NICK & HELEN

By Helen Cariotis

January 24, 2004 was my 34th wedding anniversary. That's a pretty long time by today's standards, I guess.

I have asked myself more than once how I came to be this flag-waving, Marine-loving, conservative person when I started out as a hippie, card-carrying member of the SDS, student activist even in high school type of person. I graduated in the top 10 of my high school but was denied membership in the NHS because I spent my weekends traveling around the state exhorting students to oppose the war. I grew up in the family of a career Army officer and lived on Army bases all over the world. But I was sure different.

Of course, people now forget that back then, bodies were coming home in the hundreds a day. Now we are (rightly) horrified when 2 or 3 are killed in action in one day in Iraq and Afghanistan, but back then it was a real carnage. So many, many of my friends died.

I was a college student and still very much opposed to the war the first time I saw Nick Cariotis. He was just back from 'Nam. In a nutshell: war protester put down her placard and gazed adoringly at handsome Marine Captain. They stay opposites attract!

When I met Nick I understood for the first time what it meant to serve, to stand up and fight for what is right, to be willing to sacrifice yourself for the good of the "all." Somehow, our kids already know this. No one drafted them into the Marines. They went because that is where they want to be. They know what it took me a long time to figure out.

End of story...... well, then came the 5 babies. But that's pretty much it.

Anyway, we are still here and still together, so for all you young'uns out there, remember it can be done!

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