An article in the Whidbey News-Times on Nov. 15 explained why  the “Halls of Motezuma” is in the Marine Hymn. I believe it is extremely important that we also remember why the hymn includes “to the Shores of Tripoli.”

Every marine knows the story of Lt. Presley Neville O’Bannon when we  sing “From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli.” This young marine  from Virginia was the first man to raise the American flag in victory on foreign soil for a cause he believed to be honorable  and just: the end to the imprisonment of American citizens and an end to the seizure of American  ships by Barbary Coast pirates.

From 1801 to 1805, U.S. Marines,  under the leadership of President Thomas Jefferson, fought the pirates in Tripoli, Tunisia and Algiers. When pirates off the coast of Africa captured 11 ships in two  months, Congress decided to start building a Navy. When diplomacy failed, American realized that some decisive action must be taken to put an end to piracy and bribery. Furthermore, the  tributes we were paying to the pirates were bankrupting our young  democracy.

General William Eaton and Lt. O’Bannon led their “Falstafffian”  army from Alexandria to Fort Derna in Libya.  On this 600 mile journey they had to deal with desertion and Arabian assassins  as well as famine, dehydration and blinding sandstorms. They trudged over the same desert that field Marshall Montgomery would cross when pursuing the Germans under the direction  of the “ Desert Fox,” Field Marshall Rommel in 1943,

The Marine Corps sword is fashioned after the one that was given to O’Bannon as a token of friendship and appreciation after the legitimate ruler, Hamet, friendly to the United States, had been reinstated in Tripoli.

Want to have some fun?  Ask any Marine if he or she knows who Presley N. O’Bannon is. They will also tell you about the Marine  Corps sword.

You can read more about the TripolitanWar and O’Bannon in a book, “Valiant Virginian.”

(Trudy Sundberg lives in Oak Harbor.)