Summer 2004
	Ishle Yi Park
	Marine Rules           ~ for David Velez
	Don’t shoot a parachuter in air, but paratroopers are fair game. When you capture a P.O.W., follow the 6 s’s: search secure silence segregate safeguard and speed them to the rear.
	Stick together against Army & Navy punks. Bless equipment men and commanding officers with bigger plates at mess hall. Smoke only in steam-filled showers. Wash at least twice a week; pay particular attention to body creases.
	Don’t turn your head at “Yankee, go home.” Don’t think about your girl getting her back dug out by the next man in Queens, don’t remember your titi Margie cooking up a pot of fried wings for your departure, how you both cried for an hour at her kitchen table.
	Memorize Biggie’s Ready to Die, unlike the rosaries you always forgot, along with this is my rifle, there are many like it, but only this one is mine, along with the dirt hill chant, ‘57 Chevy with a tankful a gas, got a mouthful of pussy and a handful of ass Sound off – one ... two. Sound off — three ... four Sound off – one … two … three … four…
	Remember – it matters where you die. In combat, a hero; in Brooklyn, a statistic. Stop waiting for her letters that grow scarcer than war rations. Don’t give a fuck about no one cuz they don’t give a fuck about you –
	Fuck the sergeant’s wife on Guantanamo Beach, remember her thick haunches against wet rock, the crashing foam, the darkness … Don’t cry where they can see you. Don’t give up don’t give up don’t give up – just two more years – do not go home a punk …
	Remember you are an American fighting man: amphibious force-in-readiness, the word marine, coming from the Latin marinus, meaning “related to the sea,” amphibious from the Greek amphibion, literally, “living a double life.” Name things exactly – Civilian. Combatant. Officer. Wife. Man. P.O.W. Enemy.