Allthesilver

I think someone is having WAY too much fun in the Marine Corps!  I was briefly awakened again last night by my phone beeping a text message.  My bleary eyes couldn’t make out the picture that came with the text, but I knew the source.  Dana was working the night shift again.

That’s Dana, on the left, and the text with the photo said “my latest disciplinary action as COG”

The part that puzzles me is, who does he find to take the pictures and are their mothers getting silly pictures in the middle of the night too? 

 I’m not complaining, of course, I’m very proud of him and happy that he seems to be enjoying his choice of careers.  People ask me, “Aren’t you afraid?” and after thinking about it for many months, I have to say “No, not at all!”  My son is kept track of by the Marine Corps.  He has to be in his barracks by 11pm on his nights off.  He has to get special permission if he wants to go out in town in jeans and a t-shirt.  He is not at some college party getting drunk with a bunch of other college kids, driving drunk, doing drugs, hanging out on street corners, or flunking out of college at my expense.  (Please! don’t send me hate mail!  I know that not all college kids are partying their tuition away.)

Dangerous?  Of course it could be dangerous.  He is entering training for Air Traffic Control, which sounds benign enough.  Actually ATC means that he will be responsible for managing air traffic in combat situations.  This also means setting up the locations for ATC which may be behind enemy lines, and where we don’t already have troops. 

I asked if if we didn’t have SeaBees for that purpose?  He said, “Mom, they’re Navy!”  Ok, but I meant WE as in the United States.  Aren’t the SeaBees the guys with the bulldozers and heavy equipment to build airstrips?  Patiently, he repeated, “Mom, they’re Navy.”  He said “The Marines will have to go in first and make the area safe before the SeaBees will show up!”

Oh well.  For now, at least, he is safe.  His training will last until Fall and then he will find out where he goes from there.

Am I worried?  Not particularly.  I think about the kid who was driving home from work with an ice cream cone and swerved into a telephone pole and died.  The ice cream was melting on the floor of the car when the first cruiser arrived.  Did he drop the cone and swerve trying to save it, or did it drop after he hit the pole?  Freak accident. 

I also think about the kid who stopped on the highway to help a stranded motorist.  Another car rammed the back of his, shoving it into the disabled car and crushing both of his legs between the two bumpers.  He lost both of his legs close to home.

I think about the senator’s daughter who died when she got kicked in the face and neck at a horse show.  It wasn’t even her horse.  It was almost time to leave when some kids had started a game of running up behind one of the horses and jumping on over his rump like they’d seen in some cowboy movie.  Unfortunately, when this girl tried it, she didn’t make a very good leap and the horse had had enough.  As she slipped back down the horse kicked.

 I guess the point is, that life is dangerous.  If you manage to go from day to day without being exposed to any danger, then you are probably not really living.

So while I realize that being a Marine can be dangerous, I also realize that my son is being trained to handle danger and he is learning things that can’t be learned at college.  He is also not wasting his time.  Plenty of time for college later. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 8:40 pm and is filed under Dana's Adventures.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.