Last week, I had the amazing opportunity to basically re-meet my brother once he graduated USMC boot camp. I say re-meeting because every marine comes out of boot camp as a new person, and it was pretty amazing.

​

​
On family day, the had a ceremony with his platoon and the five other ones in his company. Ironically, his company is called Mike Company (his name is Michael). After the ceremony, all the families were able to rush over to their recruits and meet them all over again. The first thing he said to me when he saw me was, “Nicki you’re so pretty.” Tears formed very quickly. His voice was raspy and deeper than it was before – I told him that and he responded with, “Well we’ve been yelling for the last three months.” He seemed taller – or maybe he finally worked on his posture, I’m not sure. One of his eyes seemed to be shutting more than the other one because he had suffered from severe pink eye during his time down there. He also showed how much he appreciated all of us by holding each of us in extended hugs.

Family Day offered the families five hours to spend with their recruits. Michael showed us around Parris Island, where he stayed, where he ate, where they had to run in the morning, etc. We ate, drank (soda, of course, apparently he gave up drinking during his time down there, even though he wasn’t even able to drink during those three months) and laughed. He still had his humor, which was nice because he’s always one to crack jokes. He stood tall and always had his hands behind his back – some stance that Marines do, I’m not sure what to call it. He is so much more mature than when he left.

The next day, he graduated and officially became a United States Marine – pretty badass, if you ask me. The graduation was beautiful and super formal, something that my family is so not used to. A lot of parents had been formally in the military, so they were all used to this. My parents Cried and cried tears of happiness because of how proud they were. I cried, as well, but not as much because I knew he could get through this all along. I had faith, and my intuition told me so.

The next part of his journey is combat training. This is only a month long, and he gets to come back for Christmas, which is exciting because my parents had plans to go travel down there to see him. I’m excited to see how well he does during this. I couldn’t be any prouder of him than I already am.