The Marines

My cousin graduated from McGill awhile ago, and after realizing that his grades weren't good enough to get the jobs he wanted, he decided to join the Marines. (That wasn't his only reason; he hasn't been the most disciplined guy and he wanted to change that.)

He went to officer training school last summer but got cut. He spent the year in DC working and getting in shape so that he would have a better chance the next time. Well, he's now back in basic training.

The feeling I have is so weird. I want him to succeed because, well, he's my cousin, but at the same time I almost wish he would get cut so he wouldn't get sent somewhere dangerous. Like, say, Iraq. It's so weird. I'm glad for him, and all my relatives who have been in the military agree that it was a very good experience, but my god. I can't picture him in uniform with a gun and a helmet and whatever else they have to carry around. It's weird that he's grown-up now.

Every summer, my dad's brothers and sisters and all my cousins from that side go to this resort in Vermont. We 'kids' go to day camp (it's way more fun than it sounds and impossible to explain) while the adults play golf and tennis and talk and stuff. I remember when the Marines cousin was still in camp. He, along with the rest of us, played Capture the Flag in the woods and swam in the lake and rode around for hours on his bike. And now he's going to be a Marine?

Another cousin just graduated from high school (at Phillips Exeter). Next fall, she's heading to the naval academy. In four years, she'll be a naval officer.

I'm optimistic enough to hope that, by then, our troops won't be in Iraq. But at heart I'm a worrier, and, in my most worrisome imaginings, I can see John McCain next to Chief Justice Roberts, taking the oath of office, and becoming the next president of the United States. This is the man who my father, a lifelong Republican but way-too-close-to-the-draft member of the Vietnam era, has said he will actively work against this summer.

This is the man who could end up dictating the lives of my cousins. He could send them into a war zone where they are unwanted, and make them stay there after their tours of duty have ended. They could face danger every single day. As young people. Almost still kids.

I'll admit that the "hundred years in Iraq" soundbyte scares me a lot. I know that it was taken out of context and McCain has no intention of leaving troops in there for a hundred years. But the fact that he would say that, even jokingly, is upsetting. How disrespectful to the troops who have been in Iraq, working as hard as they can to end the situation. I've written before about how people saying things that both I and they know they don't mean is still upsetting--its acceptability is really the upsetting part.

Two cousins in the military. A great-uncle who's a priest. A mother who refused to see Barney Frank when he spoke at her work because she was afraid he was going to talk about being gay. A roomful of relatives who booed at negative comments about McCain. If you had to guess my political affiliation, without knowing anything else about me, would you be right?

Somehow I doubt it.