Major surgery was how this year started off, but it was necessary and welcomed, not to mention free; the military had agreed to repair my hernia AND guarantee my shot at a job on the front lines as an Infantry Marine. My dreams were coming true, needs met, body repaired. I’d gone from a hopeless existence below the poverty line right outside the first university I’d struggled to juggle with my emotional train-wreck of a post-high-school semester. I continued to sketch and write poetry whenever I could, not realizing the Marine Corps would amplify and supercharge my artistic, creative, visionary side like nothing else could.
Month Titles
I got pulled from my training platoon the moment we were walking into our squadbay doors for the first time. I am now on a long waiting list for hernia surgery.
The surgery went well, and a Pele-looking exotic islander with perfect c-cup tits in tight olive-green PT gear in the Balboa upstairs waiting room tried to fuck me. I wish I had gone for it. I wish she had tried harder.
All the other recruits who had my surgery had relapses, their hernias returning, and they getting sent home. I am worried about this, and determined to stay.
It has been twice as long for me being on this recruit training depot than for all others; most recruits graduate as Marines after 13 weeks, and I have been here more than 26 due to the surgery waiting time and recovery time. I like that; it kept me ‘off the grid’ and ‘down periscope’ longer, right in the kind of rough and manly environment I have always deserved. I never made a single phone call when given the chance. I never wrote home once. Why would I? I never had a family. It was all a lie.
The people I used to roleplay with in that chatroom have been supportive, the Recon Marine writing regularly, and even sending an allegedly autographed photo of Michelle. I wonder if it’s really her staying in touch with me…
2003 May 13, Tuesday
Every part of my being aches with exhaustion, scattered abrasions, and blisters. This feeling brings a grim smile to my soul. I still don’t know if I will graduate as Guide though, let alone Company Honorman… We’ll see. So far I have failed nothing and screwed up nothing.
“Blind men will self-appoint themselves to correct mistakes you never make, the self-damned will judge you, and the physically strong will accuse you of being mentally weak.”
There are times these days when I often am reminded of the demotivating fact that all my fighting, training, and experience has been involuntarily erased. My personal end result of the RJH wars is at best upsetting to me. Something in me tells me that I do know how to combat hand-to-hand, yet at the same time, two other things tell me all is futile and that my new/old/resurfaced essence is that of a healer… not a seasoned militant.
This is a saying I don’t understand: “Do we just tighten racks and whatnot?” What the fuck does “what-not” mean?
Based on all my history and knowledge, the fact that only a dozen or so die in each conflict in combination with the exponentially growing population, health care, a stable globe, and technology, it is clear that the Earth will be over-populated by the next century. As more people live, fewer seem to die in our wars. Are we ramping up to metastasize, or are we just getting out of hand. All the signs point to the latter.
Watching civilian boys be transformed into Marines is a bit interesting. Still, I would much prefer a Warcraft P.O.V. as opposed to my current first-person P.O.V..
Resident Evil quote: “[We’re] all going to die down here.”
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