Marine Corporal Jonathan Yale and Marine Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter

The two young Marines featured in this month’s Everyday Heroes blog were mentioned in a speech presented by Marine Corps Lt. General John Kelly in 2010. The first link below includes that part of Kelly’s speech that concerns Yale and Haerter. The second link below will take you to a video from the security camera that captured Yale and Haerter’s last six seconds of life.

I will let Lt. General Kelly’s words stand. I can’t improve on his portrayal of what happened that day. My only two comments are: First, at no time during his speech does he mention the fact that his own son, Marine 2^nd Lieutenant Robert Kelly was killed just a couple weeks before the general gave this speech. At no time during the speech does he mention the death of his son fromm the detonation of an IED in Afghanistan. Imagine the pain Kelly was experiencing and the grit he had to be able to present this speech under those circumstances. Second, note Kelly’s comments at the end of the speech which I copy here: “Rest assured our America, this experiment in democracy started over two centuries ago, will forever remain the "land of the free and home of the brave" so long as we never run out of tough young Americans who are willing to look beyond their own self-interest and comfortable lives, and go into the darkest and most dangerous places on earth to hunt down, and kill, those who would do us harm.”

The point Kelly makes is the reason I write this monthly blog about Everyday Heroes. It is the Everyday Hero who inspires us, rescues us, sacrifices for us. 

http://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/everybody-should-read-general-john-kellys-speech-about-two-marines-in-the-path-of-a-truck-bomb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfT-EgCF-Tc

Joseph Badal is a decorated Vietnam veteran and the award-winning and best-selling author of 11 suspense novels, including Dark Angel, which will be released on January 24, 2017. He is the two-time recipient of the Tony Hillerman Award for Best Fiction book and the recipient of the Military Writers Society of America’s Gold and Silver Medals in the Mystery/Thriller category.