Check out this story ….Reporter Moved to Become a U.S. Marine

Matt Pottinger, a former Wall Street Journal Reporter has traded in his pen to become a Marine.

Pottinger says that covering China for 7 years made him realize how rare American freedom is. He was arrested there for writing about corruption.

“I was standing over a toilet,” he recalled, “with a bunch of Chinese policemen standing around me shredding my notebook, page by page, and flushing it down a toilet.”

He lists some of his reasons for joining the Marines, including the beheading of his colleague Daniel Pearl, the complacency of the American public and watching a video of the beheading of another American in Iraq. He says:

“I watched it, and it was so obscene and so deeply disturbing to me that I felt a bit of the terror.”

and when he covered the tsunami in Asia:

“Watching U.S. Marines and other military personnel on the ground helping people there amid that devastation … it’s really indescribable …”

After Pottinger was sworn in as an officer in the United States Marine Corp, he commented about the changes he is facing in his life during the next year. He went on to comment on the changes our country is facing.

Get off our sofas and get involved,” he said. “Start improving ourselves. We’re competing now. … We can’t take our eye off the ball. This is going to be a big 10 years. A lot’s going to change in the world over the next 10 years. And we’ve got to be on our toes.”

Semper Fi.

Hat tip to The Median Sib for pointing out this story! What a great story and a great American!