"Welcome to Hell," the drill instructor announced to the small crowd of young men staring at him apprehensively, his words charging the atmosphere with a foreboding intensity. Three and one half months of hellish and seemingly outrageous demands would be made of those who would endure the journey through the fires of boot camp. These young men would find a pride in themselves that would last forever. Those survivors of boot camp training often look back, with a smile and even a laugh, at what they endured from the DI. Patrick Turley, driven to enlist by the events of 9/11, captures these anxious times perfectly in vivid detail establishing an emotional bond with the reader throughout his journey from man to Marine, and John Patrick Shanley said it only as a former Marine and Pulitzer Prize winner could: "It's great to have gone to Marine Corps boot camp. It's terrible to be in Marine Corps boot camp. It's fun to read about Marine Corps boot camp."
