The box..
I'm thinking about my job... it consists of many honorable things and I've done a few of those things in the past months... including saving over 30 American's lives! Still.. I can't help but recall what I hate about this job...
I stand in a box, it's about 10 X 5 bulletproof room that I enter almost every day to start my shift and protect the US mission here. Not a military mission, no.. a diplomatic mission which I'm lucky enough to guard. Lucky.. I'm being sarcastic, would you like to guard diplomats as they try to make the peace with the world and foster democracy? It's a scary thought... but in more than 140 US Embassies and Consulates around the world.. there are Marines just like me who do it.
No Marine Security Guard on Post right now has experienced what I have, unfortunately.. it's not something I asked for.. do you think I'd ever want to be shot at? Umm.. no.. anyway, back to the fundamentals of my job.. the box..It's really such a mechanical, dehumanizing job.. the lights stay low, no one can really see in.. but they know there's a Marine there.. fully armed, watching a billion cameras and controlling everything.. and yet, I'm such a people person, feeling and in need of touch, both in a literal and metaphysical sense.. so why am I doing this? Well.. once you enlist in the Marine Corps, its not so easy to just quit one day and go home, seeing my home is thousands of miles away.. plus, I have a duty to fulfill, one that I promised to do three years ago.. and I have one more year before that duty will have been honored.
I stand in a box, it's about 10 X 5 bulletproof room that I enter almost every day to start my shift and protect the US mission here. Not a military mission, no.. a diplomatic mission which I'm lucky enough to guard. Lucky.. I'm being sarcastic, would you like to guard diplomats as they try to make the peace with the world and foster democracy? It's a scary thought... but in more than 140 US Embassies and Consulates around the world.. there are Marines just like me who do it.
No Marine Security Guard on Post right now has experienced what I have, unfortunately.. it's not something I asked for.. do you think I'd ever want to be shot at? Umm.. no.. anyway, back to the fundamentals of my job.. the box..It's really such a mechanical, dehumanizing job.. the lights stay low, no one can really see in.. but they know there's a Marine there.. fully armed, watching a billion cameras and controlling everything.. and yet, I'm such a people person, feeling and in need of touch, both in a literal and metaphysical sense.. so why am I doing this? Well.. once you enlist in the Marine Corps, its not so easy to just quit one day and go home, seeing my home is thousands of miles away.. plus, I have a duty to fulfill, one that I promised to do three years ago.. and I have one more year before that duty will have been honored.
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