How Did I Get Here?

Friday

Two people made it to town today.

The first was Chrissy, the former Sports Director for the gym who has since moved to Virginia while her husband is in Iraq. She was back for a visit and being the other half of the Bobsy Twins along with Pam, she wanted to stop by and say hello.

You can always tell when there is a woman in the building because their heels click on the tile and reverberate down the hall. Then most of the Marines perk up and you see heads poke out of offices. Who is that?

What’s funny is when we are wearing our dress shoes on Thursday and Friday, they make similar clicking sounds. Then the answer to “Who’s that?” is sometimes “The Gunny.”

Oops.

Chrissy has been going through some hard times as of late and it was good to see her. She came to attend the Dining In with Pam whose fiancé couldn’t attend so together, they picked up right where they left off: making fun of the Marines in little ways that drive us crazy with their very un-Marine outlook on life which points out that we take ourselves way too seriously sometimes.

Unfortunately with everything going on, I couldn’t spend much tie with them but appreciated them stopping by. The most memorable part was when they pointed out that they would be unable to stop from laughing out loud at the Dining In when they announced the command to “PARADE THE BEEF!”

They assured me they wouldn’t be able to contain themselves at that point.

Did I mention that these two have shaved off years of my life with such behavior?

The second person to come see me was a firefighter that I met back when I ran the LA Marathon. Long time readers will remember him as the guy who took me around so I could see Who-Ville, only the most awesome thing EVER!

His name is Andy Doyle and he took me up on my offer to come see me anytime he was in San Diego and I would give the tour.

Carrie joined us and I once again found myself being the tour guide for the United States Marine Corps Recruit Depot. Not that I minded; it’s pretty neat to show someone who has no concept of the military the drama and spectacle that is the Depot. Where else can you see where Marines are made by some of the most intense human beings on the planet?

I have to tailor my explanations depending on who I am showing around. If they had come through as a Recruit, I concentrate on the changes since they had been through and if they have no experience at all, it takes awhile because I have to explain layered concepts which spawn an almost never-ending series of sub-explanations. It’s like they won’t understand A unless you explain B which requires an explanation C, so on and so on….

What I thought would be an hour tour turned into a few hours culminating in a lunch at the Bay View restaurant on base.

Needless to say, Andy was impressed and like everyone that comes to the base and sees what happens here, he walked away with his preconceived notions shattered, his view of Marines at an all-time high, and in possession of a healthy respect for the mission we have at MCRD.

Free Advice for Today: “Watch your language.”

This entry was posted on Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 7:47 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.