As most regular followers of this blog know, I was in the boring ol’ Marine Corps before I decided to join the ELITE RANKS of full-time bloggers. And today, November 10th, marks the 236th birthday of my beloved Corps, the world’s ONLY elite fighting force to be founded in a bar (Tun Tavern, Philadelphia).

I went to Officer Candidates School in the summer of 1999, and when I returned to campus for my senior year — faster and stronger and more confident than I’d ever been — everyone jokingly asked me what it was like to fight the lava monster (“It’s not half as scary as the sergeant instructors, ha ha ha”). Marine Corps ads have always been striking and memorable in their badassery, but my favorite was always the one on the chess board set to Orff’s “Carmina Burana” (below). I saw that as a kid and I was like, “WHOA.” The rousing music, the bass in the announcer’s voice, the war on a giant chess board in a lightning storm — I didn’t even know what the Marines did, but I knew they meant business.

That business, of course, is kicking in the teeth of America’s enemies for the last 236 years. I’ve never been prouder than when I earned the right to wear the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor. Semper Fi and happy birthday, Marines.

I went to the Yankees game yesterday. After the familiar sounds of victory — Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” followed by Sinatra’s “New York, New York” — my girlfriend and I walked against the crowds surging toward the subway, across Jerome Avenue to a stately hillside building that was once Woodycrest Children’s Home, the building where her mother was raised. As we snapped a few photos, an elderly gentleman approached us and asked what our connection to Woodycrest was. He too was a product of the group home, and Jenny provided him with the names of her relatives that had grown up there. Had he known her mother, Isabel Martinez? No. Her aunt, Alyce Martinez? No. Her uncle, Joe Mojer? The old man’s eyes lit up. Yes, he had played basketball with Joe. Joe was quick on the court and well-liked off of it. I felt the warmth of the old man’s memory, his connection to this old building that was once something else.

I learned of Osama Bin Laden’s death last night the same way I learn of all deaths: via Twitter. I turned on the TV, gleaned what information was available, and felt — for the first time since I became a writer — a complete and profound loss of words. Twitter and Facebook were exploding, but I closed them without typing a letter. I felt that I should be doing something to make the moment memorable: popping champagne, hugging loved ones, kissing strangers — but it was 11 o’clock on a Sunday night. My roommate was asleep. The only company I had was my dog.

I poured myself a bourbon and called my friends from the Marines, the men who’d commanded tanks with me on the way to Baghdad eight years ago. Bin Laden’s death was the impetus for the phone calls, but the conversations soon turned to other subjects: wives, kids, jobs. The last time I spoke to Jeremy was in February after the Super Bowl. The time before that, his birthday in July, I got his voicemail. We don’t talk enough.

It was after midnight when I got off the phone and finally watched Obama’s speech. I was drunk and needed sleep but went out to a bar because Bin Laden was dead, goddammit. I was hoping for a party, a collection of firefighters and veterans toasting the fallen and celebrating long-sought closure. But there were no firefighters. No veterans. No closure. Just a handful of people drinking on a Sunday night. My only company was a Vietnam draft dodger. He had a wife, two grown daughters, and a bushy white beard that he’d had since he moved to the neighborhood 40 years ago, back when 7th Avenue was all head shops and dive bars. I asked the bartender for a Baker’s on the rocks but he misheard me and poured a Grey Goose. I drank it.

I stayed and talked to the guy with the white beard until last call because it beat drinking by myself and talking to my dog. It wasn’t fun or memorable, but at least I got drunk. At least I’m still alive. The same can’t be said for the three thousand people who died on 9/11 or the six thousand servicemen who’ve been killed in combat since then or the unfortunate people of Iraq and Afghanistan when war landed on their doorsteps. Not Brian McPhillips, who was shot in the head south of Baghdad in 2003. Not Andy Stern, whose last act was identifying and reporting an IED before it blew up and sent steel through his head. For the last eight years, I’ve been trying to attach some kind of meaning to all the death around me — to the deaths of my friends, and to the deaths that I caused. So much human life snuffed out: thousands upon thousands of dominos knocked over because of the actions of one man.

