Marines Don’t Betray Allies and Reward Foes

By Karl Marlantes

Wednesday, April 23, 2025

 

I was a Marine infantry officer serving in Vietnam with Charlie Company, First Battalion, Fourth Marine Regiment. Around this time, 56 years ago (February 28 through March 8, 1969), Charlie Company and a platoon from Lima Company were engaged in an eight-day battle for two hills on Mutter’s Ridge: Hill 400 and Hill 484. Between us, we lost 26 Marines killed, and 102 Marines wounded. The bulk of those dead Marines were teenagers. They died honoring their solemn oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, which enshrines such American values as the rule of law, the Bill of Rights, and our nation’s fundamental guardrail against falling into a totalitarian government: the separation of powers. Donald Trump took this same oath twice and JD Vance three times: as a Marine, as a senator, and as vice president.

 

Those Marines also died believing in the Marine Corps’ inviolable sacred motto, Semper Fidelis, always faithful, which means never abandoning a comrade, our country, or an ally. Those dead kids would never have believed that in a future conflict, our country would start trade wars with our allies, betray our comrades in Ukraine, and agree to Russian demands on Ukraine without Ukraine’s participation in the talks. Whenever the Trump administration plays what it calls “cards,” such as withholding weapons and intelligence, Ukrainians die. Ironically, this is supposedly done to “end the killing.”

 

The Ukrainian people are fighting for the same values for which those Marines and American men and women throughout our history have fought and died. They all fought for ideals rather than some short-term transaction that seeks gain without moral consideration. My father did not land on Utah Beach or fight in the Battle of the Bulge to improve U.S.–German terms of trade or force France into some deal for mineral rights. Nor did he expect the people of France and Great Britain to pay him back after the war. He fought against fascism to save democracy. Honorable military people risk their lives for ideals. People who fight for money or power are called mercenaries, not patriots.

 

When Trump turned on Ukraine, he acted against the wishes of a majority of the American people. The latest Gallup poll shows that 69 percent of Americans think that our support for Ukraine is about right or not enough. The new Chicago Council on Global Affairs-Ipsos poll found that 86 percent of American respondents blamed Vladimir Putin for the war. It would be unimaginable to my dead Marine friends that the U.S. would switch sides to join brutal totalitarian states such as Russia, North Korea, and Iran to vote against a U.N. resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

 

We have turned on Canada, the best ally and neighbor any country could have, crudely boasting about making it the 51st state and “punishing” it with tariffs for phony reasons. Canada has always been faithful. During that battle on Mutter’s Ridge, a Canadian who had enlisted in the Marines received a posthumous Navy Cross for giving his life to save his American comrades. George Jmaeff — of Osoyoos, British Columbia — was wounded and receiving plasma in a shell hole when he heard his squad was pinned down and being systematically killed by an enemy machine gun. He attacked that machine gun with the plasma tubes still attached and died. Today, four Marines wear silver bracelets with his name on them because they owe him their lives. That Canadian Marine embodied Semper Fidelis.

 

Semper Fidelis means that if a fellow Marine goes down under fire, you don’t add up possible personal gain to decide whether to save him or not, you go get him — alive or dead. Without this unswerving dedication to Semper Fidelis, the United States Marine Corps would not be the world-recognized Ferrari of infantry that it has been for over two centuries. Similarly, not being faithful to our allies, indeed throwing one of them under the bus and switching sides, trashes the values America has treasured since we became a nation. It’s those values that make America great, a nation worth risking one’s life for.

 

Trump and Vance, indeed every politician in Washington, need to remember that they don’t only represent living constituents; they represent the ghosts of all who have died to make the existence of constituents in a democracy possible. Those ghosts have been betrayed.