dave_h

I just bought a book called "Keeping Faith". It's a joint autobiography written by a father and his son who joined the Marines. The family lives among wealthy east coast intellectuals where children go to private schools and off to exclusive colleges. Nobody around the guy can understand why he made this choice. The father supports his son but struggles to understand the choice.

Here is a poem the son wrote just before leaving, while still in high school:


I go to school with people who do not understand
why I have chosen the Marines.
these are not things I can explain.
these are feelings,
the guts of my brain,
and I cannot scoop them out and hand them around
so that friends will understand me.
I lead a divided life.
I go to functions with Marines
who cannot conceive of the place I come from,
or why I want to be one of them.

--
I don't care about poetry, and I won't judge it's value as a poem, but after all these weeks of people (gently, and wisely) discouraging me it's extremely refreshing to read the account of someone who would know what I'm going through.