From Boy to Man: A Veteran’s Reflection

I’m very proud to have worn the uniform of my Country.

One of the problems we have in our society is there is no clear-cut place a boy becomes a man. Back in the day, there was a ceremony and when the ceremony was over, you were expected to take you place among men.

The same is true of women. There was a point where they were recognized as a woman.

Our society seems to have dumped all that. We try to keep our children, children. We’ve grown to the point where growing up and tackling the world is something to be sneered at. We tell our children they can’t do this or that and try to dictate their choices.

I often say that I went into the Army because I needed a job. Truth be told, I needed to grow up. I wasn’t measuring up to what I called being a man.

That said, the day I graduated from Basic Training, I felt like a man for the first time in my life. Oh, I’d been to college. I’d worked as a police officer for years. I had a family. I had children.

None of that made me a man.

But the moment we fell out and marched back to the barracks to go on pass, I felt like “Yes. I went through the trials, and I made it.”

I remember thinking about it, wondering why. Then I knew.

I’d been raised around men who’d done the same thing I did. They put on the uniform of our country. They became Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, or Marines. I was raised listening to their stories, seeing their medals, their pictures. They were the yardstick I measured myself by.

And until that moment, I wasn’t a man in my own eyes.

Now, I could claim to be one and that I’d earned the right to be in their company.

See you all at the big NCO club in the sky.