by T. Scott Randolph

Created on: June 23, 2009   Last Updated: July 08, 2009

This is not nearly as straight forward a question as it may seem. When I was younger, the answer would have been an overwhelming yes. So much in fact that I voluntarily joined (arguably) the toughest branch of the military in the world. At the tender young age of 19 I enlisted in the U.S. Marines. It would appear on the surface that this is the ultimate act of patriotism.

Uncle Sam gave the call and I went. It was an honorable call. I went to Somalia to protect the innocent and make sure that the U.N. food shipments got to the people that needed it unmolested. But, was that the reason I was there? A week or so before I arrived on station, a certain Army black-hawk pilot was dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. We all saw this happen live via the cable news network. So what was the real reason the Marines were there? Was it to help the starving people or was it payback against the warlords (particularly Aidid, who was one of the most powerful), we didn't care what the real reason was. My comrades and myself were looking for some payback.

Let's skip ahead a couple of years. Saddam Hussein was causing more trouble in his neck of the woods. We had already been bought once in 1991 to liberate Kuwait (an agreement to buy oil at slightly less than market value for a few years), now his brother, the King of Jordan, was worried that old Saddam might decide to annex his kingdom. We went and trained the Jordanian army in tactics of modern warfare (with U.S. weapons bought at a premium price, of course). Then just to let our old buddy know we were in the area, we mirrored Iraqi troop movement on the border between Iraq and Saudi.

In between these combat deployments, we found ourselves enjoying the wonders of the world. I don't mean the pyramids in Egypt. I mean the nightclubs in Hong Kong and the outdoor bars in Phuket, Thailand. You discover very quickly that the world as a whole likes American money (this was in the mid to late 90s when the dollar was stronger than now) but they didn't much care for the person that was from America. Luckily most people did not know accents too well, so you found yourself saying that you were British, Canadian, or even South African. It sounds bad now, but at the time it was better than getting jumped by a dozen locals that felt the U.S. was meddling in their personnel governments affairs (I can't say I totally disagree with them).

There have been a couple times in our history where you could not exercise your constitutional

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