You may have seen this on the news lately. It is a simple scene, a very brief video caught on a small convenience store security camera. The event that is depicted here is not something anybody wants to find themselves in, but this robbery did not go the way that the young thugs had planned…or expected.
Because of the actions taken here in this event by this Marine, now back in civilian life, you may begin to understand the Marine epithet, “Once a Marine always a Marine.” What he does in a critical instant, makes all the difference in the outcome of this event. All that boot camp mind and body training, all of that Marine Corps attitude, all of that sense that every Marine is a rifleman, and all that training in situational awareness is for real. These young punks got an object lesson in “OoRah,” “Semper Fi,” Marine Corps attitude and training.
The irony is that this Marine, when interviewed about the incidents said that no one should think of him as some kind of super Marine. He said that in reality he was as “pogue” a Marine as they come. “Pogue” is Marine Corps parlance for a Marine who works in a non-combat MOS. He served in the Marine Air Wing in a support personnel MOS when he was in the Corps. But he is a perfect example of how the core values of the Marine Corps become part of the self-awareness of all of those who have served in the Corps and earned the title of United States Marine.
Those young “toughs” who entered that store that night thought that they had the situation under control entering this shop pointing a pistol and shouting commands. Keep your eye on the guy in the center of the screen. His reaction to the situation is as “swift, silent and deadly” as any Marine Reconner’s. No thought, just action. That martial arts training from boot camp and advanced training kicked right it. In Marine Corps tradition, when that “ambush” broke out, he charged right into it taking the element of surprise away from the young would-be robbers.
It doesn’t take a fraction of a second for this event to take a turn that the robbers never thought about. It did not end in the way they had planned. Their youthful pretense of bravado ran into a major, focused and definite obstacle, a Marine, who just wasn’t about to mess around with this on his watch. He was able to stop a potentially dangerous situation and no one got hurt.
Semper Fi, Marine! See more in the video below.