08/23/2023
Taking a walk down memory lane....there was a future with endless opportunities for the young Marine in that photo. His brother Patrick told him that a famous palm reader he went to in NYC basically said "The lines on our hands and wrists are like life's road map. Each line represents different paths with different outcomes". The Marine....the young man in this photo that had courage, pride, and honor took the wrong path. He unwittingly went down the crooked line of his palm until he got to the end. Until the last drop from a bottle, that can be bought on any corner, had taken everything he had ever accomplished or hoped for.
Now the middle-aged Marine has taken his last drop and he's hiking that same line back to where it All began. He hasn't gotten very far but he's heading towards the correct path... That line in his hand he should have taken many years ago. As a Marine, especially a Parris Island Marine, He was taught to adapt and overcome. So for today, just for one day at a Time, he'll stay away from that next drop in the bottle that's waiting on any corner to take him back down the wrong path again. Because if he doesn't do as he was trained to do, to adapt and overcome, he may not be able to hike back. SEMPER FIDELIS