6Ninety minutes after leaving the training facility, I reached Richmond and picked up I-95.
The hog farms had given way to cultivated fields. I headed north with my windows shut and the AC blasting.
An hour past the state capital, I spotted a familiar exit sign.
In my head, I heard my teenage daughter’s voice reciting a poem.
I helped Vicky memorize it for an English assignment. She explained that the poet was mourning her lost youth.
I had a different take.
I cracked up over one line: unremembered lads that not again will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Passing the Marine Corps base at Quantico, those words popped into my head.
I snickered.
The Marine Security Guard detachments posted to our embassies train at Quantico. The detachments are headed by gunnery sergeants who repor
