Marine
- For the article dealing with the branch of the United States Military, see United States Marine Corps.
Marine can refer to certain studies of sea and ocean, such as marine biology, and others more generally dealing with water, such as marine research and oceanography. A marine scene is "a picture of a ship or a sea scene."[1]
Most typically however, the word Marine is used to designate a certain division of military duty: anciently, those security forces or troops of warriors assigned to naval vessels of maritime nations; more recently in history (17th through 21st century) those military forces dedicated to both defense aboard ships and to amphibious combat operations abroad on land (for example, in the Pacific Theater of operations in World War II, and the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam War). A marine "corps" generally denotes the combat service division of a nation's navy, which includes both sea and air combat capabilities.[2]
One who is a Marine is iconically understood to be a military person who is ideally expected to be self-disciplined, moral, physically trained and conditioned to endure hardship with purpose, and who seeks to embody most outstandingly the ideals of unswerving dedicated devotion to "duty, honor, courage, country" (see Patriotism[3]). A Marine is not properly either a "sailor", assigned to naval duty as a member of a ship's company or crew, nor a "soldier", assigned to duty as a member of a unit in an army.
Humorous quip
| “ | Marines depend on the navy for a lift, because the army doesn't walk on water, and the air force is busy elsewhere. —anonymous |
” |
See also
Marine scene with "Fort of Qaitbay" at Alexandria, on the back.
