KP95DAO
January 29, 2003, 01:25 PM
>Super Bowl battle is dwarfed by what band of brothers faces.
>Bryan Burwell
>Post-Dispatch Sports Columnist
>01/22/2003 10:25 PM
>
>
>
>Sports Columnist Bryan Burwell
>SAN DIEGO - It was just around midnight Tuesday night, and the outdoor
>courtyard at Dick's Last Resort was throbbing with the rowdy energy of a
>spring break bacchanal. There was loud rock music blaring out of the stereo
>speakers, and the air was filled with the distinct and somewhat revolting
>aroma of deep-fried bar food, cigarette smoke and spilled beer.
>
>Dick's is the sort of bar-restaurant ideally suited for Super Bowl week
>mischief, because it has a down-and-dirty roadhouse feel to it. The
>waiters,
>waitresses and bartenders are charmingly rude, and the wood floors are
>covered with sand and all sorts of indistinguishable debris. The clientele
>on this evening is a fascinating mix of twenty-something college kids,
>thirty-something conventioneers and 40-something Super Bowl high-rollers.
>
>Yet there was one table in Dick's courtyard Tuesday night that was
>noticeably different from the others. There were six young men at the table
>and one young woman, and while they were drinking like everyone else in the
>room, there was something all too serious going on at this table that let
>you know that their thoughts were a long way from the mindless frivolity of
>Super Bowl week.
>
>Maybe it was the close-cropped "barracks haircuts" that gave them away. All
>the men's heads were cut in that familiar look of a professional soldier,
>skin-close on the sides, and on top a tight shock of hair that resembled
>new
>shoe-brush bristles.
>
>"We're Marines," one man told me. "And tomorrow we're boarding a ship for .
>. . well . . . I really can't tell you where, but you know."
>
>Of course we knew. In less than an hour, they would report back to a ship
>docked along the Southern California coast, then on Wednesday head across
>the Pacific Ocean, bound for a potential war in Iraq. So this was no Super
>Bowl party for them. This was their last night out on the town. One Marine
>was saying goodbye to his wife. The others were not so lucky. They all just
>sat around the table, throwing back beers and wrestling with the sobering
>uncertainty of the rest of their lives.
>
>"We're going to war and none of us knows if we're ever coming back," said
>another Marine, a 28-year-old from Southern Illinois. They all requested
>that I not use their names. "Just tell 'em we're the men of (Marine
>Aviation
>Land Support Squad 39)," they said.
>
>On Super Bowl Sunday, the men of MALS 29 will be watching the game from the
>mess hall of their ship. "That is, if we're lucky and the weather is good
>and it doesn't interfere with the satellite signal," said the Marine with
>the bald head and burnt-orange shirt. "But I gotta tell you, I'm not that
>big a sports fan anymore. It's going to be the first pro football game I've
>watched in . . . I can't even remember."
>
>Why is that?
>
>"Well, here's my problem with pro sports today," he said. "I don't care
>whether it's football, basketball or baseball. Guys are complaining about
>making $6 million instead of $7 million, and what is their job? Playing a
>damned game. You know what I made last year? I made $14,000. They pay me
>$14,000, and you know what my job description is? I'm paid to take a
>bullet."
>
>When he said those words, it positively staggered me.
>
>Fourteen thousand dollars to take a bullet.
>
>Not a day goes by that I am not reminded of what a wonderful life I lead. I
>am paid to write about sports and tell stories on radio and television
>about
>the games people play. But sometimes, even in the midst of a grand sporting
>event, something happens to put the frivolity of sports into its proper
>perspective, and this was it.
>
>Fourteen thousand dollars to take a bullet.
>
>As I sit here writing from my hotel room, I can look out my balcony window
>and I see a Navy battleship cutting through the San Diego Bay, heading out
>to sea. I can see the sailors standing on the deck as the ship sails past
>Coronado Island, the San Diego Marina and the downtown Seaport Village, and
>I wonder if any of the men from MALS 39 are aboard.
