Alert: The Young Marines in Montana Need Some Backup

On Monday, I attended a great Memorial Day program at Mountview Cemetery in Billings, Montana. After the program, I got to catch up with a local Marine Corps veteran named Ryan Parsons. He was there helping to guide the Young Marines who did a great job volunteering as the color guard for the ceremony.

After the ceremony, Parsons was telling me how one of these days he wants to join us on the radio and talk about how support is needed for these Young Marines. Despite the increased funding for the Department of Defense, the Young Marines got their budget cut and are now relying solely on fundraising efforts.

I mentioned this story on the radio, and thanks to Arty in Billings he shared a link to the Young Marines website with more of the back story. The website also tells you how you can contact your Congressional Delegation to urge support for the Young Marines.

According to YoungMarines.org:

Each year during the federal budget process Congress authorizes and appropriates funding to ensure the Young Marines program is able to provide youth leadership education, development, and drug prevention and resistance education for the coming year. In Fiscal Year 2022 and 2023, the Young Marines was cut out of the budget process because of the way the budget was passed, which means that we received no federal funding to continue the mission of strengthening the lives of America’s youth for our Fiscal Year 2023 and 2024.  As budget negotiators make a final decision on the yearly budget, you can write your senators and representative to ask for their help in ensuring the Young Marines receive the funding again in Fiscal Year 2024 which will impact us in 2025.

I reached out to our Congressional Delegation to see if they had more info or any reactions to this news. A spokesperson for Congressman Ryan Zinke (R-MT01), a retired Navy SEAL Commander, sent us the following statement:

Biden’s DOD is spending money on drag shows instead of Young Marines and that tells you everything you need to know about their priorities. Woke garbage instead of war fighters.

Another way you can support these Young Marines here in Montana is through your generous contributions. Here's the website to contact the Billings Young Marines.

By the way, here is video I took of the Young Marines serving as the color guard for the Memorial Day ceremony at Mountview Cemetery in Billings, Montana on Monday:

Screenshot photo used above came from the following video: