PART 1    LETTERS FROM BOOTCAMP AND BEYOND

His mother slammed the door in his face and he didn’t have to see her to know that she was crying.

She was upset because once again he was in trouble. ” A problem with authority” the principle said.  His mother had been begging him to focus on school and ” just graduate”.   She didn’t ask for much but the jerks at school were getting him riled up each and every day.  One day it was the fact that he couldn’t keep his shirt tucked in. The next day they had a problem with a green bandanna hanging out of his back pocket.  The last thing his mother said as she was heading off to work was ” Why don’t you save your father and I  alot of grief and just quit school and get your GED? ”  ” You keep getting in trouble and the Marine Corp. will not take you anyway”.

The words stung.  She knew that was his dream. If only he could just join now before he got thrown in jail again for fighting.  His grandfather had been a Marine in Vietnam and he had dreamed of the day he could join. 

Things really went south with his mom when he told her he wanted to join right after graduation with his friend James.  His mother cried and begged him to wait.  She would never be ready and he knew it.  She used the excuse of waiting until a new President was in office.  He knew that would not change the way the War was going and he needed to go.  The feeling was something his mother would never in a million years understand. How could she?

He stood there with a plan in his head and his dreams in his heart. He would prove her wrong. He would graduate. Ok, so it would be at alternative but who cares.  She would eat her words and have to say ” Im sorry I ever doubted you son”  His mother’s rish  roots ran deep and with that came a stubborn will to never give up and he knew that his mother was right in a way.  She was pushing him in exactly the direction he wanted to go ultimately, but why was she so harsh about it.  Maybe it was because of the eight years plus she had worked two jobs trying to raise her boy alone. Or maybe it was the Multiple Schlerosis that made her walk everywhere with a cane.  She was more tired than ever these days. 

The next day would be a day he would never forget.  Fate would play a part in his plan yet to unfold.

TO BE CONTINUED