I walked home with tears in my eyes, thinking or perhaps hoping that my friends died for a reason. I thought of the old man at Woodycrest: I saw him going through old memories and names he’d known decades ago, searching for connections. We’re all searching for connections.

Hey folks, as you may have heard from some flag-waving American, it’s Veterans Day. Being a veteran, I don’t work on this particular holiday, except for collateral duties like the KSK mailbag and this Uproxx feature about eight badass veterans you need to learn about.

Later on, Danger Guerrero will be around to provide you with some midday TV goodness and this evening’s listings. Until then, snap a sharp salute and have a somber day of quiet reflection about the sacrifices our servicemen and women make to keep us safe in our little pop culture bubbles. Or you can just kill time stalking your ex on Facebook. That sounds productive.

The Biggest Loser (NBC) — Tonight the final eleven contestants go to Camp Pendleton, the Marine base between Los Angeles and San Diego. Because the Marine Corps taught me useful pejoratives for obese people like “disgusting fatbody,” “food blister,” and “a Hefty garbage bag filled with soup,” I want to tune in tonight just to see Marines denigrate fatties. Alas, it will never live up to Full Metal Jacket, so I’ve included a clip below. (p.s. The USMC’s 235th birthday is a week from tomorrow, in case you want to tell any Marines you may know happy birthday.)

Sons of Anarchy (FX) — Last week, they added Irish music to the opening credits. F*cking awesome. “The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive.”

Running Russell Simmons (Oxygen) — Simmons needs a crew of six hot women to help run his empire every day. I’m sure he would never think about having any kind of inappropriate relationship with any of them. “Ya know, half of these gook whores are serving officers in the Viet Cong.”

Millionaire Matchmaker (Bravo) — “If I’m gonna get my balls blown off for a word, my word is “poontang.”

Dancing with the Stars (ABC) — Only six celebrities are left, and somehow Bristol Palin is one of them. “After we rotate back to the world, we’re gonna miss not having anyone around that’s worth shooting.”

Surviving the Cut (Discovery) — Despite James Lee’s demand that “All programs promoting War and the technology behind those must cease,” this episode about the training for Reconnaissance Marines is still a go. Although they were the heroes of “Generation Kill,” Recon Marines don’t get the badass cred they deserve because the Marine Corps won’t turn over operational control of their Recon Battalions to the US’s Special Operations Command. Perhaps this episode can help change that; reader Lauren wrote in with this to say about tonight’s episode: “My uncle was a cameraman for the first seasons of ‘Deadliest Catch’ and ‘Everest’ on Discovery, but he told me that tonight’s episode of ‘Surviving the Cut’ includes, in his words, ‘some of the craziest stuff I’ve ever shot… period.’” Nice.

CMA Music Festival: Country Music’s Night to Rock (ABC) — Tim McGraw hosts this who’s-who of popular country music stars and Darius Rucker.

MasterChef (Fox) — I’m sorry, every time I see the name of this show I want it to be “Master Chief.” Any HALO players or naval personnel with me on this one?

Top Chef (Bravo) — The challenge is space-themed and features Buzz Aldrin. Anthony Bourdain serves as a guest judge, demands that space food should take him “higher,” wink wink, as he taps his nose.

Confessions: Animal Hoarding (Animal Planet) — TV Guide: “A young couple’s 80 cats causes concern for their families.” Oh yeah, eighty’s where you draw the line. Fifty, sixty cats — totally normal. But eighty’s too many.

Dale Peterson is trying to get the Republican nomination for Agriculture Commissioner of Alabama, and he REALLY wants it. In what may be the greatest political TV ad I’ve ever seen, Peterson conjures the spirit of John Wayne to rail against the criminals and illegal aliens who are stealing Alabama’s farms. I’m not sure if I got those facts right; I got kinda swept up in the moment. As The Smoking Section says:

According to this amazing display of Americanism, Dale Peterson has been a farmer, a businessman, a cop, a Marine during Vietnam, and, as I imagine, a patient at St. Mary’s Hospital for the Clinically Intense.

