How Many Were At Parris Island on 9-11-01?

Sgt Grit,
Have been reading several of the notes in the newsletter that I receive. Only have to ask, how many of our family members were in boot camp on 9-11-01?

My son Michael was one of the ones that went from the frying pan into the fire. The frying pan was high school, where he too was not recognized for going delayed entry into the USMC. One of the things that I had done for my son prior to boot camp? Drained my IRA to let him have 2 weeks away from MOM before going off to boot camp. To this day he still doesn't know that I done this for him.

Anyway, he graduated from high school May 2001, boot camp at PI was July 2001 – October 2001. What most folks didn't know was this young man was only 17 when he graduated from high school, only 17 when he started out in boot camp, was only 17 on 9-11-01 and turned 18 in boot camp! Yes he was deployed to the sandbox for a period of 9 months. He was there when most of this current skirmish started.

What have we done as his parents since his being a Marine? We've added a flag pole to our front yard, in which we fly the US Flag and the USMC flag. Became part of a "Welcome Home" group in our local area to welcome home all area soldiers, sailors, airmen and yes MARINES from the sandbox. Our City and County officials decided that it was too dangerous to allow police and emergency personnel to continue with our escort parades. After welcoming home over 17 HEROES our group disbanded due to lack of support from the community. Talking with members of our Police and Emergency personnel, they wanted to continue to welcome home our Heroes against their superiors wishes. We acquired a nice Frontier pick up truck and decked it out with the large USMC Sticker on the tailgate, the large USMC Magnet on the hood, as well as several troop support ribbon magnets on the sides in addition to the branch of service flag for the honorees! Our little truck stood out! Attaching a photo of our truck decked out for proof!

Thank You All
Semper Fi!

Carol
PMM Michael (now stateside)
Baxter TN