>
>It was only 12 hours ago that I was sitting at the table with my guys,
>buying them beers, and listening to their soldier stories. The Marine from
>Southern Illinois who sat to my right pointed to the bald Marine in the
>orange shirt who was seated to my left. "You know, I don't even know this
>guy, can you believe that? We just met a few hours ago when we came into
>Dick's. Oh, I've seen him on the base, but I've never met him before
>tonight. But here's what's so special about that man, and why I love that
>man. He's my brother. Semper Fi. I know a guy back home, and he is my best
>friend. I'm 28 years old and we've known each other all our lives. But
>today, that friend is more of a stranger to me than that Marine sitting
>over
>there, who I've never met before tonight. That's why they call it a Band of
>Brothers."
>
>The little Marine in the orange shirt lifted his glass toward the Marine
>from Southern Illinois and nodded his head. "That's right," he said.
>"That's
>my brother over there, and I'm gonna take a bullet for him if I have to."
>
>He said it with a calm and jolting certainty. There was a moving, but
>chilling, pride in his words.
>
>All around them, people were drinking, shouting and laughing. The college
>kids and the conventioneers and NFL high-rollers were living the good,
>carefree life. Across the street, a storefront that was vacant two weeks
>ago
>was now filled with $30 caps, $400 leather jackets, $40 mugs and $27
>T-shirts with the fancy blue and yellow Super Bowl XXXVII logo embroidered
>on it.
>
>From every end of the streets of downtown San Diego's fabled Gaslamp
>Quarter, Super Bowl revelers toasted the Raiders and the Bucanneers with
>grog-sized mugs filled with beers and rums. But just around midnight in the
>middle of the courtyard of Dick's Last Resort, a far more deserving toast
>was going up to the men of MALS 39. We clicked our glasses together, and a
>few minutes later, they quietly slipped out the courtyard gates.
>
>Suddenly, the Super Bowl didn't seem so important anymore.
>Bryan Burwell
>Post-Dispatch Sports Columnist
>01/22/2003 10:25 PM
>
>
>
>Sports Columnist Bryan Burwell
>SAN DIEGO - It was just around midnight Tuesday night, and the outdoor
>courtyard at Dick's Last Resort was throbbing with the rowdy energy of a
>spring break bacchanal. There was loud rock music blaring out of the stereo
>speakers, and the air was filled with the distinct and somewhat revolting
>aroma of deep-fried bar food, cigarette smoke and spilled beer.
>
>Dick's is the sort of bar-restaurant ideally suited for Super Bowl week
>mischief, because it has a down-and-dirty roadhouse feel to it. The
>waiters,
>waitresses and bartenders are charmingly rude, and the wood floors are
>covered with sand and all sorts of indistinguishable debris. The clientele
>on this evening is a fascinating mix of twenty-something college kids,
>thirty-something conventioneers and 40-something Super Bowl high-rollers.
>
>Yet there was one table in Dick's courtyard Tuesday night that was
>noticeably different from the others. There were six young men at the table
>and one young woman, and while they were drinking like everyone else in the
>room, there was something all too serious going on at this table that let
>you know that their thoughts were a long way from the mindless frivolity of
>Super Bowl week.
>
>Maybe it was the close-cropped "barracks haircuts" that gave them away. All
>the men's heads were cut in that familiar look of a professional soldier,
>skin-close on the sides, and on top a tight shock of hair that resembled
>new
>shoe-brush bristles.
>
>"We're Marines," one man told me. "And tomorrow we're boarding a ship for .
>. . well . . . I really can't tell you where, but you know."
>
>Of course we knew. In less than an hour, they would report back to a ship
>docked along the Southern California coast, then on Wednesday head across
>the Pacific Ocean, bound for a potential war in Iraq. So this was no Super
>Bowl party for them. This was their last night out on the town. One Marine
>was saying goodbye to his wife. The others were not so lucky. They all just
>sat around the table, throwing back beers and wrestling with the sobering
>uncertainty of the rest of their lives.
