Subject: Marines Fight and Die for America and Fellow Marines, PERIOD!!

My name is (name withheld) and I am a (senior USMC Non-Commissioned Officer rank withheld) stationed at Camp Pendleton in San Diego, California. I am a "lifer" in the USMC. I am here until they kick me out of the Corps. Thank you to MRFF for being there so that I can express my feelings on behalf of myself and my fellow Marines. If I said these same things to my superiors in the Corps I probably would get kicked out.

I am a veteran of many, in fact (exact number withheld), combat tours to both Iraq and Afghanistan. I have been awarded many combat decorations including (combat awards and decoration names withheld) for my combat tours which have always included much hand-to-hand combat. Now, about that cross being lugged up that hill on the federal land controlled by Camp Pendleton. Fuck those Marines who did that! FUCK THEM TO HELL! What, they think that that cross stands for and represents all the dead Marines that have fallen in the combat zones where we have fought and bled? I happen to be a devout Lutheran myself but I lead now and have led, as a senior Marine NCO, USMC combat units which have Marines in it from DOZENS of different religions and atheists and agnostics too. I have fought and bled with my fellow Marines all over the desert down range in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many might have been Christians like me and many were not Christians but that didn't matter worth a shit when my hands were on their open wounds trying to plug bullet and shrapnel holes to keep them from bleeding out. No, in the Marines we do not honor those who have fallen by the religious symbol of ONE religion. Doing that on Camp Pendleton land itself is in fact a DISGRACE TO THE MARINE CORPS AND ALL OF AMERICA! We Marines fight and die for America and our fellow Marines, PERIOD! Last time I checked, the cross of Jesus and Jesus himself, who is my personal Lord and Savior, does NOT represent my country of America! Nor was Jesus ever a member of the United States Marine Corps! Those Marines who put up that cross disgrace all we fight for in the Corps. Why did they do it then? They did it to let everyone know that, at Camp Pendleton, the USMC-approved, supreme religious faith is their version of fundamental Christianity. Ironic and outrageous, as the Marines they claim to honor with their cross died fighting fundamental Islam. What if Muslim Marines had dragged a giant symbol of Islam and erected it up on that same Camp Pendleton hill? We would be waist deep in blood and guts if that had happened. I and my fellow Marines did not fight and get wounded and almost killed numerous times for that cross to be put up there by those fucking pathetic Marines. They should be severely disciplined and made an example of immediately.

(USMC Sr. NCO's name, rank, position and title and combat unit withheld)