Did your parents utter those words when you joined the Marine Corps? Mine did, but back in the 1970s, they were pretty much kept in the dark about what was going on at boot camp unless I wrote and told them.
Now, there’s a website for Marine parents to connect, share and compare notes with each other. MarineParents.com was started by a mom whose son had just been deployed to Iraq as shown in this video. Add to that the Parent Guide on the official Marine Corps website, and the only thing parents don’t have now are webcams during training!
And for those families who can’t afford to attend recruit graduation, there’s even a website that raises money so no Marine stands alone at graduation. Makes me think I graduated about 30 years too early!