He had some of that shrapnel melted into a lucky horseshoe, which was shown to me with great reverence when I was a child.
My mother remembers watching him pick pieces of metal from his skin twenty years later. The explosion tore a hole in the steel twelve feet wide and twenty feet long. At 0635 on June 7, 1945, so the family story went, only two months before the end of the war, a Japanese kamikaze crashed into the Natoma Bay's flight deck. He was a Navy officer in the South Pacific, and his ship, the escort carrier Natoma Bay, fought at New Guinea, Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, often supporting Marine invasion forces ashore. My maternal grandfather, like many in his generation, had served in World War II. My family had only a short martial tradition. Something that might kill me - or leave me better, stronger, more capable. There was no longer a place in the world for a young man who wanted to wear armor and slay dragons.ĭartmouth encouraged deviation from the trampled path, but only to join organizations like the Peace Corps or Teach for America. In Athens or Sparta, my decision would have been easy. I wanted to do something so hard that no one could ever talk shit to me. I wanted to go on a great adventure, to prove myself, to serve my country. Others headed off to law school or medical school for a few more years of reading instead of living. I didn't understand what we, at age twenty-two, could possibly be consulted about. By the summer of 1998, my classmates were signing six-figure contracts as consultants and investment bankers. Failing a chemistry class had inspired my love of history, and I ended up majoring in the classics.
I went to Dartmouth intending to go to med school. Staring through the wire mesh at the bright day, I thought this must be what it's like on the ride to Sing Sing. I thought of my friends, spending their summer vacations in New York and San Francisco, working in air-conditioned office towers and partying at night. A girl in an open Jeep stood and started to raise her shirt before being pulled back down by a laughing friend. Kids wearing headphones gawked, surely wondering what losers were riding a school bus in the summertime. Families drove next to us, on their way to the lake or the beach. I turned toward the window to avoid his gaze. He had an edge, something in his jaw or his brow that made me self-conscious. Shorter hair, of course, and broader shoulders. The lieutenant was my age, but he looked different. He stood there in the aisle, glaring at us, and I sat up a little straighter. No one answered the lieutenant's question. I glanced around the bus's gunmetal interior, surprised to see people reading or pretending to sleep. "If you can't be honest at OCS, how can the Corps trust you to lead men in combat?"Ĭombat. "Honor, courage, and commitment are the Marines' core values," the lieutenant shouted over the engine. I expected a welcome, a joke, some commiseration. Shortly after we pulled away from the recruiting office, he stood in the aisle and turned to face us. He had just graduated from Officer Candidates School, and would escort us on the hour's drive to the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia. I found a seat near the back as the bus started with a roar and a cloud of smoke blew through the open windows.Ī second lieutenant, looking crisp in his gabardine and khaki uniform, sat in the front row. Some sipped coffee from paper cups, and a few unfolded newspapers they had brought.
Wire mesh covered its windows and four black words ran along its sides: UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS.ĭressed casually in shorts and sandals, we spread out and sat alone with our bags. List Price: $14.95 Note: This excerpt contains language and content that some readers may find offensive.įifteen of us climbed aboard the ancient white school bus.