The Marine I Love

Chris and I met at the University of Kansas (Rock Chalk Jayhawk) in August of 1993.  It was a bit of a fluke.  I was teaching my first-ever Spanish class and his roommate was one of my students.  Chris was enrolled in another section but decided to check mine out.  He stayed.  He was in Naval ROTC at the time and came to class once a week in his white dress uniform.  That impressed me because I have a great love for both our country and its military in part because my grandfather was a Rear Admiral in the Navy and fought at Pearl Harbor.

Chris eventually chose the Marine option and learned all kinds of things including how to load a huge ship, how to navigate in the dark with a compass (no, no GPS) and how to put the needs of the troops first.  He uses all of these skills now as a family man.  In fact, it's like a magic trick the way he manages to neatly load our van with all of the things we six girls pack for long trips!

Chris decided to leave the Marine Corps in 2003 to take a job with Shell.  He still misses it and I miss the friends we made.  There's something special about military families.

I am occasionally reminded that I married a Marine though like this past week when he made a tremendous obstacle course for our girls complete with smoke bombs and fireworks to simulate enemy fire.  I raced him through it and lost- barely.

We sometimes wonder if we might be raising a Marine or two of our own.  We'd be proud.