Fitness, Food, and Life

Happy holidays, everyone. It’s been a while, but I’m not here for a recap post. This one is more of a . . . making you think one.

Christmas was two days ago and for the first time in my twenty years, I spent it away from my home and family. Not only that, but yesterday, I had to say a farewell to my best friend as we both prepare for ops that will have us busy for the next two and change months. Needless to say, it’s been an emotional couple of days.

People who don’t know don’t understand what we in the military go through. You want to see us when we’re near on training operations, but get mad when we say we can’t. It’s not that we don’t want to see you, but it’s that we’re there on business and our time is not our own. We can’t apologize for being so close and yet not being able to make the time to see the people we want to see or who want to see us. There’s that point, but there’s also the point of, we say goodbye to our friends for short to long periods of time. It’s the shitty side of having best friends in other units. Mind it, our ops go at the same time to it works out better than if they were separate, but the fact remains . . . sometimes the people you see On a weekend basis, make the best memories with, you have to say goodbye to for a while so you can do what we signed up for.

Being away from home was hard. I saw traditions that should’ve happened that didn’t and some that felt weird to do because I wasn’t with my family. My stocking sits underneath a Charlie Brown tree in my barracks from because for this year, it was home. Granted, I did get to see my family for thanksgiving, but if we’re being honest, I would’ve rather seen them On Christmas than thanksgiving, but I am grateful none the less.

We grow and we change. The people who we’re going to be by the time we do get home are going to be different than who we were when we went home last time. Our attachments might have been faded with the people we knew compared to the people we go home with. The military breeds us differently and that’s why it’s hard to connect with our old friends and even make new friends outside of the military. No one understands. Whether it be the amount of alcohol we can drink, nicotine consumption, constant need for more tattoos, or the fact we’re simply On call by our commands at all points in time. Our leave gets denied, but it’s our fault we can’t come home. We say we’re coming home, but WE have to make the plans to link up. It’s not our fault if the mission comes first. It’s not our job to make the plans to link up when it’s our time we have paid for. It’s hard to step back into the place we grew up in because people see us as the same when we’re not.

This period of holidays has given me a lot of time for reflection. I missed Christmas and I’ll miss New Years with my family in Cali. I said goodbye to my best fuckin friend till March. It’s super shitty, but it is what it is.

It’s the hard knock life and we signed the contract for it.

So, I’m doing this backwards, having explained in my previous post that I went to boot camp and now I’m writing about boot camp.

You might be curious as to why I’ve titled this post four months later when those who know/been through recruit training know it’s only 13 weeks. However, I’m at the end of my MCT (Marine Combat Training) cycle and thought I’d include the work I’ve put in here too. This may be a long one so buckle up and get comfortable haha.

I was asked how I prepared for boot camp and my best experience so far. I’m going to start with the latter because the former is going to take a hot minute to explain. My best experience so far within the Corps has probably been hanging out with my brothers in the squad bay. A lot of stupid shit goes down in the barracks, half the time none of it being recorded so it’s just embedded in the memories we make. The training is a blast, but the downtime where we can chill is the best. You come together at the beginning of training, not knowing jack or shit about each other, but you form this bond that holds you together. For my fellow Marines, you know that feeling. It’s priceless and what makes the Corps home and family no matter where we’re at or what we’re doing.

Now, onto how I prepared for boot camp. I held my first swear in, the one that entered me into the DEP (delayed entry program), on 20 May 2019. My original date to ship out to boot camp was 22 July 2019, but obviously it got moved. I shipped out 24 June 2019. If y’all do the math, that only left me 34 days to prepare for three months that would change me forever. I did some serious grinding that month to get ready. One key thing I’m going to say for those who are reading this and plan on enlisting, you can’t only prepare physically for boot camp. You have to be physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually strong and ready. Lemme break it down…

The physical part of being ready. You run an IST (initial strength test) before you ship out to make sure you can actually keep up with your fellow recruits. That consists of a mile and a half run, crunches, pushups/pull-ups. Keep in mind that the IST you run in boot camp will be your LAST IST ever. After that point, you’ll run a PFT which is a three mile run, crunches, pushups/pull-ups. Train as if you’re running a PFT every week. Build up your stamina and strength. Eat clean, do intermittent fasting. Train as if someone is training to kill you because on the other side of the world, there is.

