Trying to understand

[big_sis_luvs_you]

Well I guess my problem is with every thing that has happend over the past years...and not being as optimistic as I should be. My little brother just called to let me knw hes joining the marines. Hes only 16 n in three months he'll be 17 on his with my mothers signature on his early enrollment forms......he's a baby...I know its my problem......ugh I need help understanding....

[Frank]

Well I guess my problem is with every thing that has happend over the past years...and not being as optimistic as I should be. My little brother just called to let me knw hes joining the marines. Hes only 16 n in three months he'll be 17 on his with my mothers signature on his early enrollment forms......he's a baby...I know its my problem......ugh I need help understanding....

Help understanding what??? Why he wants to join @ 17 years of age???? I did the same thing at 17, then shipped to Boot Camp at 18 years of age. For me, it was a Patriotic issue. Just retired this past July after 26 years of service!!

[Dana Morgan]

Well I guess my problem is with every thing that has happend over the past years...and not being as optimistic as I should be. My little brother just called to let me knw hes joining the marines. Hes only 16 n in three months he'll be 17 on his with my mothers signature on his early enrollment forms......he's a baby...I know its my problem......ugh I need help understanding....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Most humans truly are like sheep
Wanting nothing more than peace to keep
To graze, grow fat and raise their young,
Sweet taste of clover on their tongue.
Their lives serene upon life's farm,
They sense no threat nor fear nor harm.
On verdant meadows, they forage free
With naught to fear, with naught to flee.
They pay their sheepdogs little heed
For there is no threat, there is no need.
To the flock, sheepdogs are mysteries
Roaming watchful round the peripheries.
These fang-toothed creatures bark, they roar
With fetid reek of carnivore,
Too like the wolf of legends told
To be amongst our docile fold.
Who needs sheepdogs?
What good are they?
They have no use, not in this day.
Lock them away, out of our sight
We have no need of their fierce might.
But sudden in their midst a beast
Has come to kill, has come to feast
The wolves attack; they give no warning
Upon that calm September morning.
They slash and kill with frenzied glee, their
Passive helpless enemy
Who had no clue the wolves were there
Far roaming from their Eastern lair.
Then from the carnage, from the route,
Comes the cry, "Turn the sheepdogs out!"
Thus is our nature but too our plight,
To keep the dogs on leashes tight,
And live a life of illusive bliss
Hearing not the beast, his growl, his hiss.
Until he has us by the throat, we pay no heed,
We take no note.
Not until he strikes us at our core will we
Unleash the Dogs of War.
Only having felt the wolfpack's wrath,
Do we loose the sheepdogs on its path.
And the wolves will learn
What we've shown before,
We love our sheep, we Dogs of War.

Russ Vaughn
2nd BN, 327th IN
101st ABN
Vietnam 65-66
__________________
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."- John Stewart Mill :

[Chuck]

big_sis_luvs_you

When your brother comes home for the first time after boot camp maybe then you can understand. He will have become a man. No longer just a brother. But if he passes muster a Marine.

Sure his will not be fully trained yet. That will still be ahead of him. But, he will be well on his way and you will love him more then you know how to love someone now.

Give him a big "Semper Fi" meaning Always Fateful.