I am a military family now

My nephew Andy just graduated Marine boot camp yesterday. I didn’t make it to the ceremony because I am a douschebag, but both my sisters did and one was kind enough to send me the photo above.

I found the photo both creepy and sad. With 3/4 of his face in shadows like that, and only his grim, pursed lips visible, it’s like the Andy I loved as a kid is finally, totally gone and all that’s left is this meat machine owned and operated by the government.

Andy grew up in the fetid latrine-ditch that is Tucson, Arizona. His mom started out poor and has stayed that way, running through almost as many aborted careers and get-rich-quick schemes as I have excuses for still smoking weed at 46. His biological father split at or before the time he was born and every subsequent male role model in his life has been a step-down from the previous one. How bad? Dad #2 was an alcoholic Mormon who rolled his pickup while drunk driving one Christmas morning and died on the scene.

Of Andy, his mom and his sister, Andy was the only one shed tears at his passing. A couple years later, his ex-stepdad’s crazy mother would helpfully show him and his sister the accident-scene photos taken by the police.

Time went by and one dead-end job led to another.

A couple years ago Andy began floating the idea of the military as a last-ditch opportunity to get the hell out of Tucson. At the time, the war in Iraq was raging and The Missus and I helped talk him into delaying signing up. He tried a couple of other things, including going to live in the deep south with his biological father and bio-dad’s new wife who didn’t want anything to do with him.

He ended up back in Tucson. And this time, we didn’t have an argument strong enough to keep him out of the military-industrial complex’s slavering maw.

So now Andy’s a Marine. My dad would have been awfully proud of his grandson today, as am I, in spite of my terribly mixed feelings about the whole thing.

The way I see it, the Marines will either make a proper man out of him; good, decent and honorable – or push him over the edge into the abyss. A lot of guys come back from overseas tours of duty considerably more at loose ends than when they left.

And I feel like a failure. When I was Andy’s age, I had an older sib who reached out and rescued me from fast-food Purgatory in Tucson and set me on the path to my current stress-packed but ultimately indolent lifestyle, and the fact that I was never able to do the same for Andy will haunt me as long as I live, no matter the outcome of his military adventure. He used to come out for unchaperoned visits in the summers when he was growing up and I really fell in love with that kid.

Now all I can do is watch him slip away to another dysfunctional family – the armed services – and pray to the god I don’t believe in that he comes back in one piece and in a better place to start his life over than when he left.

Godspeed, Andy. Semper fi!

And don’t do anything your Grandfather wouldn’t be proud of.