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25
LYNDI
Nine weeks into Beau’s eleven weeks of drill instructor school, I was finally able to see the light at the end of the tunnel for him. At first, he’d thought it was going to be like boot camp all over again. That was the perception, but he’d told me that was likely because, in the beginning, they take the Marines “back to basics” in their training.
As drill instructors, they needed to be able to do everything they wanted recruits to do—flawlessly. And a lot of things had fallen by the wayside in the years since they were in boot camp themselves. Things like calling a gunnery sergeant a gunny or, depending on their job within the Marine Corps, slacking on drill since in the fleet they rarely had to do that.
I had to admit, I was glad it wasn’t like boot camp. If it were, we’d only be able to communicate via letters. We’d be separated the entire eleven weeks while he slept in the squad bay with the other students, not being able to have any free time at all. That was what I’d geared up for.
Instead, he’d show up, do his training, and get released back to the same barracks room he’d been living in before it started. As long as he was at his report place on time with his homework done, they didn’t care if he left base in the evenings or on weekends.
Though, because it was Beau and he put his all into everything he did, he rarely left base. Save a few dinners with me each week and a couple of afternoon get-togethers with our friends on the weekends, he spent his free time prepping his note cards or uniform for the next day, studying, or doing anything he could to get a day or two ahead so he’d never fall behind.
I admired watching him transition from a hardworking fleet Marine to a picture-perfect leader of Marines. As the weeks went on, he’d started to carry himself so differently. He still had great posture and the relaxed swagger that many Marines possessed, but thisnewversion of him was so in control and focused. So purposeful. And yeah, so incredibly hot.
“Ah, I needed this,” he said, his once smooth-like-butter voice hoarse and broken thanks to all the screaming he’d been doing. “Thanks for coming.”
I grinned at him from across the picnic blanket I’d spread in the sand on Elliot’s Beach on base. He had a big exam tomorrow morning, so while I wouldn’t stay long, I wanted to bring him a healthy dinner and surprise him with a romantic date overlooking Broad River as it snaked in from the Atlantic.
“You’re welcome,” I said, popping a cherry tomato from my salad into my mouth and chewing it as we both stared out at the water. “How was your day?”
He blew out a breath and rubbed a hand over the back of his tanned neck. “Long, as usual. We talked a lot about cases of abuse, and it was pretty mind-blowing.”
I held my fork in the air for a second, then lowered it to the Tupperware container in my hands. “Cases of abuse?”
“Yeah, they went over some incidents of drill instructors going off the rails and taking things too far.”
“How?”
He took a swig from the sweet tea I’d brought for him, looking up as he answered. “Anything from racial slurs to physical abuse. Pushing them so hard they almost die. Ignoring injuries and making them worse. Pretty rough stuff.” He let out a long breath and stared down at the salad in his own container before looking back up at me. “But they’re trying to make sure it doesn’t happen again by addressing it here at the school.”
“That’s good.”
“It is. My instructor told us that what happened in the past didn’t have to happen in the future, and here, we make the future. It was heavy, but itwasgood. Important.”
“Definitely.”
He took a bite of his salad and then chuckled slightly as he chewed. “Then things took a turn for the funny when we started talking about counseling recruits about marriage. Didn’t seethatcoming.”
“Why would you counsel them about marriage?”
“I guess it comes up in boot camp,” he said with a shrug. “Recruits talking about getting married on boot leave and all that. Proposing when they go home to see their family so they can take their new wife with them wherever they went. I think a lot of times it’s because they realize they’re alone for the first time and don’t wanna be. Either that or they don’t want to live in the barracks and know they need to be married to skip out on that.”
I gulped. “Oh, wow. They’d be so young, though, right?”
“You’d be surprised how many military marriages start at eighteen. I’m not judging, even though it was as far as Mars from my mind at the time. But I have friends who’ve been married since boot leave and they’re still together and happy.”
“Yeah, I mean, getting married early doesn’t have to mean it’s doomed to fail.”
He squinted out at the river and shook his head. “No, but I didn’t think talking about it with the recruits would be part of my job description.”
“I’m surprised it would be. If they’re gonna do it, that’s their business, right?”
“Yes and no. A big thing they’re trying to help us understand here is that these recruits are coming from all walks of life, and a lot of them didn’t have a good role model or older sibling or parent to help guide them. I guess we’re like the first ones they’ll have.”
“Huh.”
“Not even kidding, we’re trained to look for hygiene issues that they might have never been taught. Or things like ingrown toenails and rashes so we can tell them to get it checked out, in case they’re hiding it so they won’t get dropped or something. It’s a lot more than teaching them what it means to be a Marine. It’s basic adult stuff, too.”
