Amen and Semper Fi

I was fitfully dozing, dreaming — as I often do, as all Jarheads past and present do — of my salad days when I was a young Marine. Those memories are never far off and are a constant reminder that no matter how bad things get — or how good — very little can match what we have already experienced in the Corps. But life goes on and those hallowed recollections inevitably recede into the shadows of our consciousness as we grapple with the here and now.

In this case, the here was Brussels, Belgium, and the now was 1986. It was midmorning and I was thinking about dragging myself out of bed when I thought I heard the front door of the small house my wife and I rented slide open. We were editors at The Wall Street Journal/Europe and, because she had an early meeting, she had already departed for our office at the Brussels Hilton instead of driving there, as usual, with me. She must have forgotten something, I thought, as I burrowed beneath the covers for another 5 minutes before forcing myself out of bed to seize the day. I then threw back the covers, parted the curtains of our second-floor bedroom and, hoping to clear the mental fog, gazed out at the nearby Bois de la Cambre. It was raining, of course; but it was always raining in Brussels.

I needed a cup of strong coffee to kickstart me into consciousness so I descended the stairs to the kitchen, where I expected to find my wife rummaging around for whatever it was she had forgotten. But the kitchen was empty and the sliding glass door that opened onto our small courtyard was, oddly, slightly open. Although I wasn’t fully awake, I knew something was amiss. I looked around the living room and then peeked into our study; nothing seemed to be missing but the sense that someone had been in our house was unshakable. And I knew it was someone other than my wife.

Suddenly, it hit me. Of course! My wallet! I whirled and raced to the shelf where I left it each night, along with my watch and other jewelry. Much to my relief, it was still there — but it had been emptied of a thousand Belgian francs (I don’t remember exactly but that wasn’t as much money as it may seem). On closer inspection, I found that eighty U.S. dollars that had been on the shelf were also missing and — this was the killer — my U.S. Marine Corps ring, the one I had bought at the mainside PX at Camp Pendleton in 1969.

The ring was a handsome thing, 14-carat gold with a red stone and, of course, the Eagle, Globe and Anchor. It had cost $25 back when that was a not inconsequential sum for a young corporal. A few weeks earlier, several friends in Headquarters Company had seized upon the idea of heading into Oceanside to get Marine Corps tattoos but I had demurred, preferring to show my pride with something less gaudy and more elegant. Thus, my ring, which I had worn through a tour in Vietnam, while at college, at my wedding and throughout my budding journalistic career. It was now gone, stolen by someone who had penetrated two locked wrought-iron and glass gates and had avoided the usually all-seeing gaze of Madam Feyton, the main building’s concierge, on the day our front door was uncharacteristically left unlocked. I was also puzzled that the thief had not taken my watch and credit cards. But I don’t understand the criminal mind; maybe there was a good reason.

I didn’t bother reporting the break-in to the police — even back then, Belgium was a barely functioning country in anything other than gastronomic matters; the bureaucratic hassle would have been maddening and, in the end, futile. I knew I’d never see my ring again and I also knew there was nothing I could do about it.

The thief — may he rot in hell — was surely disappointed when he tried to sell it. He couldn’t have known that its worth was measured in memories and pride and that its true value was known only to me. He couldn’t have known the depth of feeling that wearing it engendered. And he couldn’t have known the reverence it symbolized as expressed in this quote attributed to an anonymous Navy admiral: The Army and Navy are run like traditional military services; the Air Force is run like a corporation. But the Marine Corps is a religion.

Amen to that. And Semper Fi.