birthday, I recorded a tribute to my dad, who served in the Ethiopian navy. After a long and exhausting day, I got to hear how three men kept serving their fellow Marines long after they first put on the uniform. Thank you, Master Sergeant Moore, Gunny Duckworth and Master Gunnery Sergeant Dyson, for giving your fellow Marines a place to celebrate, to ask for help and to be Marines together. OORAH!
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” — Matthew 5:9
Silent Salute
I wrote this poem for veterans when I spent nearly two years traveling state to state, homeless but never alone because veterans became my friends where my friends went AWOL.
To the soldiers who sacrificed
Did their duty without asking
I express outrage against injustice
Over immoral wars and endless carnage
I am speaking out for you in the process
Veterans in the end understand one thing
Their fellow men were never their enemy
To this day fierce rivals from past conflicts
Embrace after the last bullets have been fired
Soldiers salute and do their duty that is best
The sorrows they go through alone
Trauma induced by bodies and reduced humanity
Only to come back home and encounter Satan’s embrace
Flash backs prompting cold sweats
Bullets and blood droplets
Too much for the mind to process
Those who die in wars are fortunate
It’s the veterans, the survivors
Who carry the burdens of these remembrances
Fallen comrades and innocent children
Indiscriminately swallowed whole by turbulence
Tears mixing with blood stains
Cries drowned out by battle drums
War is humanity’s utmost blemish
Concealed by propaganda and theatrics
Patriotism birthing negligence
Our conscience is subverted into ignorance
As we enjoy disengagement’s bliss
Veterans suffer depression’s kiss
Politicians, profiteers and Hollywood
Glorifying war horrors by bending reality
Obfuscating suffering with special effects and rhetoric
But to the soldier their truth is the opposite
Rat-tat-tat-tat bullets shattering God’s presence
Untold masses disappearing into graves and silence
We wave flags thanking them for service
They shiver alone bearing the cost of compliance
Final judgments by way of triggers and buttons
Only to come back home
Shock and awe replaced by shock trauma
Nightmares that never end
Being continually transported back to mayhem
The battle field redrawn into the mind’s synapses
Piercing quietness with shrieks and terrors
Spouses who grow estranged
Children unable to comprehend
Concern pixelating into absence
Loneliness the only friend that remains
The proud and few become islands
Invisible wounds breaking cognizance
This is why so many end up homeless
Many more embracing suicide’s cuddle
Despair muffles life and blends into darkness
To be met by society’s mind numbing indifference
We step over them daily
Once warriors turned into the indigent
Salutes being returned with diffidence
Yet in this silence I stand for you
May God forever bless you
Where you are broken
May you mend into fullness
Sergeant Black in DC
Vietnam War survivor
Gunny Stevens in Greenville
Korean War survivor
Derrick in Colorado
Iraq War survivor
Frank in Ankeny Iowa
World War II survivor
Countless others who I have met
Had the honor of sharing meals with
May your struggles be fleeting
But your blessings be eternal
In silence I salute you
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