Each Nov. 10, Marines worldwide collect to chop birthday truffles with Mameluke swords, take heed to the studying of a virtually century-old order, and watch the oldest Marine hand a chunk of cake to the youngest.
Surprisingly, these traditions that Marines maintain sacred are barely 100 years outdated. They have been created throughout one of many darkest durations in Corps historical past when its very existence was in peril.
Lejeune Faces Price range Cuts and Existential Threats
When Main Basic John A. Lejeune grew to become Commandant in 1920, he inherited a Marine Corps that had confirmed itself and earned nationwide fame for its actions at Belleau Wooden but it surely confronted critical questions on its future. Submit-World Struggle I America wished disarmament and drawdowns. The Washington Naval Treaty discussions led to large price range cuts and army downsizing that created professional concern amongst Marine Corps senior leaders.
Congress sometimes debated whether or not the nation wanted a separate amphibious pressure in any respect. The Army may deal with land operations, whereas the Navy had its personal safety forces. Many voiced their perception that the Marines have been nothing however a waste of cash, one thing the opposite branches may deal with as an alternative.
Lejeune watched the political tide turning towards his service. The Corps wanted greater than fight effectiveness to outlive going ahead. It wanted an identification that was impenetrable to price range cycles and congressional scrutiny.
Marine Corps Clerks Make Historical past
Main Edwin McClellan ran the Corps’ historic part in 1921 with simply three enlisted clerks. They famous that Marines had been celebrating their founding on July 11 since 1798, when Congress formally reestablished the service after disbanding the Revolutionary Struggle-era Continental Marines.
Nevertheless, these celebrations have been nothing however an acknowledgement of the anniversary. Historic data present minimal fanfare, with one 1918 newspaper clipping noting the Corps’ one hundred and twentieth birthday handed “as common with no fuss.” Drastically totally different from the celebrations of at this time.
On Oct. 21, 1921, McClellan despatched a memo to Lejeune suggesting the Marines shift their official birthday to Nov. 10, 1775, the date the Second Continental Congress approved elevating two battalions of Continental Marines. The advice got here with a proposal for an annual celebration that will remind each Marines and the American public of the Corps’ lengthy historical past and its service to the nation.
Lejeune issued Marine Corps Order No. 47 on Nov. 1, 1921. The order directed {that a} birthday message be learn to each command on Nov. 10 of that yr and yearly thereafter.
“On November 10, 1775, a Corps of Marines was created by a decision of Continental Congress,” the order learn. “Since that date, many thousand males have borne the title ‘Marine.’”
His order established a continuity to the unique Continental Marines that every one modern-day Marines could be pleased with.
Constructing USMC Traditions From Scratch
The primary formal Birthday Ball befell in Philadelphia in 1925. Company included the Secretaries of Struggle and Navy, Lejeune himself, and outstanding political and army figures. The principle occasion was an unveiling of a memorial pill on the web site of Tun Tavern, the Philadelphia waterfront tavern the place Captain Samuel Nicholas recruited the primary Marines in 1775.
The celebration featured a parade with Marines, Army and Navy items, Nationwide Guard detachments and different army organizations marching via Philadelphia. A night banquet on the Benjamin Franklin Resort preceded a ball on the Bellevue-Stratford.
The birthday cake custom developed over time. Proof factors to a cake-cutting ceremony at Quantico, Virginia, in 1935. The primary well-documented ceremony occurred at Marine Barracks Washington in 1937, when Commandant Thomas Holcomb presided over an officer open home that featured the chopping of an enormous cake formed like Tun Tavern.
The cake-cutting ceremony wasn’t formalized throughout your complete Corps till Oct. 28, 1952, when Commandant Lemuel C. Shepherd Jr. issued standardized protocols. These protocols grew to become a part of the Marine Corps Drill Guide in 1956.
The fashionable ceremony follows particular traditions handed down over many years. Marines reduce the birthday cake with a Mameluke sword. The primary piece goes to the visitor of honor. The second piece goes to the oldest Marine current, who arms it to the youngest Marine. The Mameluke sword itself traces to Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon’s assault on Derna, Tripoli, in 1805, when he was reportedly given the blade from the town’s governor.
Strategic Survival By way of Custom
Lejeune issued Order No. 47 throughout a interval when the Corps fought for institutional survival towards congressional scrutiny and price range threats. By formalizing the birthday celebration, he created an annual ritual that reaffirmed the Corps’ distinct identification when its future remained unsure.
Annual birthday celebrations created public visibility for the Marine Corps past its wartime actions. Every ceremony reminded People and their elected representatives that the Marines represented one thing extra than simply being one other army department. Lejeune utilized rules of public relations to make sure the Marine Corps survived the post-World Struggle I price range cuts, establishing Marine Corps alumni teams and creating lasting traditions that stored former Marines engaged in supporting the Corps.
Even Marines deployed to distant places started improvising birthday celebrations, typically with ration truffles or handwritten variations of Lejeune’s message. Within the absence of cake, some Marines in the course of fight started utilizing desserts from MRE packages.
Even the Marines’ Hymn, sung at each birthday celebration, grew to become popularized throughout this time. The melody got here from Jacques Offenbach’s 1867 comedian opera “Genevieve de Brabant,” although nobody is aware of who wrote the present lyrics. Commandant Lejeune approved it because the official Marine Corps Hymn in 1929, giving Marines one other identifiable characteristic.
Trendy birthday celebrations have added new traditions alongside the cake ceremony. Unit motivational runs on Nov. 10 have change into normal observe throughout Marine instructions. Most celebrations embody a show of Marine uniforms, previous and current. Every year, Marines additionally collect at Samuel Nicholas’s grave in Philadelphia’s Arch Road Associates Assembly graveyard at daybreak to put a wreath honoring the Corps’ first officer.
USMC Birthday Celebrations In the present day
Marines have fun their 250th birthday in 2025. The traditions Lejeune created in 1921 stay central to Corps identification. Lejeune confronted congressional and public stress that threatened to disband or merge the Marine Corps into different companies.
He understood that establishments survive once they change into a part of a nation’s identification, not simply its army construction. The birthday celebration gave the Corps one thing critics could not simply dismantle with out public backlash.
In the present day, Marine celebrations are widespread and acknowledged, not simply by the Marines, but additionally by the identical alumni teams based by Lejeune, numerous veterans, in addition to the American public.
The Marine Corps exists at this time not simply due to its phenomenal battlefield efficiency however as a result of Lejeune constructed traditions that made the service really feel everlasting and irreplaceable.
