These were the Marines who wore the red-and-blue patches with white skulls and the stars of the Southern Cross lighting their way. Their exploits were burned into America's memory in 1942 and 1943.

What is often not remembered about that time in our history is that the United States had been in a steady and brutal retreat from the tough and disciplined forces of Imperial Japan. The Japanese soldier's image had gone from a weak, confused and inferior soldier, who was caricatured with buckteeth and glasses, to a jungle-wise and unbeatable enemy.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor and the loss of the Philippines, the American public was stunned and unsure of whether we would be able to hold or stop the Japanese. Australia and even the West Coast of the United States were full of citizens who believed that it was only a matter of time before the Japanese war machine rolled over their beaches and into their lives.

Then a group of Marines and a reflective and thoughtful American President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, having seen the growing success of Winston Churchill's new British Commandos, decided that America needed the same medicine.

President Roosevelt wanted specially trained Marines who would quietly slip behind the enemy and hit him where he did not expect it, where it would cause him to slow his forward momentum and to turn rearward to protect his more vulnerable areas.

America needed highly trained warriors who would cut and damage the enemy's lines of supply and communication, performing strikes that would renew the faith of the American citizens in the abilities of their military services to fight back. This is what the President wanted; this is what Americans desperately needed. The Marines selected were called Raiders.

Great were the expectations laid on the Raiders and their unique training, and that is exactly what those young Marines, many under the legal age of enlistment, delivered. Their strikes into the Pacific, going ashore in rubber boats off submarines and raiding behind Japanese lines, became one of the major rays of hope for the disheartened American public. That is how their legend began, and how it grew in strength.

Today, those thousands of young Marines who survived the war have dwindled with time. Most of them are in their 80s, with a few youngsters in their late 70s. Regardless of their age, they are still Marines. During the week of Aug. 2-7 of this year, these aging, but still mentally tough Marine veterans of the four Raider battalions gathered at Quantico, Va., for their reunion. Each year they walk a bit more slowly, but their eyes still sparkle with pride as they tell their individual and unit stories about their now-famous exploits.

The Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (MCMAP) is headquartered at the Martial Arts Center of Excellence (MACE) inside the newly built Raider Hall. MACE was the host for these memorable Marines.

LtCol Joseph Shusko, the director of MACE, tirelessly worked to get the program up and running. With the enthusiastic support of The Basic School (TBS) and a group of selected lieutenants, MACE gathered, organized, transported, fed and delivered the Raiders and their families to such diverse activities as the Evening Parade at 8th & “I” in Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C.; the sunset ceremony at the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Va.; and a tour through the newly finished National World War II Memorial on the National Mall in Washington.

Everywhere this small band of veteran Marines went, active-duty Marines of all ages and backgrounds were there to greet and talk with them. At each ceremony they were publicly recognized. None of the active-duty Marines present was even born when these Raiders were striking fear and confusion into the heart of the Japanese commands.

Marines such as George MacRae, with his arm still bearing the 7.7 caliber Japanese bullet wounds sustained at Guadalcanal, told of fighting on the Bloody Ridge with a Browning Automatic Rifle—surviving only because his fellow Marines doggedly continued to provide support despite their exhaustion and wounds. On Bloody Ridge, often referred to as Edson's Ridge, the supporting air-cooled and water-cooled machine guns fired continuously until dawn, with runners braving the incoming rounds to bring back sufficient ammunition to keep them going.

The next morning, Japanese bodies were piled solidly all across the front; one could not walk the front lines without stepping on them, as they were packed so close together. Many of the young Marines who fought that night were surprised to still be alive the next morning.

The Raiders attending the reunion were made of such men as John Sweeney (Navy Cross winner), Bill Fischer, Ken O'Donnell and Jack Dornan. Each Raider had his own story. At previous reunions many had met fellow Raiders who had been wounded and evacuated, with neither knowing until that point whether the other had survived. At each reunion more memories were jogged, and small details would suddenly pop up, things that had not even been written down or remembered all those years before.

At this year's reunion, the Raiders toured the General Alfred M. Gray Research Center at Quantico, where the staff put on a presentation on Raider history. The center then had the various battalion members sign the maps and photos specific to their unit experiences, and then any Raider who wished to was interviewed on tape for the center's living history project.

During the reunion week, the MACE staff put on a number of martial arts exhibitions for the Raiders and their families, and the Raiders were reminded that it was their training and their hand-to-hand combat development that laid the foundation for today's MCMAP training. In cooperation with the Raiders, MACE has taken over, refurbished and redisplayed the old Raider museum, which formerly was located in Richmond, Va. Now the memorabilia covers the walls of Raider Hall as a tribute to the steel bond forged between the Raiders of WW II and the Marines of today's MCMAP.

On Thursday, Aug. 4, a quiet ceremony was held in Raider Hall to dedicate the Col Anthony “Cold Steel” Walker classroom. Col Walker had served as a Raider during the war and was an instructor and great advocate of the use of cold steel in combat. Attending the ceremony were two of Col Walker's sons and one grandson. Col George Bristol, the first director of MCMAP, was the guest speaker.

On Friday morning at the Quantico base chapel, there followed a somber memorial service dedicated to the Raiders who have passed over the great divide. The ship's bell sounded a note for each Marine.

Saturday was the last full day of the reunion, and the evening was celebrated with a superb steak barbeque put on by Marine veteran Seamus Garrahy, who had the enthusiastic support of TBS's hardworking mess hall staff.

The Raiders hope to have a reunion again next year. Even though they each arrived home safely after this year's gathering, one Raider passed away shortly after his return, having made his last evening call of “Taps” with his brothers.

The Raiders are a Marine Corps treasure, and as with all such treasures they should be valued and shared.

Editor's note: A Marine veteran and subject matter expert on edged weapons for the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program, Homer Brett is a Marine historian and freelance military writer.