A few months ago I got a phone message from a Lieutenant Colonel who told me that I was being summoned to an administrative muster for reserve Marines on 22 Nov. “Don’t worry, you’re not being mobilized,” he said. “This is just an administrative process to make sure everyone’s info is up to date and inform you about some benefits.”

I wasn’t looking forward to driving out to Floyd Bennett Field on the far corner of New York City, least of all at 7AM on a Saturday, but they told me I’d be getting paid for my three hours of work, and that eased the pain. I taped the orders they sent me to the door to my room, lest I forget to attend.

At 7:15, I was driving south in my parents’ car since my own is in storage out of town. A lady on NPR was interviewing an Iranian American writer about how the Iraq war had destabilized the Middle East. Seemed appropriate.

As I drove south, the massive urban environment began to deteriorate. First I passed the Intrepid Air and Space museum where I had been a volunteer in high school. Then I drove past Ground Zero, and ducked into the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. I blasted south along the Gowanus Expressway, the remnants of 1950s industrial Brooklyn all around me. Soon I was on the Belt Parkway, cruising along the smooth blacktop that fronted Lower New York Bay, choppy in the morning’s rough winds. The houses were low, and there were no more big buildings. Finally I turned east, spotting Coney Island’s Ferris wheel and heading towards Jamaica Bay.

At the entrance to Floyd Bennett Field, once a Navy jet base and now a dilapidated public recreation area, I turned onto Aviation road and entered the small Marine Corps Reserve Center. I pulled onto the parking lot overlooking the bay and rolled the car to a stop. The sun was shining brilliantly off the water and I was staring at a large concrete building replete with parking spaces marked “S-4”, “XO”, and “1stSgt”. Except for the wind and NPR on my radio, it was silent. I could have been anywhere- Pendleton, LeJeune, even Camp Schwab, Okinawa. A Marine pulled up in a 2007 F-150 sitting on a huge lift kit. I’d never seen such a vehicle in New York City before, but there it was. Classic Marine. I went inside.

It took me a few minutes to remember how to read enlisted rank on collars. Suddenly I felt like a boot lieutenant all over again trying to count staff NCO rockers hidden on camouflage cloth, this sensation only heightened by the fact that I had unwittingly grabbed the khakis I used to wear as a young officer (which didn’t fit as well anymore) and instinctively put on the same old ugly brown shoes from the back of my closet. (Why do I still have this stuff?)

In the classroom upstairs, there were a lot fewer Marines than I had expected- only about 40. Staff sergeants in utility uniforms were organizing the Marines into groups, dispersing a small handful of forms to fill out, and moving us through a computer station where we updated our personal information. A gunny was collecting diplomas and transcripts to be added to our records. There was something I noticed right away, something I hadn’t seen in awhile. The Marines were interacting with us and each other with the utmost professionalism and they appeared to be making no extra effort to do so. I realized that this is who they were. This is how Marines are. How I was.

I took out some schoolwork while I waited for the brief to begin. “Yo, Ben,” I heard the thick White Plains accent to my right. I looked up and saw my buddy Greg from Iraq spitting into a dip cup. I had just seen him for the Marine Corps birthday a few weeks before, but it was good to see a friendly face. He sat down next to me.

Immediately, we were bullshitting again, telling stories from our deployment and impersonating the CO, as is our compulsory, near exclusive ice-breaker whenever we see each other. Eventually our conversation spread to the immediate seats around us- “who were you with” being the primary means of introduction. “I lost two guys,” Greg said, without looking at me. “I lost one,” I told him. We talked about how our three Marines had died. “I went to the funeral,” he said. “I gave his mother the flag.” He spit into his cup.


A LtCol, a tad heavyset by Marine standards, stepped forward and introduced himself. It had become clear that one of the goals of the muster was to try to recruit Marines off inactive duty into the Marine Corps Reserve, and even though I’d been looking for the right opportunity myself, I could do to skip the snow job.

The LtCol began to tell us about his own story- how he had been working for a major East Coast company who sent him to DC, and he had moved his whole family and bought a house, only to be laid off three months later. He called up Headquarters Marine Corps and they put him on a project as a part-time member. He wasn’t giving us a hard sell, and his demeanor was totally non-predatory. “I’m not trying twist anyone’s arm, or guilt trip anyone. I’m just telling you, the economy is bad, maybe you miss the Corps- there are lots of ways you can be involved. You should know about these opportunities, and don’t write them off.” Then he showed us a terrible video that made the same point.

Outside the wind was howling against the window, but the sun was still pouring in. It was 28 degrees and my coffee had run out, but I was sweating hard. I don’t know why- a slight twinge of nervousness perhaps, or just culture shock to have left NY City and arrived back on Marine Corps Base X, in bizzaro world. I looked around the room. We were huddled together, keeping warm, but also building some kind of temporary circle of trust like an AA meeting for ex-warriors and confused souls. “How many of you were on active duty?” the LtCol asked. All hands went up. “How many of you have been to Iraq or Afghanistan?” All hands went up.

On his reserve recruiting questionnaire, Greg had written “I want to go to Afghanistan and grow a beard.” He was half kidding. I wrote: “I’m interested in Afghanistan deployments.” I was not kidding at all.

At a lull in the conversation, a kid about 24 years old, wearing a NY Jets leather jacket and a tight-fitting Scout Sniper T-shirt raised his hand. In an accent that can only be described as “true New York”- that sort of old-school Irish and Long Island mix, he asked the following question: “Yeah, I’m a New York City firefighter, and I got out of the Marines with 60% VA disability. If I want to come into the reserves, can I do that without giving up my disability?” The answer was yes. What’s it like at FDNY, I asked the kid, having considered applying myself. “The guys I work with are disgusting,” he said. “I thought I was going to transition easily, you know looking for that camaraderie and professionalism… but it isn’t there. Nothing’s like the Marine Corps, sir.”


I walked downstairs with Greg, and we stopped to look at the photos that the local unit had posted on the walls. “You hear that Camp Fallujah is gone?” he asked. Our old haunt from 2004. No, I hadn’t heard that.

Outside, an officer who had been sitting near us drove away in a Toyota Tacoma, another classic Marine stereotype that was absolutely heartwarming to me. I squinted in the sunlight and got into my parents’ car. On the way home NPR had some food critics cooking with molecular gastronomist Wiley Dufresne at his New York City restaurant. They were talking about his “hollandaise cubes” and “bacon reduction”. The New York City skyline was beginning to dominate my windscreen once again.