Marine Update

Many of you know my son, Ryan, is a Marine. Many of you have also wished him and I well as he serves our country and as I persevered to get through boot camp in the spring. I certainly appreciate that very much! I just wanted to let you all know that he got his first promotion last week and is now a PFC! He is so pleased and tells me his goal is to get a perfect PFT and move up to Lance Corporal within the next 3 months. He is in aviation candidate school and has to qualify physicially to be able to be part of an air crew before he can even attend the technical school. He must be able to swim with his 75 pound pack on, swim 1 mile, as well as do 36 laps in their pool utilizing a variety of strokes in less than 80 minutes. Every day he spends 4-5 hours swimming and also runs 8 miles per day in the Pensacola sand. Although I am having a hard time adjusting to being a Marine Mom, he is an inspiration to me. How tired must he be at lap 26, 28 or 33? But he continues on to finish. I think about that when I am at the gym after a long hard day of work and feel tired on my last 10 minutes of the elliptical and want to stop. I think of his persistance and convince myself, "Hey if he can do that, I can certainly spend a little more time on the elliptical trainer to burn more calories." It's all about perspective.