"When it absolutely positively has to be destroyed overnight"

Caption: A photo of a U.S. Marine bumper sticker that says, “When it absolutely positively has to be destroyed overnight.”

When our son Jesse was 17 in July 2001 and had recently graduated from City High in Iowa City, he briefly flirted with the idea of joining the Marines. Nothing much was going on internationally at the time, but of course all hell broke loose a few months later on 9/11. The Marines are always the first to go in, and as former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, “As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”

I tried to talk Jesse out of joining the Marines because I told him the Veterans Administration doesn’t take care of our soldiers. They didn’t and they still don’t. They didn’t take care of Jesse’s Uncle John when he came back from Vietnam after being exposed to Agent Orange. John, proficient in learning foreign languages, was a Vietnamese interpreter in interrogations. Stateside, he beat back cancer four times. Only on the fourth go-around did the V.A. admit that Agent Orange might have had something to do with John’s cancer.

I was concerned, also, after I saw a “60 Minutes” broadcast about Carmelo Rodriguez, a Marine who was examined by a military physician overseas who found a melanoma on the soldier’s buttocks. A major battle was coming up, so the physician told the Marine the melanoma was “a wart.” In his notes, however, he documented the “wart” as a “melanoma on the right buttock.” He did not recommend follow-up treatment.

Melanomas are a potentially deadly form of skin cancer. Immediate treatment is necessary to save lives. ”60 Minutes” interviewed the Marine, once buff and full of life, in his New York City apartment as he lay dying, weighing a mere 80 pounds, amidst his family in Brooklyn or Queens. He was 29 years old when he died.

My Uncle Dick (Richard Hugh Houser I), an Air Force fighter pilot during WWII, died of a melanoma on his shoulder when he was 26 years old.

Do military doctors protect soldiers or tell them what’s wrong with them on a “need to know” basis? Does the V.A. admit it when toxic agents like Agent Orange used in deforestation are carcinogens? Maybe after 25 or 30 years.

Ultimately, the decision not to join the Marines was our son’s. He decided it was too dangerous.

When I was changing the sheets in our guest room, which used to be Jesse’s bedroom, I came across a bumper sticker he must have acquired when he was thinking of joining the Marines.

On the left of the bumper sticker is the U.S. Marines insignia, with semper fidelis or “always faithful” in Latin in the middle. On the right the Marines’ message says, “When it absolutely positively has to be destroyed overnight,” which is an amusing take-off on an old package delivery ad from the not-too-distant past.

I laughed when I saw it. Former Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden absolutely positively had to be destroyed overnight, but the job wasn’t left to the Marines. I read the book, “No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden.” Mark Owen, the author and one of the Seals in the raid, said the best snipers, the best helicopter pilots, the best explosives expert, and so on of Navy Seal Team Six were chosen for the job, and they took out Osama bin Laden and anyone who got in their way at bin Laden’s compound, which was within a mile of Pakistan’s version of West Point in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where quite a number of Pakistani generals lived.

It’s hard to believe that the Pakistanis didn’t know that bin Laden lived in the enormous compound with at least two of his wives and numerous children.

I don’t care who takes out Islamic State commander Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. I predict that he’ll be taken out soon, but given how long it took to take out former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, I’m not counting my chickens before they’re hatched.

We took out “Jihadi John,” otherwise known as Mohammed Emwasi, the London-born executioner of Middle-Eastern descent, who was already soaked with the blood of multiple Europeans, who he personally beheaded in Islamic State-controlled territory before an American Hellfire missile zeroed in on him and one of his buddies stepping into a car. I considered that one small step for a sadistic monster and one giant leap for mankind.