Day 6: Dinner With Marines...

I had Sean when he was a Junior in my Chemistry class.  He was a bit of a goofball and he didn't always make the best decisions.  The two of us formed a bond pretty quickly, as I had taught his older brother, and it built up from there.  His senior year, he continued making some poor decisions, which broke my heart, and he wound up having to leave out school.  I didn't even get to say good-bye to him.

A year later, he was escorted to my classroom by his dean.  He asked me if I could write him a letter of recommendation for the Marines.  You see, when you have a history of making bad decisions and have a record, the Marines are not so sure that you are the best fit for them.  Writing that letter for Sean was one of the easiest letters I have written for a former student.  I knew that if Sean could get into the Marines, he could get his life straightened out and head down the path that I knew he should be on.

Sean got into the Marines, and graduated from boot camp.  I've never been prouder of one of my students.  He kept in touch with me through facebook, and I have been able to see everything that he is doing.  Sean applied to be stationed "over seas", and was placed in Hawaii- who knew Hawaii counted as "over seas"?  When it got closer for our trip to Hawaii, I messaged Sean to see if it would be possible for me to meet up with him for even just a short time.  I hadn't seen him in a while, and I wanted him to know how proud I was of him.  It took a little while, and it almost didn't happen, but the night before our last day in Hawaii, Sean was able to get a car, and finish his job and come out.  He brought along one of his roommates, Anthony, who is from California and is hilarious.

Ryan and I bought them dinner, Sean picked Chili's, and we got to hang out with them for a little while.  Both Marines were respectful, well spoken, and very nice young men.  They shared stories with us about their training, what it's like to be a Marine, and what it's like when the President comes to the base.  It was a really nice visit. Sean has become the man that I always knew he could be and I couldn't be any prouder of him than I already am.

*We were dumb, and didn't bring our camera to dinner, so I don't have any pictures of the guys.  Thanks to facebook, I "borrowed" these pictures from Sean's facebook page (thanks, Sean!).

Sean, after graduating boot camp

Sean & Anthony- I don't think Anthony ever stopped smiling while we were at Chili's- he was hilarious