The lyrics of the Marine Corps Hymn were still echoing in our minds as we watched the Fourth of July fireworks out of our third floor windows. All 75 of us had just finished singing “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli” while lying in bed at the position of attention. We couldn’t stand by the windows to watch the fireworks, but were relegated to our military bunks. We were at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) in San Diego, California. I had always heard that San Diego was a beautiful place. However, when your first exposure to San Diego is Marine Corps boot camp you don’t tend to have the greatest feelings of love for the city.
It was July 4th, 1980 and also Day 244 of the Iranian Hostage Crisis. Jimmy Carter was President of the United States and times were tense as 52 Americans were being held by militant Islamic students at the American Embassy in Tehran, Iran. They would remain hostages for another six months. The plight of these hostages was kept in the forefront of our minds as our Marine drill instructors (DI) used this international crisis as a motivational technique to keep us fired up.
In fact, at one point in our experience to becoming Marines our DIs lied to us and told us the hostages had all been killed. The lie would fire us up and during our nightly ‘take a shower and shine your shoes’ hour we would talk about how eager we were to finish boot camp. We wanted to grab our M-16 combat rifles and go to Iran with the intent to exact some revenge for killing Americans. Our conversations were full of 18 year old testosterone and verbosity.
For the next hour, we could see fireworks from all of the picturesque hills that could be easily seen from our windows. The MCRD complex sits next to the San Diego Municipal Airport – Lindbergh Field and within a few minutes of downtown. To the east of the complex are the suburban hillsides of San Diego that are crowded with houses. The homes close proximity to the training site allowed us to see what types of lawn and patio furniture are in each yard or balcony. At times it was excruciating to see civilian life so close while going through the rigors of Marine Corps training.
As I lay there I imagined what my high school friends were doing. We had just graduated 5 weeks earlier and I thought of how they must be drinking beer (drinking age was 18 then) and eating watermelon while they ignited fireworks. A part of me longed to be with them and not in the hellhole of Marine Corps boot camp. However, I knew that I was in the early days of a potential career helping to protect the freedoms of our nation. As I watched the beautiful clusters fan out in the air, my chest swelled with pride at the great feeling I had of being in the Marine Corps of the finest nation on the planet. Although homesick, I closed my eyes knowing I was exactly where I needed to be albeit 1,300 miles from home. The Marine Corps was my new home.
