Umbilical Cord was being streatched

I will be doing a reading at the local New Paltz Library this coming Tuesday June 22, 2007 as I was looking for what to read in the book I decided to choose something that both had a little to do with New Paltz the town I grew up in as well as something that had to do with the small town boy going off to the Marines. I decided to read chapter 16 in The Making and Unmaking of a Marine, which focus’s on the bus ride from Albany NY where I went to get the final physical to Parris Island boot camp. There are many men through out our history that have taken such a ride, and like me felt the umbilical cord being stretched during the trip. When I stepped off the bus onto the yellow footprints painted on the asphalt and heard the DI bark orders the cord snapped. Anyone out there who may have traveled a similar trip from childhood to adulthood in one day let me know what it was like for you.