posted 01-30-2003 11:53 AM         

Sports Columnist Bryan Burwell - The Super Bowl in Perspective

SAN DIEGO - It was just around midnight Tuesday night, and the outdoor
courtyard at Dick's Last Resort was throbbing with the rowdy energy of a
spring break bacchanal. There was loud rock music blaring out of the stereo
speakers, and the air was filled with the distinct and somewhat revolting
aroma of deep-fried bar food, cigarette smoke and spilled beer.

Dick's is the sort of bar-restaurant ideally suited for Super Bowl week
mischief, because it has a down-and-dirty roadhouse feel to it. The
waiters, waitresses and bartenders are charmingly rude, and the wood floors
are covered with sand and all sorts of indistinguishable debris.
The clientele on this evening is a fascinating mix of twenty-something
college kids, thirty-something conventioneers and 40-something Super Bowl
high-rollers.

Yet there was one table in Dick's courtyard Tuesday night that was
noticeably different from the others. There were six young men at the table
and one young woman, and while they were drinking like everyone else in the
room, there was something all too serious going on at this table that let
you know that their thoughts were a long way from the mindless frivolity of
Super Bowl week.

Maybe it was the close-cropped "barracks haircuts" that gave them away.
All the men's heads were cut in that familiar look of a professional
soldier, skin-close on the sides, and on top a tight shock of hair that
resembled new shoe-brush bristles.

"We're Marines," one man told me. "And tomorrow we're boarding a ship
for...well...I really can't tell you where, but you know."

Of course we knew. In less than an hour, they would report back to a ship
docked along the Southern California coast, then on Wednesday head across
the Pacific Ocean, bound for a potential war in Iraq. So this was no Super
Bowl party for them. This was their last night out on the town.
One Marine was saying goodbye to his wife. The others were not so lucky.
They all just sat around the table, throwing back beers and wrestling with
the sobering uncertainty of the rest of their lives.

"We're going to war and none of us knows if we're ever coming back,"
said another Marine, a 28-year-old from Southern Illinois. They all
requested that I not use their names. "Just tell 'em we're the men of
(Marine Aviation Land Support Squad 39)," they said.

On Super Bowl Sunday, the men of MALS 29 will be watching the game from the
mess hall of their ship. "That is, if we're lucky and the weather is good
and it doesn't interfere with the satellite signal," said the Marine with
the bald head and burnt-orange shirt. "But I gotta tell you, I'm not that
big a sports fan anymore. It's going to be the first pro football game I've
watched in...I can't even remember."

Why is that?

"Well, here's my problem with pro sports today," he said. "I don't care
whether it's football, basketball or baseball. Guys are complaining about
making $6 million instead of $7 million, and what is their job?
Playing a damned game. You know what I made last year? I made $14,000.
They pay me $14,000, and you know what my job description is? I'm paid to
take a bullet."

When he said those words, it positively staggered me.

Fourteen thousand dollars to take a bullet.

Not a day goes by that I am not reminded of what a wonderful life I lead. I
am paid to write about sports and tell stories on radio and television about
the games people play. But sometimes, even in the midst of a grand sporting
event, something happens to put the frivolity of sports into its proper
perspective, and this was it.

Fourteen thousand dollars to take a bullet.

As I sit here writing from my hotel room, I can look out my balcony window
and I see a Navy battleship cutting through the San Diego Bay, heading out
to sea. I can see the sailors standing on the deck as the ship sails past
Coronado Island, the San Diego Marina and the downtown Seaport Village, and
I wonder if any of the men from MALS 39 are aboard.

It was only 12 hours ago that I was sitting at the table with my guys,
buying them beers, and listening to their soldier stories. The Marine from
Southern Illinois who sat to my right pointed to the bald Marine in the
orange shirt who was seated to my left. "You know, I don't even know this
guy, can you believe that? We just met a few hours ago when we came into
Dick's. Oh, I've seen him on the base, but I've never met him before
tonight. But here's what's so special about that man, and why I love that
man. He's my brother. Semper Fi. I know a guy back home, and he is my
best friend. I'm 28 years old and we've known each other all our lives.
But today, that friend is more of a stranger to me than that Marine sitting
over there, whom I've never met before tonight. That's why they call it a
Band of Brothers."

The little Marine in the orange shirt lifted his glass toward the Marine
from Southern Illinois and nodded his head. "That's right," he said.
"That's my brother over there, and I'm gonna take a bullet for him if I have
to."

He said it with a calm and jolting certainty. There was a moving, but
chilling, pride in his words.

All around them, people were drinking, shouting and laughing. The college
kids and the conventioneers and NFL high-rollers were living the good,
carefree life. Across the street, a storefront that was vacant two weeks
ago was now filled with $30 caps, $400 leather jackets, $40 mugs and $27
T-shirts with the fancy blue and yellow Super Bowl XXXVII logo embroidered
on it.

>From every end of the streets of downtown San Diego's fabled Gaslamp
Quarter, Super Bowl revelers toasted the Raiders and the Bucanneers with
grog-sized mugs filled with beers and rums. But just around midnight in the
middle of the courtyard of Dick's Last Resort, a far more deserving toast
was going up to the men of MALS 39. We clicked our glasses together, and a
few minutes later, they quietly slipped out the courtyard gates.

Suddenly, the Super Bowl didn't seem so important anymore.