thedrifter
10-14-07, 08:13 AM
Posted on Sat, Oct. 13, 2007
Four share a Corps belief
Stories by ERIC ADLER
The Kansas City Star
I Dominique Cartee, do solemnly swear… the teenager repeats.
In her bones, she can feel the wave of happiness, of relief, shimmering inside. .
… that I will support and defend …
When the Laddonia, Mo., high school senior told her family that she was contemplating going into the Marine Corps, they reeled in shock.
Her mother, Gena Cartee, cried. For the last seven years, she has been struggling to raise Dominique and her two younger brothers on her own while suffering debilitating depression. She is “terrified” of her daughter’s decision. “Do you want your daughter to go to Iraq and get killed?!” her grandmother argued with her mom.
Her friends were aghast.
“ ‘Oh my God, why are you doing this?’ ” Dominique recalled them saying. “You can do anything you want!”
Yes, Dominique thinks. She can.
An A-student, vice president of the student council, a member of the National Honor Society, FFA, Future Business Leaders of America, Future Teachers of America.
What is she supposed to do? Hang around Laddonia, population 600?
She sees them: Young people, like her, out of high school and doing nothing and going nowhere, getting high at the town park.
“Stuck,” she would say. “I have to be better than that.”
Dominique thought about college, but had no idea what she would study. Besides, few know how hard life has been for her. She’s had to be responsible for so long because of her mom’s illness.
“Once she started getting depressed, she hasn’t been able to work for a long time.”
Only 17, Dominique works full time at Pizza Hut and at a local hospital. She recently moved out of her mom’s house to nearby Mexico, Mo., where she pays for everything.
After a high-school friend signed up with the Marines, Dominique began thinking.
“I saw how excited he was,” she said. “I don’t want to work at Pizza Hut the rest of my life. The Marines guarantee that I will always be somebody, part of a bigger cause.”
… I will obey the orders of the President of the United States …
Dominique hopes to get a job in military public affairs.
With her decision, her family’s fear has turned to support.
“I really don’t know a lot,” about the war in Iraq, Dominique would later say. “I know that people are dying over there. But my recruiter told me that every day more people die on I-70 than they do in Iraq or in the war. But, at this point in my life, if I die, I have lived my life to the fullest. Say something did happen to me. Well, then everybody would remember me.”
Dominique turns 18 in November and is scheduled to head to boot camp in August.
She stands reciting the oath. …support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic… Her hands quiver. She tries to hide it from her worried mother, Tami, who watches.
Tami didn’t want her daughter making this move. Not now, not when so many young people are coming home from Iraq wounded or in body bags.
But the Independence teenager, a senior at Fort Osage High School, is tired of being “soft” outside and inside. “Too sensitive,” she would say of herself.
“Anyone who ever asked to borrow my clothes or belts, I just say, ‘Take them,’ and never ask for them back. My toys — I’d just give them away and be too scared to ask for them back for fear they would get mad at me or that I’d lose them as a friend.”
She’s tired of it. She is tired of her softness and vulnerability, and how much it hurts — and no more so than it did last year. It was a relationship, her boyfriend.
“We were together for a year and four months,” Chelsea, 17, would say.
Thoughts of college, marriage and babies swept through her mind. Then it ended in pain.
“One of my friends took him over. That killed me the most,” she said.
She just wanted to get away. Move. Change her life. Change her. Become harder “mentally, physically and emotionally,” she’d say.
“That’s how I feel. I want to get out of here,” she’d say.
A notion she’d had as a little girl floated back to her. She’d always admired the way an older cousin, a problem child his whole life, went into the military and came out changed.
“He became the most polite, most well-behaved and respectable guy. And I saw that,” Chelsea said.
She thought: the Marines. That’s the answer. Not only would they make her tough, they promised a new life and new her. She hopes to become part of the military police.
“I just feel like with my friends and stuff, I feel like I’m almost getting walked over. I just want to be able to stand up for what I want.”
… that I will bear true faith and allegiance …
“I tried to talk her out out of it, tell her every bad thing about it,” her mom would say. “All I can do now is support her.”
Regarding Iraq or Afghanistan, Chelsea concedes, “I don’t know much about it. I know there is a lot going on and I know people are dying every day.”
More, she is just thinking about boot camp.
