When the night has come/And the land is dark/
And the moon is the only light we’ll see …
The opening lines to Ben E. King’s classic song “Stand By Me” describe the situation American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan face every night when their enemies are on the move. Fortunately, the U.S. leads the world in night-vision technology, which helps deny the bad guys their would-be invisibility cloak.

The July-August issue of Semper Fi: The Magazine of the Marine Corps League explores the eerily lit world of night-vision, thermal and infrared vision technology as used by U.S. forces, and peers ahead at improvements already showing up in the field. Given the changing nature of warfare, this is one field where we need to stay light years ahead of the competition.
Elsewhere in this issue. we report on the League’s sponsorship of the annual Marine South Expo, where vendors and warfighters meet to discuss equipment needs and critique gear so it makes Marines safer and more effective in rooting out their enemies.
Also in this issue, we celebrate 90 years of women Marines, from the earliest days when just over 300 women broke the gender barrier to today when women Marines often find themselves in harm’s way in the fluid battlespace of modern warfare. And we meet some of America’s Wounded Warriors, assigned to the Wounded Warrior Battalion-East at Camp Lejeune, where they are struggling to rejoin the Fleet or make a successful transition back to civilian life.