With whom would you go back-to-back?

There was a time in human history when we were forced to fight for our survival. With this age-old understanding in mind, few mental images are as powerful as that of 2 men, outnumbered and outgunned, standing together and vowing that "as long as I have breath, no one will get to you without going through me." This is clearly exemplified in the citations of Medal of Honor recipients Sergeant First Class Randall Shughart and Master Sergeant Gary Gordon in Somalia (an event portrayed in "Blackhawk Down"), who 3 times volunteered to put themselves in this position. Shughart and Gordon went back-to-back to protect an injured pilot and paid the ultimate price for it.

In this time and place, it is rare that the average man finds himself surrounded and needing to defend himself physically from assailants. That aside, I think most of us (at least on the male side of the species) can quickly come up with the short list of people who, if we were faced with overwhelming odds, we would trust to cover our vulnerable backs, as we would cover theirs.
Mike, Tim, Aaron, Bryan and my Dad are those type of guys, but no list is complete without Marshall Partlow. Even in those terrifying dreams of murder and mayhem in the dark of night, Marshall is frequently there to keep the beasts at bay. It isn’t just physical protection either. If I need someone to talk to, to keep me accountable or to quote movies with, I have Marshall. So to Marshall:

Thanks for more than a decade of constant friendship (and judging from the picture, keeping an EYE on me), Happy Birthday and let’s get you an XD this week!