>
>"We're going to war and none of us knows if we're ever coming back," said
>another Marine, a 28-year-old from Southern Illinois. They all requested
>that I not use their names. "Just tell 'em we're the men of (Marine
>Aviation
>Land Support Squad 39)," they said.
>
>On Super Bowl Sunday, the men of MALS 29 will be watching the game from the
>mess hall of their ship. "That is, if we're lucky and the weather is good
>and it doesn't interfere with the satellite signal," said the Marine with
>the bald head and burnt-orange shirt. "But I gotta tell you, I'm not that
>big a sports fan anymore. It's going to be the first pro football game I've
>watched in . . . I can't even remember."
>
>Why is that?
>
>"Well, here's my problem with pro sports today," he said. "I don't care
>whether it's football, basketball or baseball. Guys are complaining about
>making $6 million instead of $7 million, and what is their job? Playing a
>damned game. You know what I made last year? I made $14,000. They pay me
>$14,000, and you know what my job description is? I'm paid to take a
>bullet."
>
>When he said those words, it positively staggered me.
>
>Fourteen thousand dollars to take a bullet.
>
>Not a day goes by that I am not reminded of what a wonderful life I lead. I
>am paid to write about sports and tell stories on radio and television
>about
>the games people play. But sometimes, even in the midst of a grand sporting
>event, something happens to put the frivolity of sports into its proper
>perspective, and this was it.
>
>Fourteen thousand dollars to take a bullet.
>
>As I sit here writing from my hotel room, I can look out my balcony window
>and I see a Navy battleship cutting through the San Diego Bay, heading out
>to sea. I can see the sailors standing on the deck as the ship sails past
>Coronado Island, the San Diego Marina and the downtown Seaport Village, and
>I wonder if any of the men from MALS 39 are aboard.
>
>It was only 12 hours ago that I was sitting at the table with my guys,
>buying them beers, and listening to their soldier stories. The Marine from
>Southern Illinois who sat to my right pointed to the bald Marine in the
>orange shirt who was seated to my left. "You know, I don't even know this
>guy, can you believe that? We just met a few hours ago when we came into
>Dick's. Oh, I've seen him on the base, but I've never met him before
>tonight. But here's what's so special about that man, and why I love that
>man. He's my brother. Semper Fi. I know a guy back home, and he is my best
>friend. I'm 28 years old and we've known each other all our lives. But
>today, that friend is more of a stranger to me than that Marine sitting
>over
>there, who I've never met before tonight. That's why they call it a Band of
>Brothers."
>
>The little Marine in the orange shirt lifted his glass toward the Marine
>from Southern Illinois and nodded his head. "That's right," he said.
>"That's
>my brother over there, and I'm gonna take a bullet for him if I have to."
>
>He said it with a calm and jolting certainty. There was a moving, but
>chilling, pride in his words.
>
>All around them, people were drinking, shouting and laughing. The college
>kids and the conventioneers and NFL high-rollers were living the good,
>carefree life. Across the street, a storefront that was vacant two weeks
>ago
>was now filled with $30 caps, $400 leather jackets, $40 mugs and $27
>T-shirts with the fancy blue and yellow Super Bowl XXXVII logo embroidered
>on it.
>
>From every end of the streets of downtown San Diego's fabled Gaslamp
>Quarter, Super Bowl revelers toasted the Raiders and the Bucanneers with
>grog-sized mugs filled with beers and rums. But just around midnight in the
>middle of the courtyard of Dick's Last Resort, a far more deserving toast
>was going up to the men of MALS 39. We clicked our glasses together, and a
>few minutes later, they quietly slipped out the courtyard gates.
>
>Suddenly, the Super Bowl didn't seem so important anymore.