Miami Student

Issue date: 11/16/07 Section: OpEd Page

Katelyn Hawthorne

Columbus Dispatch columnist Mike Harden wrote in his Sunday column, on Veterans' Day, that the bugle call taps lasts only 24 notes and our annual acknowledgement of men in our country's uniform lasts a mere 24 hours. He's right. Never has Veterans' Day meant more to me than the one earlier this week and it's because I'm finally understanding the sacrifice our veterans have made and are still making. I'm also realizing how few Americans even think about it anymore-despite the fact that we are at war.

I fell in love in sixth grade. He was a chubby little boy with hair parted on the side and a red pencil case. He sat across from me in history and Latin. Over the next seven years, the love notes and marriage proposals I snuck into his lunchbox got the best of him and he finally asked me to be his girlfriend at the start of my senior year of high school. I was 17. He was 20. At first it was your typical high school relationship-we attended football games, the Jingle Ball Christmas dance and had various group dates on Saturday nights with my best friends. But on our three­­­-month anniversary, he presented me with two things. One was a hardback copy of The Da Vinci Code-which I had been dying to read. The other was the decision he had made to enlist in the United States Marine Corps for a six-year term and the offer to turn our silly, innocent relationship of three months into a long-term commitment. I didn't have a lot of time to make up my mind because he was leaving for boot camp in a week. I'm sure you know what I picked.

Over the next seven months, I'm ashamed to say that all I thought about were my sacrifices in this relationship. I received two letters in three months. I saw him for 10 days before he left again for a four-month specialized training school. He missed my senior prom. He missed my graduation from high school. He missed my college decision-making process. Never once did I think that he understood how much he was missing as well.

When Avi returned, I was leaving for my first year at Miami University and he helped me move in. He told me later that he thought this was the end for us. It's well known that the first year of college is the most tumultuous and detrimental to relationships. My own hall, Dirty Dodds, had what we called "Bloody October" when all the girls ended their relationships with boys back home. Avi was four hours away at Ashland University. I didn't have a car and he didn't have any money. What had once been the force driving between us had now became our salvation. Avi had Marine drill once a month in Dayton and he could come visit me.

Continued...

Page 1 of 3 next >

Article Tools