Last year my son became a Young Marine
He recently earned a promotion to Private First Class. The kids have been on some really difficult camping trips and they also participate in anti-drug programs. After the camping trips he’s come home very hungry and very,very tired and those only lasted three days.
This week, they all went to Parris Island to train with the new Marine Corps recruits. He’s only 9 so I was really worried about him. I knew that they wouldn’t be doing everything the recruits do, but they would be expected to do a lot of work. They even had a Drill Instructor yelling at them the whole time.
The DI woke them up every morning at 5:00 A.M. by throwing a trash can around, they had to be dressed and have the beds made in ten minutes. After that they did physical training for two hours before breakfast.
A lot of the kids got really homesick and were terrified of the DI, but my kid, the youngest one there, did awesome ! He was there for the entire week, and did everything that was expected of him. He came home today.
He did so well, that a Seargent from our local Marine base made it a point to come up to me and congratulate me on raising him so well.
I would think, that the whole expierence would scare him away from the military totally, but the first thing he told me today was that he wants to become a Marine when he grows up.
I’m so proud of him !