How I Made My Dreams Come True

I want to write about my experience when I made a big dream of mine come true. So, it was 2012, I was a sophomore in high school, and I joined my schools JROTC program. Now, for those who are not sure what that is, it's a military program that tries to help young adults become better citizens for America. It's not recruiting your child for the military, I promise you. If that was the case, every branch wouldn't have their own set of recruiters. So I never really thought about joining the military. I just wanted to go to college and live like normal people lived, you know. But that wasn't the case. I didn't do good enough in school for a college to look at my grades and want to take me in. I probably would have had to go to a community college, which isn't bad, but at the time I did not want to do that. So my first time being in JROTC class, something stirred up in me when I met the Army recruiter, the Navy recruiter, and the Marine Corps recruiter. I don't exactly remember meeting the Air Force recruiter, which was funny to me and my friends because we were the Air Force JROTC, so you would think the Air Force would pay a lot of attention to us, right? No. The Marine Corps recruited more of us then anybody, honestly. So some time passes, and I get used to the whole thing that we do in the class, and how every Wednesday we would wear our little uniforms and stuff. One day, the Marine recruiter walks in and gives us his lecture on why we should join their branch and what not. Now, I've heard it from two other branches, and it did catch my interest, but when that Marine walked in in his blues and started telling us stories, I instantly said to myself that that was the branch that I wanted to be apart of. Now, I'm not a bigger girl, and I wasn't then either, but I definitely was not in shape. And I hated to run. With a passion. We would have class PT (physical training), and I knew I didn't do to well, but I tried. When I was finally old enough, or when I finally became a senior, I joined the DEP program which helps civilians train at least a little bit before they're shipped off to boot camp for the real fun. It was a struggle. My recruiter helped me a lot with my running time because like I said before, I hated to run. It was not my favorite thing to do. But I knew that if I wanted this dream of becoming a Marine to come true, I had to push. Finally, I was able to run fast enough to go to boot camp. I graduated high school, and I was able to leave a few months later. On the way to Paris Island, I met people and became friends, and we had a good time joking and laughing, but as soon as the road sign said Paris Island five miles away, everyone was quiet. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. We pulled up to the gate and were let in. No one made a sound. We stopped at the yellow foot prints, and then you hear the classic "GET OFF MY BUS" scream from the Drill Instructor. The scariest moment of my life. It was a hard three months to become a Marine. But at the end of the day, I made my dream come true. All it takes is a lot of hard work and dedication and a strong mentality.