“The physical part is not going to be as hard as the mental part,” she’d say. Having people scream at me is going to the hardest. I have always been, like, soft-hearted. Someone yells at me, I can cry really easily.”
Chelsea turns 18 in April and is scheduled to leave for boot camp in June.
Raymond Baughman, 17, hears the order: Raise your right hand … The Raymore-Peculiar High School senior feels wonderful.
“The most inspiring day of my life,” he would say.
Years of worry: over.
I, Raymond Baughman, do solemnly swear …
What was he going to do, he’d always wondered. What was he going to be?
“Ever since high school, it all hit me,” he’d say. “Four more years and I’m on my own. I always got scared when I thought of what would happen after my senior year.”
The youngest of five children, Raymond, at 6 feet 3 inches tall and 180 pounds, is a broomstick.
“No muscle pretty much,” he’d say.
Cheerful and mild-mannered, he stands a bit stoop-shouldered, his black hair falling over his forehead.
His mother works six days a week, sometimes 12 hours a day, at Wal-Mart.
“A lot of people would probably describe us as being poor,” he’d say.
Until recently, his high school grades were not much better.
“A couple of F’s in there,” he’d say. “So it was not like I was going to get into some good college or something and jobs are hard to find nowadays”
A few months ago, a Marine recruiter nabbed him outside of class.
“I was coming out of the restroom at school. He caught me,” Raymond would explain. “He said, ‘Hey, what are you planning on doing after high school?’ ”
Raymond set up a meeting to talk after school. It lasted nearly three hours.
“At first we were talking about, like, what I would be looking for by going into the Marines.”
Raymond sat there impressed: education, job training, pay, security.
“I was worried about finances. Would I be all right when I get out of the Marines, whenever that would be?
“I remember, growing up, we were always short on money. He said I didn’t have to worry anymore. I trusted him.”
Now Raymond stands here, his hand in the air.
“I told him, ‘It’s your life,’ ” said his mother, Dianne Billings. “ ‘You’ve got to do all you can for yourself.’ ”
Raymond hopes to become a military diesel mechanic.
“From what all I know,” he later would say about the war in Iraq, “we’re trying to stop the terrorism stuff. We’re trying to get terrorist groups and push them out of Iraq. I know about all the people dying. It doesn’t scare me. I’m doing something great for my country. I’ve never been part of anything great before.”
Raymond turns 18 in June and is scheduled to leave for boot camp in July.
Teddy Johnston, 23, was unhappy.
Now he’s not.
I, Teddy Johnston, do solemnly swear …
“Finally,” he thinks to himself. “Finally, it’s here.”
In his wallet is a photograph of the former Teddy Johnston, the one who — working in the restaurant business for the last seven years — had gone from being a 5-foot-7-inch high school wrestler and football player to becoming a blob.
“I weighed 325 pounds,” he would say, now a trim 175. “I wasn’t happy with where I was at. I wanted a change. And you don’t get a much bigger change than joining the Marines.”
Kim Johnston, his mother, said, “He had put on a lot of weight. He didn’t smile. He didn’t want to be around the family. He had become a loner.”
In high school, Teddy had thought seriously about joining the military, particularly after Sept. 11, 2001. But his folks said no.
“That’s my baby,” Kim Johnston said. “I’m not anti-military, by no means. I just think you should examine all avenues before you make your mind up about what you’re going to do.”
Teddy chose to work, eventually helping to manage a number of restaurants while also taking classes at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Then, last March, he told his folks: He was joining the Marines.
“I guess the hardest part for me was could I lose 140 to 150 pounds to get in the service? Do I have that kind of commitment and dedication? If I could stay dedicated enough, I could join.”
He did: running, lifting weights, dieting. Over the last two months, the Marines have helped with training sessions designed to push him and other “poolees” to get in shape. .
… I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me …
Teddy hopes to go into military intelligence, “to finish my degree in the Marine Corps, to become an officer and serve 25, 30 years.”
Over the last 10 months, he has begun to follow the events in Iraq. He wants to be part of it.
“As I see it,” he’d say, “if you can’t be comfortable with the idea that you might be put in the situation where you might fight or even die for your country, you really shouldn’t go into the military. I had to be comfortable with that idea before I joined.”
He is, whether it takes him to Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere.
“If that is where our country’s interests lie and that is where my future brothers in arms are dying for their country, I am willing to be there …”
… so help me God …
Teddy is scheduled to leave for boot camp in November.
