When A Marine Goes Down…

Sometimes I read and hear something so crazy, it makes me wonder exactly what the person was thinking when they wrote or said it. And when the crazy things aren’t actually coming out of my own mouth for a change, I tend to write them down. On lists. That I keep in drawers in my desk. So when  weeks/months/years go by and I’m actually tidying up the shadowy places in my office that the best flotsam gravites to, I usually come across a surprise chuckle or two.

“Why don’t you blog your lists,” my husband said this morning, “instead of writing them on papers that are just going to lie around in your office waiting for you to get annoyed enough to dig them out?”

Good point.

Why don’t I.

From the August Herald
(Augusta, Georgia, we had to explain yesterday to our niece from Far, Far Away.  NOT Augusta, Maine.)
Day After Thanksgiving:

When a Marine goes down…

A computer was stolen from the Best Buys. No address given in the article, by the way, because there’s only the one in town. In Atlanta, there’s a Best Buys on practically every corner. Someone’s always trying to steal something. Big city journalists have to be more specific if they want anyone to care enough to read past their by-line.

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Anyway, the thief was caught by the store’s Shopping Surveillance Team. Not store security. We’re now politically correcting our hourly rent-a-cops, so they don’t feel vilified by the thieving shopping masses. “What do you with your time since dropping out of the police academy? I’m a Shopping Surveillance Engineer for the seasonal retail industry.”

Anyway, the Best Buys got some help from a Marine manning the Toys for Tots display out front. The young man tackled the perp as he fled and the Surveillance Engineer gave chase. Unfortunately, the thief pulled a knife and managed to injure the Marine in the scuffle.

The Donation Collection Team (See how I did that? Always trying to be considerate.) helped hold the man until the police and ambulance arrived, then several of the team accompanied the injured enlisted man to the hospital for treatment of his non-life-threatening injuries.

“When a Marine goes down,” someone from Toys for Tots told the reporter, “we close up the operation and pitch in any way we can.”

I LOVE this. And not just for the team’s loyalty to our brave fighting men/women. The Toys for Tots organization has evidently had enough instances of violence against their uniformed ambassadors over the years, they have a politically correct policy for how to handle the next attack.

Reread the quote.

Is it just me, or does it sound like wedged somewhere between the Toys for Tots Holiday Collection Manual’s dress code guidelines and hours of operation chart, there’s a page devoted to prompt and compassionate handling of violence against uniformed volunteers? As soon as I read the lead line above in the article, I pictured an elderly man in a TFT’s apron witnessing the exchange and whipping a megaphone from beneath his collection table to shout, “Marine Down!”

I know. I’m making mock of what could have been a tragedy. I’m proud of the young Marine and everyone else in my mother’s small town who volunteered their time at the butt crack of dawn yesterday, so that kids who would otherwise go without can have a tree full of toys Christmas morning. And I’m relieved that the brave Marine will be fine and that no one else was injured and that the creep who drove from three small towns over to lift a computer is in jail. But I’m a writer, and things I see every day in papers and magazines tickle me. This one made me laugh out loud over a forkfull of leftover turkey and stuffing. So I thought I’d share.

Happy beginning of the holiday season, everyone!

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3 Responses to “When A Marine Goes Down…”

  1. Well indeed, that was a story worth repeating especially from the eyes of a writer. Sometimes I think our minds just process things differently and we see angles others did not.

    Happy Thanksgiving.

    JT

  2. GladysMP says:

    I am just now reading this report, but the story for some reason made me think of an email I just received. Crime has reached the point in our community to where emails are sent out between residents to let them know what is going on. For the third time this week I have received emails telling me that thieves have stolen all of the tires and rims from cars in our neighborhood this week. One incident happened just the second block from our house. Even worse, two residents were each followed home and had guns pulled on them by two crooks and their cars taken. Scary. Dope gangs in Mexico are using stolen cars to block streets in Mexican towns and thwart police. Houston is close to the border.

  3. sue hieber says:

    under i hear the craziest things, i feel obligated to include my (too smart) 5 yr old granddaughter. sh can come up with some real winners. for instance last night, she did not want to eat her dinner and her excuse was “grandma, i can’t eat this, because it it way too delicious, and if i eat it, i won’t ever want to eat anything else” top that!!

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