A terrible thing that is necessary to keep my country safe. I joined the military so I could give back and protect my loved ones and my country. I knew war was going to change my life but I never thought it would be this dramatic of a change. My name is Axle Steele and I served in the United States Marine Corps from the years 2002 to 2008 in active duty. My father died in the Vietnam War and I always felt it was my calling to complete his mission and join the military. I took my duties in the military very serious, as a man should. I was neither the strongest man nor the biggest, but I've always told myself, "It's not the size of the dog that's in the fight, it's the size of the fight that's in the dog." My best friend Cooper Jones has been my partner in crime for as long as I could remember. He joined the Marines with me because he could not foresee himself as a scholar attending a fancy university. .
We went through everything together from hustling kids in basketball on the playground back in grade school, to learning how to base jump from a one hundred eighty foot wall in boot camp. He has helped push me through every tough time and I have been there for him every step of the way as well. We are basically brothers. Coop was a big jokester, I don't even know how he survived boot camp the way the DI always hounded on him for every little thing. That son of a bitch did know how to make me laugh though. It seems like it was just yesterday he took a piss in the scuttle butt just minutes before the DI took a drink out of it. I still cannot believe he didn't get caught for that. We had our own bickers and scraps now and then but so does everyone when the stress of going off to war in a month is on your mind. Still I knew I could always count on him to have my back.
There were two sides of the platoon and every night the DI would say "Port side shine 'em up, starboard side shower up" or vice versa, meaning that whatever side would shower up would jump in the shower and whatever side would shine had to polish their belt buckle and their boots.