Ellie
Four share a Corps belief
Stories by ERIC ADLER
The Kansas City Star
I Dominique Cartee, do solemnly swear… the teenager repeats.
In her bones, she can feel the wave of happiness, of relief, shimmering inside. .
… that I will support and defend …
When the Laddonia, Mo., high school senior told her family that she was contemplating going into the Marine Corps, they reeled in shock.
Her mother, Gena Cartee, cried. For the last seven years, she has been struggling to raise Dominique and her two younger brothers on her own while suffering debilitating depression. She is “terrified” of her daughter’s decision. “Do you want your daughter to go to Iraq and get killed?!” her grandmother argued with her mom.
Her friends were aghast.
“ ‘Oh my God, why are you doing this?’ ” Dominique recalled them saying. “You can do anything you want!”
Yes, Dominique thinks. She can.
An A-student, vice president of the student council, a member of the National Honor Society, FFA, Future Business Leaders of America, Future Teachers of America.
What is she supposed to do? Hang around Laddonia, population 600?
She sees them: Young people, like her, out of high school and doing nothing and going nowhere, getting high at the town park.
“Stuck,” she would say. “I have to be better than that.”
Dominique thought about college, but had no idea what she would study. Besides, few know how hard life has been for her. She’s had to be responsible for so long because of her mom’s illness.
“Once she started getting depressed, she hasn’t been able to work for a long time.”
Only 17, Dominique works full time at Pizza Hut and at a local hospital. She recently moved out of her mom’s house to nearby Mexico, Mo., where she pays for everything.
After a high-school friend signed up with the Marines, Dominique began thinking.
“I saw how excited he was,” she said. “I don’t want to work at Pizza Hut the rest of my life. The Marines guarantee that I will always be somebody, part of a bigger cause.”
… I will obey the orders of the President of the United States …
Dominique hopes to get a job in military public affairs.
With her decision, her family’s fear has turned to support.
“I really don’t know a lot,” about the war in Iraq, Dominique would later say. “I know that people are dying over there. But my recruiter told me that every day more people die on I-70 than they do in Iraq or in the war. But, at this point in my life, if I die, I have lived my life to the fullest. Say something did happen to me. Well, then everybody would remember me.”
Dominique turns 18 in November and is scheduled to head to boot camp in August.
She stands reciting the oath. …support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic… Her hands quiver. She tries to hide it from her worried mother, Tami, who watches.
Tami didn’t want her daughter making this move. Not now, not when so many young people are coming home from Iraq wounded or in body bags.
But the Independence teenager, a senior at Fort Osage High School, is tired of being “soft” outside and inside. “Too sensitive,” she would say of herself.
“Anyone who ever asked to borrow my clothes or belts, I just say, ‘Take them,’ and never ask for them back. My toys — I’d just give them away and be too scared to ask for them back for fear they would get mad at me or that I’d lose them as a friend.”
She’s tired of it. She is tired of her softness and vulnerability, and how much it hurts — and no more so than it did last year. It was a relationship, her boyfriend.
“We were together for a year and four months,” Chelsea, 17, would say.
Thoughts of college, marriage and babies swept through her mind. Then it ended in pain.
“One of my friends took him over. That killed me the most,” she said.
She just wanted to get away. Move. Change her life. Change her. Become harder “mentally, physically and emotionally,” she’d say.
“That’s how I feel. I want to get out of here,” she’d say.
A notion she’d had as a little girl floated back to her. She’d always admired the way an older cousin, a problem child his whole life, went into the military and came out changed.
“He became the most polite, most well-behaved and respectable guy. And I saw that,” Chelsea said.
She thought: the Marines. That’s the answer. Not only would they make her tough, they promised a new life and new her. She hopes to become part of the military police.
“I just feel like with my friends and stuff, I feel like I’m almost getting walked over. I just want to be able to stand up for what I want.”
… that I will bear true faith and allegiance …
“I tried to talk her out out of it, tell her every bad thing about it,” her mom would say. “All I can do now is support her.”
Regarding Iraq or Afghanistan, Chelsea concedes, “I don’t know much about it. I know there is a lot going on and I know people are dying every day.”
More, she is just thinking about boot camp.
“The physical part is not going to be as hard as the mental part,” she’d say. Having people scream at me is going to the hardest. I have always been, like, soft-hearted. Someone yells at me, I can cry really easily.”
