One of the neatest things about joining the military is that you have a tremendous amount of opportunities to work, train and fight alongside dozens of foreign militaries. While I touched on this topic in my recent Black Sea Rotational Force Moto Video post a few days ago, my time spent in Afghanistan working as an embedded infantry advisor in the heart of Helmand Province is something that I will never forget. Sure it was ridiculously frustrating, but it was an incredible experience, and one that has really shaped who I am today. The video above comes from the Royal Tongan Marines, who just wrapped up Operation Herrick in Afghanistan, as they have been providing security in the at Camp Bastion (huge British base) since November 2010 (which just happens to be when I started my deployment there). Pretty cool video – more info on the Tongan Marines below!
Royal Tongan Marines Afghanistan War Dance Video
Raise your hand if you thought that was motivating? Yeah, I did too! The about section over on YouTube provided some impressive statistics about the Royal Tongan Marines that I never knew about. Did you ever know that Tonga (the island country) has provided an incredible 10% of their armed forces for each combat tour to Afghanistan? While we all know Tonga is a very small country, that ratio is still amazing – especially when you put America’s military up against it. The blurb also included the actual name of the war dance: Sipi Tau. Pretty impressive!
I never got a chance to interact with the Tongan Marines, but I want to know – they look like some mean mofos, and I’m glad they’re on our side. For all of our Afghanistan content just head on over to our official Afghanistan site tag; we also have a metric truckload of Marine Corps content, and so much more that I’ll let our ginormous tag cloud to your right do all the talking.
I hope you enjoyed the video – if you’ve ever worked with the Tongan Marines (or any foreign military for that matter), drop us a line below and join the conversation! We’d love to hear from you. More content to come – stay tuned!