Many thanks. I know he would have appreciated it coming from a fellow Marine. I had actually gone down to talk to the Marines about joining after discussing it with him, but then I went back to school that semester and ended up breaking my damn back in a car accident and becoming paralyzed. Life can indeed be a shitstorm. How we handle the aftermath of the shitstorm determines our level of success regardless of circumstance, and that's where our upbringing comes into play. Parents who are soft on their kids are not doing their children any favors, especially if/when the offspring face real challenges in life.

But hell, I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up...or if I want to grow up at all. One of these days I'm going to drop out of the rat race and disappear into the desert. I hope it's sooner rather than later.