Shortly after America became a nation, North American pirates began capturing our merchant ships and holding our crews for ransom. This posed a problem since the colonies had never built a fleet of ocean-going war ships. We had nothing with which to fight back. The president, therefore, called on Congress to raise money and build a naval fleet. You may have heard about the results in the Marine Hymn. It goes something like: “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli...” The ships were built, and the Marines came into existence to unload a can of whoop-@$$ on ...