Second Chances

I started writing FIRST in the summer of 2014. As I began my research, I asked my husband (now ex-husband) to be my subject matter expert. I bombarded him with questions about his time in boot camp and the Marines. Since there was a ten year age difference between us, I didn’t know him during that time. I wanted to be as accurate as possible.

I searched YouTube for the date and time of his graduation from boot camp, since many parents and families filmed the ceremony (more than I’d have guessed for the lack of technology back in the late eighties and early nineties.) I ended up finding his exact graduation ceremony, and there was even some candid footage of him and his friends before the ceremony.

At the time, though he was a man about to go and fight in a war, I was a fifth grader in elementary school. I wrote letters to the troops as part of a class project. I had no idea that he existed in the world, and I was still hell-bent on marrying Kirk Cameron someday. (Thank God for unanswered prayers.)