Let’s Bow Our Heads and Join the Marines

Here’s a prayer with a message for all of us

The Marine's Prayer can serve all of us as a plan for a meaningful life. Fei Meng

Many Americans recognize “semper fidelis,” or “always faithful,” as the motto of the Marine Corps, and they can at least hum the tune of the Marine Corps Hymn, which is the oldest official song in our armed forces. Like other venerable branches of the military, the Marines Corps, over its long history, has woven together a rich tapestry of slogans, slang, and statements of purpose, such as “leathernecks” and “The Drill Instructor’s Creed.”

More recently added to this collection is the Marine’s Prayer.

Written by Silver Star winner Charles Blythe, a veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars, this prayer is remarkable for its ordering of a Marine’s priorities. After asking God to make one aware of His presence and obedient to His will, the prayer’s next two sentences read:

“Keep me true to my best self, guarding me against dishonesty in purpose and deed and helping me to live so that I can face my fellow Marines, my loved ones, and Thee without shame or fear. Protect my family.” Only the following lines of the prayer focus on the specific loyalties, character traits, and martial responsibilities that make for a good Marine.

This “first things first” list, honoring Divine Providence, followed by a commitment to loved ones, reflects a sense of priorities often AWOL these days. Swept along by the torrent of daily obligations and details, we can easily forget the most important things in life.

“Keep me true to my best self,” for instance, is a far cry from egotism or, worse, narcissism. A best self is that interior voice calling us to the path of virtue. The member of Congress who risks losing constituents by acting like a statesman rather than a politician, the father who declines a promotion and pay raise to avoid moving his family a thousand miles away from their beloved hometown, the shy mother who appears at a school board meeting to protest the sex-ed curriculum being taught to her children—these are people keeping true to the best within them.

And these acts of eternal fidelity to truth, this rejection of “dishonesty in purpose and deed,” then allows them to face their fellow citizens, their friends and family members, and their God “without shame or fear.” These men and women receive no medals for their unsung acts of valor, only the quiet appreciation of their colleagues and those closest to them. Their reward comes from what Robert E. Lee once called “the satisfaction that proceeds from a consciousness of duty faithfully performed.”

Next in the Marine’s Prayer comes that short and abrupt petition:

“Protect my family.” Whether you’re a Marine shipping overseas for a tour of duty or a parent driving to work after dropping the kids off at school, those three simple words contain a continent of anxieties and hopes. Whatever our religious beliefs, surely most of us have in some hour of need and suffering lifted our hearts in prayer, or cast a wish into the night sky, begging that our loved ones be shielded from harm or relieved from distress.

At the very end of the Marine’s Prayer, we find these words:

“Guide me with the light of truth.”

Truth can be tricky. Sometimes, the light of the old verities, those ancient guides to virtue, seems almost extinguished, smothered by obligations and circumstances. But then suddenly that guttering candle leaps to life, blazing and bright, our guiding lantern to the good life resuscitated by some scene from a film, lyrics from a song, a line poem, or even a friend’s casual remark.

Or, for that matter, by a prayer written for Marines.