The Interesting Link Between Catholics and Devil Dogs

“Better Marines than you think there’s something to it.”

By guest contributor First World Refugee.

In my previous life as an officer in the Marine Corps, I had the good fortune of being taken under the wing of a grizzled captain when I was but a baby-faced butter-bar second lieutenant.

Being a second lieutenant is interesting, because one weekend you’re just playing beer pong at State University™ while procrastinating on a history paper, and then suddenly you graduate and get vested with authority from the President to go lead Marines. You’re granted this because you have a fancy-looking piece of paper certifying that you have a pulse, and you spent a few weeks running around in the woods while getting yelled at by strange men in funny hats saying things like “Daggum,” “It would behoove of [sic] you,” and “RAH.”

When you’re thrust into this newfound position of authority, there’s no shortage of people who barrage you with advice about how to lead. Lots of boring but true boilerplate stuff that you could probably glean from just watching a few episodes of Band of Brothers or listening to a Jocko podcast.

When I was a wee second lieutenant in training, though, this cool old captain one day noticed the St. Michael the Archangel chain I was wearing and pulled me aside to pass some sage wisdom. He pointed at my necklace and asked if I was Catholic. At the time I was the epitome of a lukewarm cafeteria Catholic. I knew the faith my parents gave me was right, but I still thought that I was perhaps the exception and I’d be just fine without it because I’m just a “good person,” or whatever sweet lies I told myself.

Somewhat shocked at being spoken to like a human, I word-vomited something in response about how I am Catholic but not always practicing but I went to Catholic school but also I don’t really go to Mass, but sometimes I pray but also—

He just sort of took it all in and looked around semi-conspiratorially, then in a hushed tone told me: “Ya know, First World Refugee, if you stay in the Corps long enough, you’ll find that there’s a lot of Catholics in high places in this organization. Better Marines than you think there’s something to it. Maybe you ought to go back to church soon.”

I buried that piece of advice away in my noggin, but it always stuck with me. I eventually found my way back to the Church, and then I started to see examples of what that captain told me when I’d attend Mass. Numbers-wise, the turnout for Mass on base was usually not impressive, but the thing that stood out was that the guys I saw there always seemed to be the kinds of Marines you’d kill to have in your corner. Salty Recon Marines, smart and level-headed staff officers, earnest corn-fed machine gunners built like freight trains, the nice chow hall cook that hooks you up with an extra scoop of shepherds’ pie, etc.

I’ve been reflecting on this connection between the Catholic Church and the Marine Corps lately, and I concluded that maybe it wasn’t just a coincidence that some of the best Marines I ever knew were also great Catholics. By my lights there are at least five things the Church and the Corps have in common.

1. Rigor

Typically, when people think about the Marine Corps, their instinct is that it is somehow “harder” or more elite than the other branches of the U.S. military. A lot of this sentiment is thanks to what President Harry Truman called a propaganda machine nearly equal to Stalin’s, that churns out iconic recruiting videos like the guy fighting the lava monster:

Even so, I still think it’s fair to say the Marine Corps is the most austere of the services. Marines are the smallest and least-funded military service, have the worst barracks, the crappiest (note I don’t say “difficult”) recruit training experience, and probably the most annoyingly stringent nitty-gritty military regulations. Simply put, in the eternal words of Gen. Daniel “Chappie” James, “The Marines don’t have any race problems. They treat everybody like they’re black.”

Catholicism is similarly a religion known for its austerity. Abortion, divorce, gender ideology, gay marriage, female priests, contraception — the Church has held the line on all of these matters long after others have bowed down. Go ahead and point to the offhand comments of the current pope or some silly Jesuit on Twitter, but the fact of the matter is that the Church as an institution has not changed its tune. Actually following all of the Church’s teachings is hard, and most Catholics fall short.

A similar point can be made about the Marine Corps’s standards. The fact that many Marines skate by or cheat these standards does nothing to undermine the value of the standards themselves. Like the Church, the Marine Corps contains multitudes.

(At the risk of ruining my comparison, while the Marine Corps is the most resistant to social change of the military services, even my beloved Corps has fallen from the days of Chesty Puller, allowing things like women in combat roles, conducting co-ed recruit training, etc. Bring on Pete Hegseth!)

The presently serving Marine Commandant Gen. Eric Smith did a good job expressing the basic stance of the Church as it stands athwart radical social change and howling banshees demanding it get with the times. Recently at a conference, he was asked about the possibility of relaxing grooming standards for Marines so that they can grow beards. Smith’s answer was simple: Remember, you joined us.

2. Saints

A great thing about being Catholic is that you’re never alone thanks to the Communion of Saints. Catholics take saints’ names twice in their lives: at Baptism and at Confirmation. Whatever your vocation, ailment, endeavor, tragedy, or struggle, there is a patron saint you can ask to appeal to Christ on your behalf in your time of need.

More than this, saints provide a model for Catholics to strive for. One of my favorites is St. Isaac Jogues, who was captured and tortured by the Iroquois, released, returned to France, then returned to the New World only to be tortured and martyred by the Mohawks.

Marines have their own saints to look up to. There’s Smedley Butler, who received the Medal of Honor twice before leaving the Marine Corps and writing War Is a Racket to argue against U.S. military adventurism on behalf of big business. Marine machine gunners have Sgt. John Basilone, who sustained second-degree burns on his arms from handling the overheated barrel of his machine gun while repelling a regiment of Japanese soldiers during a night assault on Guadalcanal.

