Tales of a nasty reservist

Fall Semester 1998

I was nineteen and entering a new chapter in my life. College, with all of its wild idealism was actually having an affect on me. I hated it. So far I knew very few people. My friends had gone off to college elsewhere or were still in high school and the only person I knew well enough to call an acquaintance was my dorm mate Scott. We lived in a dorm room comparative in size to a horse stall though ours was kind enough to have laminate flooring instead of dirt. It reminded me of a hospital wing with its abundant fluorescent lighting and freshly cleaned floors reeking of too much bleach.
Scott was a second year student who came from a small family and an even smaller town. He was tall with a lanky frame and had a buzzed hair cut very reminiscent of a Rockwell painting. Scott was not your typical student though. On top of his schoolwork and undergrad commitments he was also a Marine, and a fresh from boot camp. The following summer he enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve and returned to school after he graduated from boot camp. He was very new to the Corps but he was also very dedicated. I thought very little of this since I had zero interest in the military. Don’t get me wrong I didn’t dislike the military. This is the kid that grew up playing with G.I. Joe and watching Desert Storm play out on television like it was some kind of kick ass video game. I happened to think very highly of the military and especially of the Marines. So much so that I knew it wasn’t for me. For one thing I was incredibly out of shape. After finishing football in high school I didn’t have to worry about being in peak physical condition so I ate till my heart’s content. Voila! I’m fat. I was even more certain that the Marines were so tough and so crazy in the head that their was no way I could ever survive training and, God help me, fight in battle. I assured myself that this was not the path I wanted to go down.