Thanks and Happy Birthday, United States Navy

Thank you, United States Navy (USN) for being the best maritime service in human history. Please accept this missive on your 250th birthday. Thank you for being the service that allowed the finest fighting force, the United States Marine Corps (USMC) to exist. Thank you for enlisted personnel wearing shiny stuff so that junior Marines can salute a chief.

Thank you for taking the brunt of the jokes about your position on being light in your loafers, so to speak. Thank you for always patching up Marines on beaches, in towns, in jungles, and the desert sands and mountains.

Thank you for always providing equipment for USMC to ride. Thank you for knowing that you’re never going to have better uniforms than Marines.

Thank you for providing chow, chaplains, and bullets, bombs, and bandages. Thank you for continually fighting with USMC as the older brother but with a limp wrist.

Thank you, Navy, for being physicians, psychologists, and dentists when USMC needs care. Thanks for always supporting USMC when Marines ran wild and for taking Devils in when the rain or snow fell.

Thanks for being that sibling USMC looked up to and never lost sight of our connection. Thank you for being the biggest, baddest fleet of all time.

Thank you for protecting us when we sleep and staying awake with us on watch.

Thank you for being the only branch of the United States military to currently have a department of men and women who fight under the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor. Thank you for having a complicated insignia and flag which no one can put in order and few can find meaning.

Thank you for allowing USMC to deal with the blood and guts while you fire from far away…unless you're a SEAL. Then your badass. Thank you for always keeping up the tradition of “Semper Fortis” although this is NOT an official motto like Semper Fidelis.

Thank you for remaining true to your abilities as America’s first line of defense on the world stage. When people ask, “How do Marines get to be the “‘first to fight?’” Who do they think the Devil Dogs hitched a ride to get to the front?

Thanks for challenging the other branches in stopping in whatever port and getting a regulation tattoo only to regret it in six months.

Thank you for always encouraging Marines to beat the mess out of each other just so the corpsman can patch them up. Thanks for the ability to bring together the other branches and have all systems engaged on the high seas.

Thank you for drinking with USMC and then waking up the next day with pristine uniforms and sober minds. Thanks for bringing the idea of protecting the entire globe into the consciousness of military personnel and civilians alike.

Thank you for celebrating USMC when it came time to, and for admonishing and processing USMC legal affairs in the JAG system.

Thanks for assuring the other branches that you have a younger brother and sister that would fight anything walking. Thank you for creating a space for USMC to break all the rules and still be able to sit down for chow and laugh about the exploits of the previous night out on town.

Thank you, Navy, for breaking down the ideals of what it means to be a battle station manning, academics excelling, “force for good.” Marines will always joke on you and try to keep you down, but USMC means it only in sibling rivalry.

Thank you for allowing USMC to be a Department in your great service. Semper Fortis, Navy…even if it isn’t an official motto.