Similar to saints for Catholics, these and other legends loom large for Marines, immortalized on the Commandant’s Reading List and hit television shows like The Pacific, and provide a level of greatness for Marines today to strive for.

3. Drinking

During the Last Supper, Christ turned a regular Jewish Passover meal into the first Christian Mass, transforming the wine traditionally drunk during Seder into his own blood, and instructing his disciples always to do this in His memory.

Alcohol was also integral to the genesis of the Marine Corps. In November 1775, the Second Continental Congress was still trying to organize the early war effort and deemed it necessary to establish a specialized force capable of operating on land and at sea to support the Navy.

Captain Samuel Nicholas, the first Marine officer, needed recruits to fill out two battalions of Marines, so naturally he went to a popular bar, Tun Tavern, in the political and logistical heart of the American Revolution, Philadelphia. From the hard-drinking patrons at Tun, Nicholas recruited the first Marines. These original rapscallions would go on to harass the British Navy for the rest of the war and laid the foundation for a service that disproportionately attracts young men predisposed to hard fighting and hard drinking.

Lest you think the Marine Corps’s founding in a bar is incidental to the story, every year in November thousands of Marines get belligerently drunk at their unit birthday ball, in remembrance of those original hearty souls who signed their names on the dotted line, probably after having one too many pints of grog.

4. Aesthetics

Marines are fanatically obsessed with looking good. The Marine Corps dress blues are undoubtedly the most iconic of military dress uniforms, and the Marine Corps “Service A” (the “pickle suit” depicted below) has a timeless quality to it, where you can look at pictures of Marines from World War II to today and see the continuity. Until recently, Marine promotions were based at least in part on what Marines looked like in their professional photo. Appearance matters!

Left: Real-life Major Chip Hazard from Small Soldiers. Right: Lt. Gen. Lewis “Chesty” Puller. Did either of these gentlemen really have any other choice in life but to become Marines?

Catholic churches take many forms around the world, but of course when people think of Catholics, they think of beautiful cathedrals, ornate priestly vestments, golden chalices, and bejeweled tabernacles. Catholics take pride in this beauty and opulence as a way to honor God and inspire His followers to strive for transcendental beauty in all that they do.

Along with this broad focus on aesthetics and ceremony, there’s a sub-topic here, which is a shared obsession with depictions of death. Go visit a t-shirt printing shop outside a Marine Corps base sometime, and you’ll see racks and racks of shirt designs with every possible combination of skeletons, guns, skulls, and swords depicting death and destruction of the enemy. Or just look at the logo for Marine Corps Infantry Officer Course, which is some poor guy getting bayoneted in the chest.

Next go to a Catholic Church. Front and center you will be confronted with Christ adorned with a crown of thorns, dripping with blood, chest heaving in agony upon the cross. The explicit focus is Christ as a blood offering to atone for our sins. Contrast this with other denominations, which use a plain, unadorned cross.

To take it one step further, go to the Old World and visit the catacombs or crypts there, where you are surrounded by bones. For instance, the Capuchin Crypt has a display that consists of ornately arranged bones of the 4,000 bodies of Capuchin friars. To both the Marine Corps and the Church, death is something to reflect on, to prepare for, and even to smile upon.

After the Battle of Tarawa, the Marines wasted no time in setting up a recruiting station with their own unique design choices.

The Capuchin Crypt in Rome, where visitors are invited to smile at death, the final gateway to Christ.

5. Enemies from Within

It’s said (and almost certainly apocryphal) that Napoleon once told a cardinal that he would destroy the Catholic Church. Unperturbed, the cardinal responded, “Your Majesty, we, the Catholic clergy, have done our best to destroy the Church for the last 1,800 years. We have not succeeded, and neither will you.”

The Church has been led by and filled with wretchedly flawed humans from the beginning. Our first pope denied Christ three times on the night He was captured. Leaders in the Vatican and at all levels did despicable things during the sexual abuse scandals of the 20th century. Despite all of these things, the Church marches ever on.

Similarly, the Marine Corps faces an insider threat of its own right now. Not to get too much into insider baseball, but a few years ago, the Commandant of the Marine Corps decided that it was time for a change. He called this plan “Force Design 2030.” Long story short, the Corps got rid of its tanks, mothballed a few infantry battalions and helicopter squadrons, and went all-in on the idea that the future for the Marine Corps would be to drop off small detachments of Marines on random islands in the Pacific to take potshots at Chinese ships when WWIII kicks off.

It’s a cockamamie idea because that was five years ago, and the Marine Corps still doesn’t have Marines positioned on ships for this mission, nor do they have basing agreements with other nations to do so; they don’t have missiles with sufficient range to impede the maneuver of Chinese ships, and they don’t have a way to sustain logistically those poor Marines who are going to be starring in what basically amounts to an impromptu season of Naked and Afraid.

All of which is to say, while the two institutions have a bit in common, the Marine Corps may succeed in self-destruction in a way the internal enemies of the Church could only ever dream of.

The Catholic Church and the Marine Corps are similar in that the standards for being a good practicing Catholic and a good practicing Marine are both high, and many members of both often fall far short. Only a third of self-described Catholics believe in Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist. Most Catholics don’t attend weekly Mass. In the face of this, some say the Church should lower its standards or ease up on some of its more difficult teachings to attract more followers.

But high standards attract good people. Watered-down or poorly enforced standards dilute an organization with subpar performers who seek to trade on the mystique of the brand without putting in the hard work. This is no less true in the Corps than it is in the Church.