Chelsea turns 18 in April and is scheduled to leave for boot camp in June.
Raymond Baughman, 17, hears the order: Raise your right hand … The Raymore-Peculiar High School senior feels wonderful.
“The most inspiring day of my life,” he would say.
Years of worry: over.
I, Raymond Baughman, do solemnly swear …
What was he going to do, he’d always wondered. What was he going to be?
“Ever since high school, it all hit me,” he’d say. “Four more years and I’m on my own. I always got scared when I thought of what would happen after my senior year.”
The youngest of five children, Raymond, at 6 feet 3 inches tall and 180 pounds, is a broomstick.
“No muscle pretty much,” he’d say.
Cheerful and mild-mannered, he stands a bit stoop-shouldered, his black hair falling over his forehead.
His mother works six days a week, sometimes 12 hours a day, at Wal-Mart.
“A lot of people would probably describe us as being poor,” he’d say.
Until recently, his high school grades were not much better.
“A couple of F’s in there,” he’d say. “So it was not like I was going to get into some good college or something and jobs are hard to find nowadays”
A few months ago, a Marine recruiter nabbed him outside of class.
“I was coming out of the restroom at school. He caught me,” Raymond would explain. “He said, ‘Hey, what are you planning on doing after high school?’ ”
Raymond set up a meeting to talk after school. It lasted nearly three hours.
“At first we were talking about, like, what I would be looking for by going into the Marines.”
Raymond sat there impressed: education, job training, pay, security.
“I was worried about finances. Would I be all right when I get out of the Marines, whenever that would be?
“I remember, growing up, we were always short on money. He said I didn’t have to worry anymore. I trusted him.”
Now Raymond stands here, his hand in the air.
“I told him, ‘It’s your life,’ ” said his mother, Dianne Billings. “ ‘You’ve got to do all you can for yourself.’ ”
Raymond hopes to become a military diesel mechanic.
“From what all I know,” he later would say about the war in Iraq, “we’re trying to stop the terrorism stuff. We’re trying to get terrorist groups and push them out of Iraq. I know about all the people dying. It doesn’t scare me. I’m doing something great for my country. I’ve never been part of anything great before.”
Raymond turns 18 in June and is scheduled to leave for boot camp in July.
Teddy Johnston, 23, was unhappy.
Now he’s not.
I, Teddy Johnston, do solemnly swear …
“Finally,” he thinks to himself. “Finally, it’s here.”
In his wallet is a photograph of the former Teddy Johnston, the one who — working in the restaurant business for the last seven years — had gone from being a 5-foot-7-inch high school wrestler and football player to becoming a blob.
“I weighed 325 pounds,” he would say, now a trim 175. “I wasn’t happy with where I was at. I wanted a change. And you don’t get a much bigger change than joining the Marines.”
Kim Johnston, his mother, said, “He had put on a lot of weight. He didn’t smile. He didn’t want to be around the family. He had become a loner.”
In high school, Teddy had thought seriously about joining the military, particularly after Sept. 11, 2001. But his folks said no.
“That’s my baby,” Kim Johnston said. “I’m not anti-military, by no means. I just think you should examine all avenues before you make your mind up about what you’re going to do.”
Teddy chose to work, eventually helping to manage a number of restaurants while also taking classes at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Then, last March, he told his folks: He was joining the Marines.
“I guess the hardest part for me was could I lose 140 to 150 pounds to get in the service? Do I have that kind of commitment and dedication? If I could stay dedicated enough, I could join.”
He did: running, lifting weights, dieting. Over the last two months, the Marines have helped with training sessions designed to push him and other “poolees” to get in shape. .
… I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me …
Teddy hopes to go into military intelligence, “to finish my degree in the Marine Corps, to become an officer and serve 25, 30 years.”
Over the last 10 months, he has begun to follow the events in Iraq. He wants to be part of it.
“As I see it,” he’d say, “if you can’t be comfortable with the idea that you might be put in the situation where you might fight or even die for your country, you really shouldn’t go into the military. I had to be comfortable with that idea before I joined.”
He is, whether it takes him to Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere.
“If that is where our country’s interests lie and that is where my future brothers in arms are dying for their country, I am willing to be there …”
… so help me God …
Teddy is scheduled to leave for boot camp in November.
Ellie