To a lot of you, November 10 is just another date in the countdown to stuffing yourself stupid with turkey. But to those of you who are already halfway through your OORAH, November 10 is a special day. On November 10, 1775, the United States Marine Corps was founded.Every year since, all across the globe, from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, Marines past and present gather to do the one thing they do as well as kill – drink.

At the time, I was working for the National Security Agency in Augusta, Georgia. My best friend Joe was a similarly-employed Marine. In truth, the only things professional about us were our job title – Cryptologists, and our security clearances. We were in our mid 20’s and we lived for excuses like the Marine Corps Birthday Ball to don some fancy clothes and reach a level of intoxication that is only acceptable on alcoholic high holidays, like St. Patrick’s Day, New Years Eve, and Superbowl Sunday. Thankfully, and with quiet confidence in his heterosexuality, Joe invited me to the ball as his date, it was to be our first.

Our platoon was a hodgepodge of Marine, Navy, Air Force, and prior-service-turned-NSA civilians. The ball was a drunken delight, but it was just the beginning. After sitting through long lectures about the prestige of the Marine Corps, listening to battle hymns sung by half-drunk choir-boys, and watching intoxicated Non-Commissioned Officers use their sabers to cut the cake, the formalities of the evening were over and we were no longer required to continue the illusion of sobriety we’d been ordered to maintain for the ceremonies. As they always do, the Navy was there to supply transportation for this division of drunk Devil Dogs.

Tonight our enemy was sobriety and we’d see it sprawled dead in our wake! We departed from the safety of the Marriott Ballroom and entered the civilian world on a heroic march to a nearby watering hole. We lost a lot of men on that march. They fell before the sore-heeled feet of their wives, the curfew of their kid’s babysitter, the nagging of Saturday duty. Some, too, fell from fatigue, inebriation, and the siren call of lust. Nevertheless, we persevered in the face of adversity. When we arrived at our position, we found it supplied with reinforcements! Friends who’d not attended the Ball joined in this anti-sobriety night-op. One of freshly-acquired auxiliaries was Amy, a girl I’d been pursuing for some time. She worked the cosmetics counter at Walgreen’s and had given me some really great skincare tips.

With the arrival of an additional fire team, our squad was back at full strength. It was clear we’d need appropriate operational rations. Sergeant Joe did what sergeants do and procured a dozen tequila shots. Unfortunately for Joe, closing time was approaching and we’d been drinking for hours already. Our squad was tired, drunk, horny, and nearly out of health and ammo. His generosity was denied by all. Undaunted, he refused to allow any of his largesse go to waste. In a heroic act worthy of a bronze star, he single-handedly dispatched his shot glass foes. Semi-automatic shots rang out, and within minutes, our Patron-fueled patron’s eyes took on a war-weary glaze.

Realizing the tide of battle had turned, it was time for a hasty evac. As our squad was in shambles, I gathered what remained of our makeshift fire-team: me, Joe, Amy, and our friend Nafisa. Our team had to make it three blocks before we returned to the safety of our Marriott base. But, after Joe’s tequila heroics, the walk turned into a stumble through dangerous territory with an injured man. Sergeant Joe was taunting anyone in earshot. Unable to concentrate on both speaking and walking, Joe became our first casualty. ‘MAN DOWN!’ Nafisa yelled from a half-block ahead, I saw Joe collapse and heard the loud CRACK that occurs when bone gives way to concrete. I ran ahead and hoisted him up with his arm around my shoulder. Joe was a wreck, bleeding from his head with blood trickling down the right side of his face, over his dress blues and onto my suit. Nafisa called a Medi-vac and confirmed it would meet us at the Marriott , now only a block away.

That last block was hell, it was littered with debris from the co-located and poorly fenced-in construction zone! Nafisa moved ahead to scout. I continued supporting Joe but in the confusion, Amy fell behind. Moments later, I heard her shrill scream of pain. Leaving Joe momentarily, I backtracked and discovered Amy fallen into a hole in the fence. Her face was covered in blood from a deep gash across her nose. Gathering her and Joe, we continued our slow trek to base.

The familiar blue and red flashing lights of civilian first-responders told us we were safe. Medics rushed out of the ambulance to help Joe, who had vomited as well as bled on his uniform during our harrowing journey. After a hasty triage, it was determined both Joe and Amy would need to go to the hospital. Both, in their drunken wisdom, refused the ambulance. In the face of this crisis, my Navy training kicked in and I did what the Navy always does and provided transport for Marines.

I requisitioned Joe’s truck for the mission and loaded my patients for evac. We arrived at the hospital after only a few minor collisions. The hospital staff, taking one look at Joe covered in vomit and blood, immediately found him a berth. A nurse informed me that, because Joe’s injuries were more pressing and his insurance more promising, he would get stapled and sutured before they began working on Amy. During this discussion, another nurse came out and told me Joe needed my support. I began bouncing from room to room, checking on Joe and Amy. Drunk Joe was emotional, spilling his feelings and repeatedly professing his undying and drunken love to me. Unbeknownst to me, while I was discussing Joe’s injuries with the nurse, Amy was running her own covert op. During her triage, she informed the nurse that she was my fiancé and therefore she was on my government insurance. The hospital staff believed her story and admitted her for care. While Joe was confessing love, Amy decided it was also time to take our love to the next level. On my third trip to her room, I found Amy half-naked and ready to consummate our insurance-fraud engagement. Despite all of her allure, the sterile smell of the hospital, our blood and vomit crusted clothes, and Joe’s confession of undying love prevented my mast from springing to attention.

