Ten Years Ago, Today

Ten years ago, to this day, I waited on the edge of the parade deck at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina. After the impending graduation ceremony, the command “dismissed” would arrive, and I’d be relieved of my duties as a recruit and finally, officially, I’d become a Marine – a title I’d have earned and could never lose.

Boot camp to this point was tough, no doubt. I had endured thousands of push-ups, hundreds of miles of marches and runs, and 13 weeks of the toughest basic training in the U.S. Military. I thought that in this moment, my heavy belt drill instructor, Staff Sergeant Crandall, would finally let up on my training platoon.

But he didn’t. And that angered me. I didn’t understand why, in these last moments of basic training, he was still screaming at my platoon and pointing out our flaws. I thought we deserved some of his respect; we were just about to complete the same training he did, probably a decade before. Boot camp is the connection that’s supposed to bond all Marines, regardless of generation. It’s supposed to entail and demand a mutual respect – why was he still screaming?

It took me two combat tours, six years in the Marine Corps Reserve, and many years as a civilian to finally figure out why he maintained this hardness until the end, never ever letting up on us. In the military, there’s never an easy moment. There’s not supposed to be. When you’re a Marine – or a soldier, or sailor, or any warrior with a job in the combat arms – your job is to be a warfighter, a killer. And war means that you may die, or your buddy may die, and most certainly that your life will change and continue to be changed, especially when you get out.

He was hard on us until the end because that was his final lesson to us: your life in the military is going to be lonely and rough. Your duty station will change. The wars will come. Your friends will die. So be hard. Always. The green machine will use you, and doesn’t care about how you feel.

I wonder how he is doing today, and if he still feels the same. I wonder if he feels regret, knowing he trained hundreds of Marines for war, and more than likely, some of them are dead.

I wonder if he still feels the need to be hard, even as his career is probably at its twilight, and he’s probably getting ready to soon return home for good as a civilian.

I wonder if he’ll realize now, despite the good intention of his final lesson – numb yourself and be hard to deal with the life you’ve chosen – that he’s not alone in his pain. 

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