The family converged on San Diego on Wednesday starting at mid-day to begin the two-day process of collecting the teenage boy converted to a “Marine Man”. We drove in from somewhere in Arizona; Mom and Dad flew in from Houston; and Aunt Muffin drove in from Ventura California. We met for lunch and moved on to our hotel in downtown San Diego to get ready for our first event of a “meet and greet” on base with a dinner and opportunity to talk to the Drill Sargent who actually worked with Ryan over the past 15 weeks.
We arrived 5 minutes early and learned that when the military says 5 p.m. they mean it! We had to turn around and go one block away and then drive back. Of course, with San Diego traffic it didn’t take 5 minutes so when we got back, there were lots of cars ahead of us.
When we got into the gate, they directed us off to an area where all the cars were being searched. Everyone had to get out of the car, and you had to leave all your belongings, including phones and wallets, purses, etc., with all the doors, trunks and hoods sitting open, while Marines and Marine dogs inspected each car. In the meantime, we were “wanded” like at the airport. Once we passed inspection, we were allowed to enter the base. This process happened each day of our adventure, except the coming early part. We are fast learners!
On base we were directed to an area filled with vendors selling Marine paraphernalia to friends and family celebrating their Marine’s accomplishment. Let’s just say Mothers can be convinced to buy almost anything with a Marine logo! We had an opportunity to talk to Ryan’s DI and we were pleased to hear some very positive things about him, but we still couldn’t see him or talk to him.
Next day was Family Day and this time we knew the drill and arrived right on time ready for inspection. We were ushered to the viewing stands where we waited patiently for the review of the company doing their running/ formation drills. With binoculars in hand, we searched his platoon and found him almost at the same time he found us. He wasn’t allowed to smile, look into the stands, or move in anyway but he managed to move his eyebrows enough so that we knew he saw us. We all thought he looked much thinner than when he left and with that serious face, until he did the eyebrow thing, we weren’t 100% sure it was him.
After exhibiting what they learned, the new Marines were sent back to their barracks to clean up while we were ushered into a theatre to be entertained with facts about being part of the Marine family now, meeting the mascot, and lectured on maintaining the standard of Marine life. It was funny to hear them say, “We have spent the last 15 weeks creating this strong, confident Marine. While he is home with you, do not undo what we have created.”
After an hour and a half of lessons, we went back to the Parade Deck for Liberty Formation and Dismissal. In they marched and we all screamed and cheered.
But it didn’t go that quickly. I get the sense nothing in the military goes quickly. More marching, more introductions and finally….. release. He came right over and lots of hugs and smiles and questions and kisses, but Ryan’s primary concern was to get off the Parade Deck. His orders were to get out of the area quickly and he wasn’t about to get into trouble.
They called it liberty, but he was not allowed to leave the base or even ride in a motor vehicle. They were serving a lunch buffet, so we all walked for what seemed like miles to get to the place where the lunch was available and stand in line for a very long time. All the while asking questions and getting great stories about how hard it was and the ridiculous things they did to the recruits to try to get them to quit so they culled out the weak early in the process. For instance, before lights out one night, they had them all take their footlocker locks off and drop them into a basket. The locks were then thrown out onto the floor and they were given 20 seconds to grab a lock and secure their locker. Now they had no idea what the combination was for lock on their footlocker, so they spent the rest of the night trying every lock to find theirs and hope the whoever’s lock was on their locker would find it and remove it before morning.
One thing for sure, after being told what to do and how long to take to do it, Ryan had a problem making a decision. We wanted to do what he wanted to do, but he couldn’t decide simple things like what do you want to eat? Our best course of action was do give him choices and watch the expression on his face for a clue. He was answering every question we had with great stories told with lots of enthusiasm that showed he kept a really good attitude all through his time following orders that made no sense sometimes and actually were counterintuitive.
At 5:00 pm we had to return him to Uncle Sam so they could finalize his training until the big ceremony tomorrow. We were a good Marine family and returned him in the same condition we found him, only I think his smile was a little bigger.
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