27Sep09

“Juliet-182 Act 1”

To be or not to be. Almost amusingly, it makes you think cliché or not cliché. It’s crazy; we’re on the verge of our third week of training, yet it seems as if we have been here for months. To summarize week 02 of training could quite possibly take hours. So, to make a long story short, we will give you the abridged version. Do all sagas end happily? Do all of them have some tragic overtone? Would Juliet 182’s story be a Disney fairy tale, a Shakespearian tragedy, or will it be smooth and easy like a Langston Hughes poem? Only time will tell, but I know this week has definitely begun to define us as Guardians. At the beginning of the week we were still trying to account for so many unknowns. Many of our questions going unanswered due to fear propelled by reticence. Our personal time very much truncated due to our busy schedules. Lack of sleep fueled lack of focus. Lack of focus fueled lack of performance, and if we fail to perform, in the wise words of food service specialist first class Harmon, “stand by.” So, we try to avoid just standing by. Our performance has drastically changed in these long 05 days. We learned to maintain our discipline in the galley and our marching is coming along nicely. Now, don’t get me wrong, we aren’t the “marquee” marching company on the regiment. On the other hand, we’ve learned to live our lives by the alliteration “proper preparation promotes prime performance.”

No one is perfect, so we are not trying to be perfect. We are simply striving towards excellence. How fitting, that this particular company would be called Juliet, a woman historically known by many as being strong, independent  and willing to do whatever is necessary to achieve what the heart and mind desire. We will continue to have pride. We will find solace in our service. We still don’t know who we are, but we know who we want to be. We will find definition in our dedication. The sooner we learn that the world doesn’t revolve around us, the sooner we will become guardians. Guardianship means finding salvation in selflessness and throwing away civilian colloquialisms to maintain our military bearing. They say God created the earth in six days and he rested on the seventh. Well, if that’s the case, today was truly divine.

We follow the path that was set before us by past Guardians like Douglas A. Munro who made the greatest of sacrifices to save the lives of others. We will work hard so you may live free and in our efforts to maintain that fact, we are willing to die hard. Semper Paratus. For you, we are always ready. 

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