Oorah! Jasper County veterans to celebrate 250th birthday of U.S. Marine Corps

How do you spot a Marine? Well, if you’re a civilian in Jasper County, you may have to rely on them wearing their signature red T-shirts sporting the corps insignia, or work up the courage to shout “oorah!” in a crowded room, hoping the battle cry is returned. And it almost always is.

For the retired Marines in Jasper County, they can take one look at someone and usually tell if they had served in the U.S. Marine Corps. They tell me there is just something about them that makes them stand out from other people. That sense of familiarity was developed from their rigorous training and it hasn’t gone away.

Marines can pick each other out from crowds by the way they sit or act or how they carry themselves. It is like an aura only they can detect, and it derives from a shared experience of combat, basic training or the memorization of the core values. It is with them forever, even after they have been discharged.

Leo Yokiel joined the U.S Marine Corps in 1961 and was discharged three years later. He recalled an experience from a month or so ago at the local Culver’s where a young man held the door open for him. When Yokiel thanked him, the man told him he would do that “for any of my brothers.”

To him, that shows just how connect Marines are to one another.

“Whether you know them or not, if they know that you are one, you’re a brother,” Yokiel said. “And you’re a brother forever.”

“Once a Marine, always a Marine,” said Wesley Justus, a Marine with more than 20 years experience in the corps and its reserve program.

By Nov. 10, it is going to be real easy to find our local Marines, because it will mark the U.S. Marine Corps’s 250th birthday. Jasper County Marines are preparing a birthday bash, of sorts, starting at 5 p.m. at the American Legion Post 111 in Newton. All local Marines are invited to attend the celebration.

They’ll be enticed with cake and camaraderie and the pride of recognizing the longstanding traditions of the U.S. Marine Corps, which was formed Nov. 10, 1775 by Second Continental Congress. These events also allow Marines to pay tribute to their fallen brothers and sisters.

Mady McKim, who has spent a dozen years in the corps and its reserves, said the U.S. Marine Corps is all about traditions. Recruits are taught the history of the corps, and they’re expected to know it and remember it. The training taught them discipline, which inevitably carried over to their civilian lives in different ways.

Charlotte Ross, who first joined the Army Reserves before enlisting in the Marine Corps, said the Marines have the best training. They have to, she said, because Marines are “the tip of the spear.” Justus pointed out it is clear that Marines, even after they are discharged, are a very proud people.

“We’re a very close group,” Yokiel said. “I was never in a combat situation, but people who have been protect the person on either side. They take care of one another. It’s always been that way … I think it’s something you keep forever. It’s part of you. I got out in 1964, but I still consider myself a Marine.”

Justus and Keith Thorpe helped kickstart the birthday celebrations at the American Legion. McKim said these events happen all over the country. Now entering its eighth or ninth year, the local celebration keeps veterans engaged with other veterans. Thankfully, Marines have a lot to relate with other Marines.

Ross said, “It all starts from bootcamp. Everybody goes in and everyone is from everywhere. You don’t know the person next to you, but by the end of training not only do I know you and you and you — whether I know you or not — we all went through the same thing. We all came out of it. It builds you up inside.”

Justus is looking forward to another night of camaraderie this year.

“We stand beside each other and with each other and respect each other,” he said. “If somebody’s not respecting one of us, they’re not respecting all of us. The nucleus that we’ve got, we’ve gained and we’re looking forward to that camaraderie. If somebody needs help, what can we do to figure it out.

“We do that for any branch also. But we’ll be there first.”