The Last Time I Saw Parris

A Marine Mom’s Memories…

    While grabbing a paper in the 7-11 one 6 am in the late nineties I saw an acquaintance who asked after my teenage son, wondering what his plans for the future might be. “Well,” I said, “He plays soccer all day, dances in rave clubs at night and in his spare time he soups up turbo charged VW’s.  He is joining the Marines!” Every sleepy-eyed, hung over, caffeine deprived wage zombie on line burst out laughing at the thought of such a person in uniform.

     “Tyrone” had always loved to play soccer but when asked what he would study if he got  a sweet ride like a full scholarship to Notre Dame he responded, “ I don’t know, whatever people study.” Clearly not college material.  So it was with a mixture of fear, hope and relief that I sent him off with the Marine recruiter at the dawn’s early light in August of 1998.

     No phone calls were allowed in those days and our only communication was by mail. Boot camp was three months long and I scrounged together enough money to go to Parris Island off the South Carolina coast for the graduation ceremony.  I signed up with a group that arranged everything and as it happened, everyone else was Puerto Rican or Dominican, from Central Islip.  True to every sit-com you may have seen involving this population, after a few inquiries, they determined that, Ay, Dios de Mio, we were somehow related!

     We all gathered in the stands to watch our sons march in formation and it was truly spectacular to see the synchronization and intricate formations.  The people ranged from sophisticated urbanites with expensive cameras, to farm families in long dresses or overalls with caps touting the wonders of John Deere. At the end of the ceremony we all ran onto the field to find our own sons and it was a great and happy moment.

     All the New York boys had their pictures taken at the Iwo Jima Memorial and I took many shots with my little yellow disposable camera.  It was then I heard of some of the difficulties he endured in boot camp.  It seemed that there was no right answer to the simple question “Where are you from?”  If he answered “Long Island,” the response would be, “Oh, so you’re a rich kid, I am going to beat you up.”  If he said he was from New York the reply was “Oh, you think you’re bad, I am going to beat you up.”  Eventually Tyrone would answer by saying “I am from a town, like any other town, where are you from?”

     Tyrone was sent to Camp Lejuene for firearms training or as we told his Catholic pacifist grandmother: “further training.” Sometimes his fellow Marines would rent a van and come home for the weekend.  They learned to pool resources and manage money, something most 18 year olds do not do.  Often my son would be the designated driver, not only because he didn’t drink but because he was the most Caucasian looking and least likely to be pulled over on I95 during those days of profiling.

     The military sent him to Okinawa, in what Tyrone remembers as “the year I did not get to drive a car” and I remember as “the year I did not see my son.”  It was a terrible time for both of us.  Due to deplorable behavior by some Marines in the past, the current Marine’s activities were severely restricted and they were not popular with the locals.  One time I decided to offer their situation up in prayer at my church, stating that the kids were far from home and the grounding influences of their parents and home churches making it hard to make proper decisions.

     The next week at church another military mom came prepared.  Her son was in another branch of the service and was in a dangerous training mission involving jumping out of helicopters into the deadly swirling sea and if he had not been All-County in 3 sports and a natural born leader, why, everyone might have drowned! This was my first experience with competitive praying. Eventually I left that church as the pastor seemed more interested in the Federalist Papers than the Gospels.

     During a training mission in Korea Tyrone had a wisdom tooth extracted in a tent and got a massive infection but soon recovered and they all went on a ship for awhile and  ended up in Thailand. (Some of these details are classified or hazy.) Against strict orders, Tyrone rented a motorcycle, being as experienced a rider as you can be at age 19, and rode for days, until he got arrested and thrown in jail for being an American.  He bribed somebody $15.00 and got out of jail and this event is not on his permanent record.

     Camp Pendleton was next and as the leader of a mechanic bay he had to deal with what I shall call “interpersonal conflict” among the Marines, mostly involving the choice of music to listen to while doing mechanical things. The Southern white boys would tolerate rock, country, or heavy metal but could not stand rap. Northern boys of no ethnicity could endure country music. Eventually Tyrone, as the head, decided they would all listen to classical music.  This worked out well until the Tchaikovsky enthusiasts started mixing it up with the Beethoven fans.  

     A serious car accident (rear ended by an uninsured driver) prevented the military from requiring that Tyrone stay past his four years and he finished his entire term of service without anything terrible happening.

     A co-worker also had a son in the Marines who got out at the same time. I told her my son had been a Humvee mechanic and she said “I got you beat, my son….” Yada, yada, who cares? What’s with the competition? She said her son was joining the State Troopers and I offered my congratulations, saying it was a great job and that my son was interested in health care and finally ready for college. “Well, we are not wasting money on college, and those liberal professors.”  I quit listening after that, thinking that it is pretty hard to put a political spin on organic chemistry.

     The USMC and my son were lucky to have had each other. Years have passed and now Tyrone has the health care job, a beautiful wife, kids and a mortgage. Still, nothing can take away the fact the he rode a motorcycle all over Thailand when he was only 19, and came home safe.