No Longer a Marine

He looked like
A fairly decent
Sort of guy,
Probably a little
Down on his luck,
And a bit rough
Around the edges,
Yet there he was
Living on handouts
At a local
Walmart Store.
Being curious
As to why,
I approached him.
It turns out that
He had served
In the Marine Corps
Just as I had done.
At graduation
From boot camp,
He must have stood
On the parade field,
Razor sharp,
Perfectly sculpted,
And proud to call
Himself a Marine.
He could run five miles
Without breaking a sweat,
Knock out two-hundred
Push-ups,
Without thinking about it,
Recite his general orders
And the Marine Corps hymn
Without missing a beat.
That was thirty years ago
And he is not
A Marine anymore.
What happened to him?
It was not drugs or alcohol,
But something else
That incapacitated him.
It was not the horrors of war
Haunting him,
For he had never served
In combat.
I imagine it was that,
Like so many others
Leaving the military,
He was never quite able
To find himself
In the civilian world.
He drifted from job to job,
Unable to recapture
That sense of purpose
He felt as a Marine
And in time,
Lost a sense
Of who he was.