I left my home
I left my family
I came to you, newborn to the Corps
You, Unit, Company, what I asked for.
Wide-eyed and naive, couldn't believe or conceive your history, the names of the bereaved.
Walls that speak names of places,
austere and foreign-
Wrapped in the green fourragere our legacy so important.
I was your son welcomed in by bitter older brothers who with me all bases covered, made me a man, in this family with no mothers.
We trained, through pain, and rain, drank ourselves insane.
Their rules were severe and there wasn't much cheer but I conquered a lot of fear in that first year.
Deployed, enjoyed, employed, destroyed.
Returned home, time shown, into a brotherhood we'd grown, with our loved ones felt alone,
go on leave yet somehow missed home.
Generations, rotations, trials and tribulations, failures and victories, some of us promoted and some of us NJP'd.
The seniors, moved on, told them good luck, so long, they sang EAS song.
Months later some would call us, something they couldn't name felt wrong.
Responsibility interrupting lazy tranquility as the boot drops restart the cycle of training to make grass grow if we're sent on a killing spree.
Training them made me realize it's not about me anymore, it's about upholding the legacy of my company, my unit, my Corps.
I've lost all of the love from the life I had before, and I'm not sure who I am without these guns anymore, but I look at my dirty, tired, motherfucker brothers, and in that moment we're all just living for one another, eating the apple and getting fucked by the Corps.
We went around the world to shitholes and sandy beaches and enjoyed all the libo that could reach us, drinking away our days left not understanding the lessons getting out would teach us.
The Company Office was never the place for me, not after 45 days of checking in with the OOD, but I was honored to work under Hard lifer veterans of the infantry,
They gave me a second chance and some were like Fathers to me.
Now the day has come for terminal leave and life out of the infantry I look forward to but can't conceive, can't believe.
It was painfully slow but happened so fast, was it all a dream?
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