After four hours in the Emergency Room the nurses allowed Amy and I to depart to our yet-unused hotel room. We’d have to return and pick up Joe later that day as it was now morning and he would be required to remain under observation for a few more hours. She was upset and crying through her bandaged face and nose, lamenting that her career at the Walgreen’s makeup counter was surely over. I remained a bit more calm, at least on the surface. Internally I was rife with strife, Did I just have my first date with a man? Would my friends believe any of this? Was I engaged now? Did I just commit insurance fraud?

I was raised in the 90s, your typical suburban family in West Warwick, Rhode Island. As a kid, I kept busy with sailing, soccer, role-playing games, and Magic: The Gathering. I also wore glasses and often neglected trimming my nails and brushing my hair. As you can imagine, these habits invited mockery from my classmates. The highlight of my days, after spending hours at school facing the derision of my classmates, was to make it home in time to catch Pokemon on the WB. It wasn’t just my hobbies that garnered ridicule from my peers, I am also cursed with intelligence, so much so the principal once refused to suspend me because there was a state test that week and the school “needed my scores”. After spending nearly all of elementary school being taunted and teased for my hobbies and unusual intelligence, it was time to get even. In middle school, I decided to start fighting back against these bullies the best way I knew how…

Enter: Capitalism

I sized up my tormentors, I saw their hunger, I saw their greed, I saw the overstuffed pockets of their undereducated baby-boomer parents who made a comfortable life off entry-level jobs and gave their special little snowflake everything he wanted. I became a budding entrepreneur of the diabetes-industry and opened a candy business out of my backpack! I didn’t need it to tote school books because I’d either already read them or I’d done the homework while the teacher laboured over the pronunciation of monosyllabic four-letter words. The going was tough at first, when funds were tight. I lost a lot of money and product to the preteen highwayman at the back of the bus. I arrived home with the uncomfortable stickiness that oft accompanies the torment of bullies more than a few times, my own product was being used against me.

But things would turn around, not all the tough guys wanted to commandeer their confections by force. One of these self-styled jocks was more than amiable to an arrangement where he didn’t need to do any roughing up or cajoling in return for his sugar fix. I came to him with an offer: I’d supply him with candy and he’d ensure my stores and coin purse remained un-pilfered. As it often goes with pre-teens, his hunger for candy grew with his size and eventually the arrangement required a little modification. Within a few months he was no longer just protection, he’d become my first salesman.

Over the course of the next six months, my business grew: I took on a partner, bought my dad a membership to SAM’S club, and built my first franchise. And by franchise, I mean the mobile candy shop on a radio-flyer wagon to ensure my revenue stream continued through the summer! Business was great!

After a little over a year, I was bringing in about $15 a day in profits selling warheads, airheads, lemonheads, and other non-head-related candies. We rarely sold chocolate due to its propensity for melting in the heat of a backpack (a lesson my first Jansport bag won’t soon forget). There were minor hangups – occasionally we had to replace a salesman who was skimming a little too much sugar off the top, but things were good, until a few nosey adults got involved.

One afternoon my father received a call from the school principal, a man with whom he was already on a first-name basis. Do you know what your son’s been up to? the principal cawed. My father, bless his heart, was no stranger to these kinds of accusations. He had long since realized it was a smarter move to take the side of his own fuck-trophy than that of some piddling middle-manager. He calmly invited the principal to enlighten him.

He was treated to a tale of the sweet entrepreneurial dealings of his first-born son. I can only imagine how he swelled with pride hearing about my lucrative business model. I distributed my product to salesmen in the shady corners of the back of the bus, free of charge, only a promise they’d pay me for it in the future. I was creating addicts, the principal claimed, and kids were spending their lunch money on my product rather than the mysterious flavors of school-made sloppy joes. They were so hopped up on Pixy Stix and Caramel Apple Blow-Pops the teachers were having difficulty maintaining order in the classrooms. I had to be stopped, I was cutting into the catering company’s profits, I didn’t have a business license..

My dad laughed at him, and, with the cool sangfroid of a man used to the antics of his adolescent son, asked: Has be been doing this during class? Has anyone seen him selling candy? Have these candy sales been interfering with other students’ ability to learn? No, the principal replied grimly, he’d only heard it was me running this business after my salesmen had been caught dealing during class. I noted then to check into the snitches in my organization. It was time these snitches got their just desserts…

After receiving no backup in the sugar skirmish from my father, a battle raged, Principal vs. Peppermint Peddler. Thankfully, one’s tenure in middle school is short, and my father saw it wise to ensure my next school was somewhere where I wouldn’t have the same access to a distribution network. Because at the public school where I should have gone, there is no doubt in either his or my mind, that I would have eventually used this network to peddle a much more profitable product. That’s the story of how I ended up in Catholic School.