Semper Fi. I know everyone has heard it at least once in their lives. But most people have no idea what it truly means. Technically, it’s short for Semper Fidelis, which means, in Latin, “Always Faithful.” There have been many different interpretations of what this phrase really means. I was watching a television show the other day and the girl said that it meant “you rat, you fry” because if you ratted out your men, you were done for. Without the trust of the other men, there was no reason to fight. By the way, the verb “to rat” means to betray someone, such as the men that I fought with. “Ratting” is an unforgivable offense.
In my own opinion, I have created a different meaning for the phrase. with the case of warfare, it means that you were always faithful to your fellow soldiers. Without those men standing next to me, I would not have survived in Vietnam. I am still forever in the debt of the men who fought with me.
Through the knowledge that they were always there for me, I would lay down my life for them. I would have sacrificed anything to make sure that they survived the war. I remember one battle, there was a guy next to me who had pictures of his family and he always held them in his pocket. To him, I was a complete stranger, but he showed me the pictures anyway. It was a Christmas picture of his wife with his three kids. He told me all of their names. He had two daughters named Lia and Ariana—they were three and four years old, respectively. He also had an infant son named Benjamin. His son was born the day after he deployed so he has never seen his own son.
During the battle, he must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time because I never saw him again. He started by fighting next to me, then he got an idea—I could see a little light bulb go off in his head. He ran to the Commander to tell him his idea. I heard later that he had been hit by a mortar. His brilliant strategy never reached the Commander.
I still carry that story with me-- even after all these years. I told my son that story as soon as he was old enough just to get it off my chest. It hit him so powerfully that he named all of his children after that man’s children.
My biggest regret from the entire war was not the murder of innocent people. Of course that still nags at me, but my biggest regret is that I never asked that man his name. I will never know the name of the man that kept me motivated during my last months at war. When I learned of his death, I was horrified. I wish more than anything that I could have saved him. Even though I never knew his name, I feel like I could have done something to avoid his death. Maybe if I had gone with him to tell the Commander his new idea, we would have avoided the mortar attack. Maybe… maybe… maybe…
There is something else that Semper Fi means—it means that a soldier has to fight so that he was not thought of as a coward. We had to fight so that the men next to us didn’t think we were scared. I have another quote from my hero John Wayne “Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway” and it explains the meaning of true courage. John Wayne thought that courage was not that a man was NOT afraid, but that even though he was scared, he was still brave when he had to be. In that sense, our men were courageous. Each and every one of us was scared for our lives and we still fought bravely. I owe everything that I have now to those men fighting with me then during Vietnam.
Adapted from the story of Kevin Macauley in Macauley, Kevin. “The Seige of Khe Sanh.” The Soldiers’ Story. Ed. Ron Steinman. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2002. 105-109. Book.
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