How did I get here? Why did I do this?

It is for many reasons, sometimes it's just because we couldn't find a job, we had to find a way out, we needed shelter, clothes, food, and money - and had no other way to get that!

But on another level we always wondered if we could serve in this way. It was a door we had no idea if we could walk through successfully. What are military people? Are they not the best of the best, the highest qualifying people in the land - and this is true...

You might make the cut, and then wash out in recruit training, maybe you really can't handle it...

WHO ARE WE that made it?

And all I can think to say is that we were determined to make something of ourselves, that no matter what was thrown at us we were the ones that overcame all obstacles to become the men and women in uniform that we then became. A right of passage, HARD - difficult. It meant we had to adjust to new ways of thinking, and new ways of living. We learned that we could become far more than we ever expected of ourselves, we had no idea what we would be called on to live up to the standards placed before us, but we did it!

And in that passage through the trials placed before us, we became far more than we ever thought we could be.

I have no idea how to explain that to a normal person. We have been pushed into "OVERDRIVE" in order to survive these trials, most notably US MARINES.

It is a right of passage few will ever encounter.

But it transforms a person. You learn that you can be far more than you ever realized

"HOO RAH!"


Happy fourth of July