"Une fois qu'une Marine - Toujours une Marine"Enlisting in the US Marine Corps was the least stressful part; you just walked into a recruiting station of your choice, for me it was in New York City even though I wasn't local, and told your updated life story to the recruiting sergeant major, then told him the reason for your recruiting decide to join the Corps. Easy as pie, people were wanted, and what better guy than a volunteer. In those days, if you still had all the body parts you started life with, and you didn't have a scandalous criminal record, you could have been accepted. The periods for which you could enlist were two, three or four years. I signed up for the first two, with extension options. There was a "cooling off period" but you could choose to opt out. It was only there as a precaution until the FBI had time to check you out, because if you lied to the recruiter it would be a federal crime that carried a serious prison sentence. Otherwise, as you had signed, there was no other way but that of death; they would have let you terminate your contract with the Corps. It was like making a deal with the devil; they now owned you body and soul, and they intended to collect. Seven days later I received instructions to proceed to Beaufort and there to stay in a bug-infested motel, approved by the Marine Corps, and paid for the motel, before being transferred by bus, along with others, to "Sandy Rock," a he 8,095-acre island where my summer of transformation would begin. For as long as I can remember, I have admired the way Mother Nature conducts herself in that monumental struggle called life. The moment the spark of life is ignited, everything has the possibility of making it, or failing. And so it was... in the center of the paper... rine's anthem as we went through our set exercise and went through. Stopping in front of the exhibit booth, we listened to the standard speech welcoming us to the Marine Corps. When we were ordered to stand down we took a step back, shouting at the top of our lungs, “Yes, yes, sir! “. Just as a runaway freight train came to a shaking and violent halt, the training camp was over numb! My time on Parris Island has followed me all my life, in one way or another, like a ghost that accompanies me from a time gone by, and I can't say it brings me that many happy memories, except perhaps my first promotion. It was nothing more than an unfortunate means to an end. However, even as I write there is no escaping its influence, thus proving, for me at least, that the phrase used by time, "Once marine – Always marine", is powerfully true. Semper Fi !