Seriously, Dale Peterson farts thunder and craps lightning. But that’s bound to happen when this is your breakfast:

There isn’t a whole lot of meat to this story, but what I’m excited about most this morning is HBO’s announcement that “The Pacific” — the epic miniseries about Marines in World War II — has a premiere date. The ten-part series will debut on Sunday, March 14th and will be the most important thing in my life every week until May 16th. I’m spreading the word now so that you poor people who don’t have HBO can save up to pay for premium cable for two months. I mean, c’mon: Marines. Flamethrowers. Gratuitous use of the word “Jap.” You don’t want to miss that.

Now, I’ve posted both of the trailers before, but I understand that not everyone has been refreshing Warming Glow on the hour since June (people with “jobs,” whatever those are), so I’ve got them both below. If it doesn’t make you want to run a bayonet through Yamamoto and nail an Australian chick between campaigns, then you can just hang out alone with your vegan bran muffin, you goddam hippie communist queer.

Hey everybody, happy Veterans Day. I hope you’ve got the day off. I’m not sure if I technically have the day off or not, but I’m taking it off, because… hell, it’s my holiday. And although I have a nice day of walking around the park and going to a matinee planned, I do have some posts set to go live later on, so there will be some new content throughout the day. Warming Glow will chug on without me, as long as you keep coming back.

For anyone who’s curious about the picture: that’s your fearless television blogger six and a half years ago (middle right), much leaner and balder than he is today. That was in Kuwait before the war started; back then, we had the luxury of celebrating victories in our little bunny ring toss game. Nowadays I’m more comfortable, but I miss carrying a nine-mil and the authority to give orders.

You know, that’s the real sacrifice veterans make: not the horrors we suffer while serving our country, but the loss of the world we know when we re-enter civilian life. I don’t want to be thanked for what I did; I just want to be normal. I want my command of a tank company at age 25 to count as much as running an 80-person department when people look at my resume. I want employers to treat veterans like people with exceptional job experience, not as otherworldly beings who insanely took a different path. I don’t deserve pity or awe, and I don’t want one day of reverence followed by 364 days of nonchalance. I don’t want yellow ribbons on cars. I want every person to challenge himself or herself, to pursue a life they deem honorable, to make the most of the few short years they have on this planet. Those who have been to war know that it can reveal the worst of humanity. Strive to make it better.

The Marine Corps’s ass-kicking birthday continues at Warming Glow with this video about HBO’s “The Pacific” — an epic miniseries that, as I’ve said before (more than once), will be the greatest thing ever televised. No, YOUR expectations are too high!

Anyway, this is just Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg giving us no information that we haven’t already gotten before, but it’s set to moving music, and they talk about Marines, and there’s an old M4 Sherman tank, and God damn it’s days like this that I miss shooting my .50 cal. What an amazing weapon. The way it’s mounted on an M1A1 tank, you can put steel on steel from defilade 1800 meters away. One of the rarest pleasures in life is sending hot steel at unsuspecting enemies of America. It’s one of the few things in life I enjoy more than cats in wigs.

[The Live Feed]

Today’s the 234th anniversary of the day that the Continental Congress first issued the order for two battalions of Marines, sparking  the recruiting process at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia. Since that day the Marine Corps has grown a great deal, lost the powdered wigs, and added helicopters, but the ass-kicking attitude and selfless service to country have stayed the same. To anyone who has proudly worn the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor: happy birthday.

Ordinarily, today’s the day where I take a break from relevant news to tell you about giants of the Corps like John Bobo and John Basilone and even my old classmate Brian Chontosh, but in keeping with the TV theme — and my soft spot for animals — I’ve embedded a couple clips from last night’s Conan featuring Major Brian Dennis and his dog Nubs. Dennis befriended Nubs — named because an Iraqi cut his ears off as a puppy — while patrolling the Syrian border in Iraq and helped nurse him back to good health after the dog was stabbed in the side with a screwdriver. After Dennis patrolled the area for the last time, Nubs followed Dennis and his unit back over 70 miles to the Marine camp.

If these clips don’t make you want to salute the flag while hugging a puppy, just go away. I don’t even want to look at you.

Photo via ABC News. Video of Dennis on “Ellen” last year here.