The Marine Corps celebrated its 250th birthday this past Monday with numerous events, including a major celebration in Philadelphia featuring historical reenactments, parades, and the one hundredth Marine Corps Birthday Ball in the Grand Ballroom of the City of Brotherly Love’s Bellevue Hotel, site of the first anniversary ball in 1925.

Other celebrations throughout the year have included special ceremonies and activities at the National Museum of the Marine Corps, a Marine Week event in Boston in August, and local gatherings across the country that included Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Nashville, Los Angeles, and the Super Bowl in New Orleans last February. The Commandant’s Ball was held simultaneously with the Philadelphia event on November 10 at the Marine Corps Barracks in Washington, DC.

The celebrations will culminate tonight in Arlington, Virginia, with a sold-out Marine Corps Community Services Ball hosted by Headquarters and Service Battalion, Headquarters of the U.S. Marine Corps, on Henderson Hall, honoring the legacy, valor, and traditions of the Corps within the Henderson Hall community.

Reinforcing the magnitude of the longevity of the U.S. Marine Corps are the inspirational words of General Eric M. Smith released as a proclamation on the November 10 birthday. General Smith, current Commandant of the Corps, contemplates the significance of this historic 250th anniversary of the discipline, initiative, and fighting spirit that anchor the Corps.