You may have heard boot camp is all mental. For the most part it is mental. The drill instructors play mind games and tear you down in ways you probably haven’t encountered before. They make you question yourself and why you’re there. It’s hard being away from home and you think about everything you’re missing. When those days come, as they will, you gotta remind yourself that you’re there because you felt the calling to service. Whenever fuck-fuck games were played with my platoon, I would always shake my head and go “best job I ever had”. My drill instructors hated me because I kept my mentality straight and strong. I knew why I was there and I kept it close to my heart.

Emotional preparation. Whatever the drill instructors say, it’s gonna feel personal and sometimes it’s very personal and direct. The Marines aren’t for snowflakes. If you cry when being yelled at, don’t even think about joining cause you’re going to get yelled at. Use what they say, what they try to make you feel, as fuel to prove them the fuck wrong. One of my drill instructors called me an embarrassment to my family name because of one small detail I messed up on. It hurt and that was the one time she got under my skin, but I used it as fuel to make it through so she KNEW who my dad put on that island. You have to be strong emotionally. It’s going to be hard and some days you’re going to feel overwhelmed maybe, but keep your head down and remember your fire. Trust me. Remembering your purpose for being away from family, for putting yourself through thirteen weeks of training, it will get you through.

Finally, when you go to boot camp you’ll get a class on spirituality and the Marine. If you’re not religious, that’s okay, but if you are, go to church and be at peace with what God is doing in your life. Trust in Him always because His plan will always guide you. Rely on him for strength and He will be with you. Go to church on Sundays. The song that got me through boot camp was Survivor by Zach Williams and the Bible verse was Jeremiah 29:11-14. Knowing God had His plan and that in the end, He’d take me home, it comforted me and gave me the strength to keep going through the suck. It made seeing my parents for the first time in 13 weeks the best feeling ever, knowing I made them proud because I finished. God is always going to be with you and you have to trust in Him.

I am new to the Marine Corps. I am still a boot. However, it’s home for me and they haven’t treated me wrong yet. I’ve got a family wherever I turn, a bed, food, laundry. Everything I need and with God watching out for me, this is my calling.

If you’re reading this and looking to join the Corps, I wish you luck.

Life is completely and one hundred percent unpredictable. It can be really good then one eighty into shit in the same day. Sometimes it doesn’t happen that quick. Sometimes it takes time for things to go from good to bad, bad to worse, bad to good, whatever the case may be. Life isn’t guaranteed. The only two guarantees there are in life are being born and dying.

You’re probably going “I know this already, why is she going over it?”. I’m going over it because life taught me another lesson last night.

People aren’t constant. As much as we like them to be, they aren’t. It’s a bitter pill to swallow. We find someone we love, we like to spend time with, we create memories. No one thinks about how quickly someone can up and walk the fuck outta your life. Sometimes you’re the one that has to walk out to do what’s best for you. Choosing to walk isn’t easy, but in the end, you gotta do what you gotta do.

I walked away from my two best friends. Some long stories, extenuating circumstances, bumps in the road happened. We all started to change even though we didn’t want to admit it. I saw it, tried to ignore it because I wanted to keep them. I ignored the toxicity of ones actions because I thought I needed someone to be strong, to be okay. Then… I left for three months. The time I was gone changed the distance that was already separating us into strangers practically. I didn’t know them and frankly, I didn’t want to anymore. They were stuck and I was progressing. So I walked and it was possibly one of the hardest decisions I’ve made so far.

I was good for a month until it dawned on me last night, the one who I put so much time into and turned a blind eye to, didn’t even fight for our friendship. He didn’t reach out to change my mind. He let me go as if the five years of firsts and memories and trips didn’t fucking matter. Man, did it sting when I figured that out.

The lesson I learned is that no matter how much work and effort you put into someone, they can always leave without a word. So now, I’m faced with the decision of do I get close and risk getting hurt or hold people at arms length? Play it by ear and by person seems to be the answer. You don’t know people’s intentions. You don’t know what life is going to throw at you when you wake up in the morning, BUT you can dictate how you feel and how you come out in the end.

Live life risky, flirt with breaking the rules and actually break a few. Don’t live life with regrets. If that means loving, knowing you’re going to get hurt, do it. If it means you grow, balls to the wall that shit. No one runs your life but you. No one dictates how you feel and how strong you can be.

YOU decide.