Anchor and Flares by Kate Braestrup

Author:Kate Braestrup
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography / Religious, Biography & Autobiography / Women, Body, Mind & Spirit / Healing / Prayer & Spiritual, Body, Mind & Spirit / Inspiration & Personal Growth, Family & Relationships / Death, Grief, Bereavement, Religion / Inspirational
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2015-07-14T04:00:00+00:00

As Sergeant Sangster had promised, the Marine Corps was teaching Zach how to work, something many of my friends loudly wished their own sons would learn. More enviably still, Zach had entered a far more controlled and structured environment than any American institution of higher learning can provide and thus, paradoxically, Zach was actually safer at boot camp than his brothers were when they went off to college.

No cutting classes, frat parties, date rape, or drunk driving. No cell phones, no MP3 players, no alcohol or tobacco, and no welcoming bowl of gaily wrapped prophylactics in the student lounge (no lounge!). Up by dawn, in bed and sound asleep by 2100, and kept active and working for all the hours in between, Zach and his fellow recruits were clean, safe, fit, and sober in every sense of the word.

That can sound pretty good to a parent. And heading off for a stint in an organization that teaches and rewards self-discipline, self-sacrifice, teamwork, and courage sounds pretty good to a lot of good kids. Add in a paycheck, college tuition benefits, and the opportunity to blow stuff up: “It sounds awesome!” said Peter, and even Cobus, who had been preparing for a college career since he was a zygote in utero, found himself strangely tempted.

“My boys would love it,” said my friend Monica wistfully, of her three sons. “And if it weren’t for the death and killing, so would I.”

Zach’s letters did not reflect any diminution either of his instincts for kindness nor of his sense of humor. Between sanguine descriptions of what were, to me at least, hair-raising incidents, his letters consistently expressed an endearing appreciation for all the things of home: everything from lighting candles at church to eating fruit that hadn’t come from a can.

“I’m looking forward to family day more than I’ve looked forward to any day in my entire life,” he wrote. “I smile just thinking about getting to see you all again.”

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