The Us Marines 04 370 Ns - article by Whimsical Wire Articles

My brother Joe joined the US marines in 1982. We were a poor family living in Brooklyn, and our parents had never gone to college. Although they managed to make ends meet, and we were for the most part a happy family, he wanted to make more of himself.

On his own, my brother was kind of undisciplined and irresponsible. He didn't get very good grades, would stay up too late, eat junk food, not listen to my parents, and cross the street without looking both ways. Not to mention his horrible driving and messy clothes!

The US marines changed him, as he knew they would. Basic training was hellish for him – I guess it is supposed to be hellish for everyone. They would begin the day at six in the morning, jogging ten miles sometimes before breakfast. His clothing had to be spotless all the time, and I mean SPOTLESS. One time he had to do fifty push-ups for having a shoelace untied. He would have to follow orders quickly and precisely. No more talking back for brother Joe.

When he got home from US marines training he was a different person. He stood up straight, always had his shirt tucked in, and had a kind of confidence he didn't have before, although he was also a little bit rigid. A lot of his friends thought it was stupid – that he wasn't as fun to hang out with as before when he used to have a devil-ma-care attitude, but I thought he was cool, and that deep down inside, he was really the same brother.

Initially, he wanted to have a career in the US marines. It gave him a sense of belonging that he hadn't had before, and he was really gung ho about the whole thing. He would always tell us stories about training, about the times they had pulled pranks behind the drill sergeant's back, about the amount of work they had to do every day, about the girls in the bar they'd get to go to in their rare moments of free time. He was actually anxious to get back to the military. He didn't enjoy his break at all. He needed the schedule of daily life. We were all afraid that he wasn't the same any more.

He's actually chilled out a bit since then. After another six months in the US marines, he decided that the military life wasn't for him. Eventually, he left the service and got a job programming computers. He had to go through school all over again, something that had always been very hard for him. Maybe it was the discipline he learned in the marines, but something drove him to make it through this time.

He met a nice woman named Sally, and they got married and had kids. In every way they are the normal American family. I wonder if it would have turned out differently for him if it wasn't for the time he spent in the Marines. Would he have dropped out? Gotten into drugs. I don't know, but there is no doubting that the experinece built character and determination, and that he has no reason to reject his decision

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