I met a Marine today

I really do get to do some cool stuff here. A few days ago I was invited to meet LtCol (ret) Oliver North. LtCol North was moving through on his way to Iraq and someone I knew here needed an assistant driver to ride along up to the airport to pick him up. If your not aware I deal with Foreign Military Sales. LtCol North was involved in "a bit of controversy" surrounding that very topic, so my buddy thought I might want to meet him. That issue did not come up and I'll not discuss it here. What I will say is that after meeting and talking to LtCol North I have no doubt that whatever he did or did not do he was driven by a love of country and believed he was doing the right thing.

I got up to meet LtCol North after he landed and had made his way to the waiting area where he would stay until he could get a flight to Iraq. This means that I was meeting the guy after about a 14 hour flight and an hour or so truck ride. At this point he is in a big tent just like every other Soldier, Airman, Sailor and Marine that comes here. There is no VIP room, and after meeting the guy I don't think he'd go to one if there was one. Nobody should be excited or in a good mood after all that, but he was!

Things just kinda conspired and my partner, Leroy and I were just kinda left standing there with LtCol North while his people and the escorts were working out some details. Not really knowing what to do or say, Leroy and I just kinda stood there not saying or doing anything. LtCol North took the lead, he could see we were a little uncomfortable and not sure how to approach meeting him. Just as if it was nothing at all, he walks over to us, "Hey, how ya doin Ollie North. Whats your name? Where you from?" Man and like that it was on! Just a pleasant conversation about how long we had been there, how our families were doing, what our plans were when we left, if we had been on R&R. It was just cool. We lucked into like a 15 minute conversation. Just the three of us.

I realize I don't know the guy that well, but I do know people. I know when people are blowin smoke and when they are genuine. This guy is the real deal. I got to hang around with him for a few hours while his travel plans were finalized. I watched him interact with others. I watched him approach young troops he knew were to nervous to come up to him. He engaged them, not the other way around. He seemed to want to meet them as much as they wanted to meet him. He truly, genuinely cared about these folks. You could see it in his eyes. When he asked how you were, he really wanted to know. When somebody remarked about the son or daughter they were going home to see that they had never met you could see his expression change. He felt it.

LtCol North was really an engaging and interesting guy. It seemed to me that he truly liked being around us. He seemd to draw energy and enthusiasim from us. I will tell you though, he loves his Marines, and they seem to truly and deeply respect and love him. When he got around a group of Marines, it was different. Nothing I could define, nothing I can really describe, but unquestionably different. There is a bond among Marines that does not exist among others. It was amazing to actually see.

LtCol North took any amount of time anybody asked of him. Signing autographs, posing for pictures, etc. My section, since we deal with Foreign Military Sales, has had a picture of LtCol North hanging on our wall for as long as anybody knows. It is there to remind us to focus on the details. I explained the pic and the reason we had it up. I thought it would be cool if he signed it, and of course he was happy to. That joker in the background is my partner Leroy. So now we have the pic up and I get to tell my story of the day I met a Marine.