WEBVTT

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- So when I was a drill instructor

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during 95 through 97, I was a young sergeant

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down MCRD San Diego.

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I get a phone call from my family back home in Guam,

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saying that my grandmother was not doing well

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and that I needed to come home.

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We got held up in Hawaii

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due to aircraft troubles so we stayed there.

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That next morning I get a phone call from my brother

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telling me that my grandmother passed.

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So I didn't have an opportunity to make it home

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to say goodbye to my grandmother.

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So fast fast forward to the funeral

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and we have probably about four or five pews deep

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of generations from my grandmother.

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And it's raining, it's raining

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really, really hard that day.

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And it's not uncommon for Guam,

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but that day it was raining extremely hard.

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And my Uncle Joe was giving the eulogy,

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he stops and he says, ya know it's only fitting

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it's raining today.

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If it wasn't for the rain, none of us would be here.

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Then he flashes back to when

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the Japanese occupied Guam during World War II.

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So at this point my grandmother was

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young and she was pregnant with my aunt,

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she was the oldest.

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And my grandmother was being lined up to be executed

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by the Japanese soldiers,

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for reasons we don't know

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she was lined up to be executed.

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That day, when she was lined up to be executed,

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it was raining hard,

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and the Japanese soldiers called off the execution.

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A week later, the Marines liberated Guam.

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So I look back at that story,

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and it reminds me of why I serve.

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It gives me an opportunity to give back

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to a division that gave so much.

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To me, and to the people of Guam.

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So I may be sitting here today, as a Marine.

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But to be sitting here as a Division Sergeant Major

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for the division that liberated my island,

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I just swell with pride.