autobiography: the military

Drew asked me to write about my fascination with the US military, and I believe I can fulfill his request.  I hope to make this relatively interesting.

I'm one of 8 kids-5 brothers and 2 sisters, so while I was growing up, I was constantly around boys until middle school, when my youngest brother went to college.  I'm not really sure why, but I basically embodied a mixture of a crybaby and a tomboy.  I played with action figures instead of barbies, hung out with boys a LOT, and really didn't hang out with girls all that much.  I played with boys during recess until 3rd grade where I started feeling like that wasn't what I was supposed to be doing.  That's when I started reading a lot more instead of playing.  I think I read almost every one of those children's biography books, all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, most of the Billy and Blaze books, and well...i'll tell more about that some other time I guess.

My brothers were almost all involved in Boy Scouts to one degree or another; I believe some of them won the Eagle Award or whatever it's called.  We'd go to all those pancake breakfasts and spaghetti dinners where they would line up and have the flag ceremonies.   I bet that's where I started wanting to be a soldier.  I thought that being a soldier meant doing all those ceremonies and the salutes and all the stuff that I thought was really pretty special.

Three of my brothers went to Georgetown University in DC too, so we'd go see their graduations or maybe visit them a few times too.  Not only did we see this great, historic campus, but the city...well the city made me feel American even more.  Seeing all the monuments and the government buildings  instills this deep sense of American pride.  I haven't been back in several years, but I still think about it a lot, apparently, since I had a dream about the Air & Space Museum last night and the crazy idea that maybe each state capital should have a 3D-representation of the White House if people are no longer allowed to visit the White House itself. Anyway, I still remember the changing of the guard in front of the tomb of the unknown soldier....how everything was done so exactly and the guards' steps were perfect.

And then we'd always go to Cantigney for Father's Day.  They have this huge war museum there and a bunch of tanks on the grounds.  I always loved going there to climb on the tanks and explore the museum.

Looking back, I cringe a little at how much I enjoyed the prospects of going to war, especially since my brother went to a Vietnam War museum in Vietnam and described how different their perspective on the war is.  War is truly devastating.

might add more later, we'll see.