Honor?
A little less than a year ago (April 20th, 2004), I was sitting in the Military Entrance Processing Station 10 minutes away from shipping out to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, California- boot camp. At the Moment of Truth, I decided I could not live with the hypocrisy of lying about my medical history to get into a Corps whose code includes the phrase, "Marines...never lie...".
Now, I'm not naive enough to believe that in actuality Marines never lie, or that I never have/never will lie as a Marine. But when it comes to swearing an oath, I just can't cognizantly, willfully and determinedly lie. So they sent me home. (NOTE: I also intend to go into the Intel. field so I'm assured a full background investigation and were any of my med history to come to light, I could be dishonorably discharged for a fraudulent enlistment. See a fascinating article on this: I Cannot Tell a Lie . )
I never had asthma in the first place, and I wasn't clinically depressed. I had an inhaler for acute (not chronic) bronchitis (and a misdiagnosis following said respiratory infection). I took anti-depressants as an "upper" and moped around because I was too lazy and irresponsible to be accountable for my moral failings and poor job/academic performance. When I turned 24, and my second son was born I did a lot of rethinking about my life up to that point. Basically lived on extreme talent and ridiculous IQ, thusly never worked for anything. The only thing I ever earned was lettering on the Swim Team, and sitting first chair Trumpet in a semi-pro Jazz ensemble. And those are pretty fun things. I'd never had to work at something that wasn't recreational by nature. So as a commended National Merit Scholar, I spent 7 out of 9 college semesters on academic probation, and quit 7 out of 9 jobs after only 6 months. Other than marrying a beautiful barrista/artist from Seattle, I had not accomplished a single life goal that I had when I graduated high school.
One of those was to become a Marine. In the moment when it mattered, I felt a still, small voice inside me say, "If you honor Me, I will honor you." Maybe it was God telling me that I could not expect His blessing if I lied. Maybe it was my subconscious telling me that as an idealist I could never really be happy as a hypocrite. Or maybe it was the ghost of Chesty Puller, Carlos Hathcock and all those other Marines who fought for Corps and Country and maintained their integrity despite the political pressure on them to compromise their unwavering bulldog belief in the values lesser men abjure. I'm not sure, but lately it seems it could be all three.
I got my waiver for the asthma. I took a Pulmonary Function Test and underwent a Methacholine Challenge. I don't have asthma and the Marines have accepted that.
I am still waiting to get a statement from a Psych I saw when I was 19, but that's looking pretty much like an ace in the hole. *please, God!*
In the past year and half I've changed. I'm accountable for my actions. I don't place blame when I fail. I don't conjure up mental illnesses to excuse my failure to perform sufficiently. I do what needs to be done when I'm told to do it. Those are huge steps for me and I don't even recognize the person I was in my personal notebook/journal entries from college. I don't feel like a scared kid anymore. I feel like a young man who has returned from a rite-of-passage hunt. I destroyed Depression and gutted Hypochondria. I slit the jugular of Pass the Blame. I disemboweled Can't Work a 40-hour Week. I crushed the head of Riding on Talent Alone.
It looks like I'll be leaving again in as little as six weeks.
I've got to "get my sh** squared away" as they say in the Marines- pay some bills, negotiate lease payments, and be sure my babies don't starve while I'm away doing push-ups in the mud. But it's all coming together. I honored the Voice. It looks like now, maybe, the honor is being returned...