MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- Defining terrorism as as the third ominous "ism" America has faced in his lifetime, Secretary of the Navy Gordon R. England thanked deploying Camp Pendleton Marines for their service Feb. 19 in a visit here.
"I am here to thank the Marine Corps for the United States," England said to more than 300 Marines from 4th Marine Air Wing, including Marines preparing to deploy to Iraq. "I wanted to thank the men and women who volunteer. They volunteer to protect America.
"Liberty and freedom is not something you just have - it is something you have to defend," England said.
He summed up the Marine Corps' mission for Operation Iraqi Freedom and what it will take to help stabilize the country and move it toward sustainable, orderly Iraqi control.
"To defeat terrorism, it will take unrelenting pressure, great focus, clarity and vision," England said.
The Marines of Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 775 were among those England addressed.
"I will probably never forget this. The feeling to know what we are doing is so important he comes to personally thank us," said Lance Cpl. Thomas Brock, an airframe hydraulics mechanic with the squadron.
"(His visit) means there is something big going down. It is the secretary of the Navy. That's a head honcho coming to tell us to get ready, but that's all right. It is what we are here for," said Cpl. Emil A. Kamar, a flight-line mechanic with the squadron.
Calling terrorism a "major threat," he likened it to past such threats to America and the world that bore the same suffix.
"In my life there have been three 'isms.' It took a world war to end fascism. It took a 40-year effort to end communism, which collapsed upon itself when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989," England said.
"The third 'ism' in my lifetime, terrorism, is the greatest threat to America. The Marine Corps plays a decisive role in the fight.
"If we failed the first two, we wouldn't be here now," England said.
Lance Cpl. K. T. Tran contributed to this story. E-mail Lance Cpl. Paulsgrove at PaulsgroveGA@ pendleton.usmc.mil.