Leaving Home: Part 1

Henderson Nevada, 1998

I called the Marine Corps recruiter in April of 1998 and inquired about going into the Marine Corps.  I didn’t feel I had anywhere else to go.  I knew that if I stayed at home I would probably get myself into trouble.  

College was for rich or smart people.  

“Recruiting officer” the Sergeant on the other end answered when I called.

“Yeah I’m kind’a thinking about joining up with the Marine Corps,” I said haphazardly.

Now that I think back and knowing what I know now, I imagine a wolf in a Marine Corps uniform on the other end of the phone.  His tail wagging and hot saliva dripping from his sharp grin.

“We are looking for commitment,” he said or some variation like it.

“Well I think I have what it takes,” I said sheepishly.

The next thing I new, I was receiving at our house no less than two telephone calls a day from the recruiter.  It was here that flags started going up in my mind.  It seemed to me that if they only took the best or the most committed then they shouldn’t seem so desperate.

A few weeks later I was at my buddy's girlfriend’s house.  I remember there were blue skies, the kind where there wasn’t an ounce of white in them.  These are typical skies for Las Vegas or Henderson.  We had finished swimming and were drinking some cokes in their backyard when the “after high school” conversation came up.  My friends were discussing universities, and then I said within earshot of Alisha’s father that I was thinking about joining the Marine Corps.  Most everyone there had already known this, however this was Alisha’s father's first time hearing the news.  

“The marines?” he asked with a hard face.

“Yeah,” I said drinking my coke with the sun beating down on my face.

“Why in the hell would you go and do something like that?”

“I don’t know, I don’t really want to stay in Henderson.

“College?” he smirked.

“I can’t afford it.”

“Well I joined the Coast Guard when I got out of high school.  If your going to join something, at least join them.”

The Coast Guard.

“Can you even just join the Coast Guard?” I asked.

“Hell yeah you can, it's just like any other branch, only not so stupid,”

“What the hell does the Coast Guard do anyway?”

Wrapped in a towel as the sun went down Alisha’s dad sat me down and began to pull out all sort of Coast Guard information, pictures.  He even pulled down his wedding picture that was in the hallway where he was wearing a Coast Guard uniform.  I had been over there so many times before; how had I never seen this before.  He was a RD, or a Radarman, and had been aboard a Coast Guard Cutter, which the Coast Guard called its ships.

By the end of the evening, I was convinced.  When I went home that night, I opened the phone book to the recruiting page and looked for the Coast Guard recruiter.  There wasn’t one listed.  So the next day I called Alisha’s dad and asked if he knew where I could find a Coast Guard recruiter.  

“I'll look it up on the internet,” he said, “and I’ll get back to you.”

That night, as I could not sleep, I was up until three in the morning watching TV and thinking about a life in an organization to which I had literally no knowledge.  Then suddenly as if fate had swooped down on me - a Coast Guard commercial came on.