Semper Fidelis

A few weeks ago my cousin Dave enlisted for the Marines. It hadn’t been frivolous. In not a fiber of Dave’s decision had the opportunist lurked. He had not done it for the benefits, nor to pay for his college education. If he had simply wanted that, Dave would have pounded the pavement to find a full time job. He would have worked 60 hour weeks while cramming for exams, and not a peep of complaint would have passed through his lips.

No, Dave aspires higher than that. Before he left, I stopped by Dave’s apartment to help him clean out. There hadn’t been much there. Just the essentials—a bed, a table, a fridge. No, fancy television set. No Xbox. No Surrond Sound system. His room was that of a young man who lived sensibly and within his means. It hadn’t been frivolous.

            It took us only 20 minutes to clear out his apartment. Dave hadn’t even asked for my help, insisting twice on the phone that it was his responsibility and that I should just relax and meet him for a beer when he was done. Finally, he had politely accepted. He made sure to thank me on the phone preemptively for helping, although in reality, I doubt that I helped much. Going down the stairs my scrawny arms trembled. Going up the stairs my smoker’s lungs wheezed. In the end I was assisting him in the same way that I assisted my parents on my science projects back in grade school.

            Look, ma, I got the scissors for you all by myself!

            Great job, Gus.

            Once we were done, and once I was sweating profusely, he pulled two beers out of the icebox that we had left in the room and handed me one.

            “Thanks, man” he said, clinking his bottle against mine.

            “Hey, I gotta ask” I said after a moment’s silence, “What made ya do it?

            Dave smiled “What do you mean?”

            “Well, what was it that made you decide to enlist? Pretty heavy decision”

            The knowing smile remained on Dave’s face as he took a sip of his beer. I scratched my eye and looked around awkwardly, fearing that I had said the wrong thing.

            “I mean,” I continued “I never saw you as a very political guy”

            “Nah, you know I don’t get caught up in that stuff. Drive a guy crazy, when it doesn’t take much at all to see that, at heart, pretty much everyone wants what’s best for this country”

            “Well, then, why’d you enlist?”

            Dave took another sip of his beer and thought about it for a moment, choosing his words with care “At a certain point a person needs to start taking responsibility for himself. And part of that means doing something hard because you know it’ll make you a better person. Part of that mean’s going off to fight when your country calls on you”

            “Startin to hear the rumblings about Iran…”

            “Yeah I’ve been hearing them too”

            “Well, what’s your opinion on that? I mean if you might end up being the one holding the gun, ya gotta have an opinion”

            “See but that’s where you and I differ. It’s not for me to be making that decision. It’s my duty to uphold the responsibilities of being an American citizen. To be honest with you I don’t know the politics of the war we’re in now, nor do I know the politics of the war we might be in in the future. I just want to be able to serve my country.”

            It was at that moment that I looked up at Dave’s face and was hit by the mix of admiration and embarrassment that only comes when a person suddenly realizes the nobility of a male family member. And as we stood there, quietly drinking our beer and feeling the late afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows and illuminating the unsettled dust, I thought back to a time when we were kids. We were in fourth grade and were playing basketball after school—best to eleven, with me starting at five—when Tommy Maculson, came running up to us. Tommy breathlessly told us about how he had seen our mutual friend Alec being teased and picked on by Jeff Carter.

Upon hearing this, my head began spinning. Could Tommy he trusted—he had been known to occasionally exaggerate and manipulate people. What exactly had even happened—all Tommy had said was that Alec had been “picked on and teased”. Was there another side of the story—things are always more complicated than they appear. Would our intervening in Alec’s affairs have negative consequences—maybe we would be grounded, maybe if we fought his battle for him Jeff would just end up getting teased more.

            Finally I began forming a tentative plan in my mind. We would go ask Alec, just to be sure that Tommy wasn’t misleading us. We would go talk to Jeff, just to be sure that there wasn’t more to the story. We would ask around our class, just to get an outsider’s perspective. Then, if everything seemed clear and if we decided that the positive consequences outweighed the negative, we would confront Tommy and would make sure that he would think twice before ever messing with Alec again.

            But by the time I had my plan put together, Dave was already twenty yards ahead of me in a dead sprint. I immediately began running with all the speed I could muster in his direction. It was only a block before I lost sight of him completely, but by that point I could tell that Dave was headed toward the park that Tommy and his friends usually played football after school. Finally I turned the corner onto Maple Street and saw them through the chainlink fence. Dave had Tommy pinned down by his throat as all of Tommy’s friends stood watching in a mix of shock, fear and embarrassment for Tommy.

            “I didn’t do anything!” Jeff squealed from under Dave’s grip

            Dave grabbed Jeff’s nose in between his thumb and forefinger “We know you did, so stop lying”

            Jeff just continued whimpering.

            “Now, if you mess with him again, you’re gonna regret it. Understand?”

            “Yes! Yes, I understand! I-I wont say a word to him, I promise!”

            “Okay good”

            And just like that Dave stood up and walked away. As Tommy’s friends rushed over to him, each one taken down a peg by the experience, I caught the look on Dave’s face through the fence. There was no anger or hatred. He had merely done what he had to.

            We never did find out if Tommy actually had been picking on Alec, or how Alec felt about the incident since he never brought it up to us, but that didn’t matter. What mattered is that Dave had done what he had to. He had not let any mental acrobatics over ambiguities get in his way. He had not let concern over possible consequences paralyze him. He was a man of action. A man of loyalty and patriotism.