A Marine being prepared

Clive,

I said it was difficult to explain. I don’t think I’m at all paranoid and I doubt that my neighbor is, but a Marine is always prepared. Of course we aren’t always prepared, but we know what it means to be prepared and we were trained in such a way that we were always supposed to be prepared. So we think about it from time to time. We are more prepared than most people, I would say. The non-Marine won’t be quite as aware of his surroundings. It will be easier for a mugger to take advantage of a non-Marine – on average. A thief breaking into the house of a Marine will probably be in more trouble than if he breaks into the house of a non-marine. Being prepared is not the same thing as being paranoid.

I don’t know why you would think Marine Corps training would make a Marine paranoid. I‘ve found just the opposite to be true. A marine who has been trained to be prepared and deal with hostile situations will have less to worry about than a person who hasn’t. But maybe you are thinking that a person who isn’t aware of the potential for hostile emergencies isn’t likely to worry about them at all. You could be right about that. You probably worry a lot less than my Marine Corps neighbor about such things, but I suspect my neighbor would deny worry at all – as I would.

But if I were somehow transported to your Garden in Devonshire, you wouldn’t have anything to fear from me, and if any of the non-existent Muslims that you don’t worry about at all happened into your region and hopped over your fence and wanted to do you bodily harm, I would come to your defense. I suppose being a Marine is a little like being America.

Lawrence Helm