Ethan...Marine in spirit

My nephew, Ethan, talked about becoming a United States Marine from the time he was small. There was never any doubt that he would enter the Corps and go far, had he lived.
Marines are a breed of their own. Cocky, brave, smart, wiley, intelligent... My uncle is a Marine and 2 of my best friends are Marines.They all agreed that Ethan had the mental fortitude to be a Marine.

Ethan was kind, funny, loving, smart, shy.... He hated to be the center of attention. He had friends of all types. He was loyal to those friends and those friends were loyal to him.
In the last couple of weeks, two of those friends have, at the ages of 16 and 17, gone out and gotten memorial tattoos. What young man, at the age of 16, inspires such love and loyalty in his friends that they would get tattoos...with his name forever etched into their skin?
I am amazed at how much I didn't know about this boy who was my first, only, and forever nephew.

I cannot even begin to describe how much I miss Ethan; how much my son, who idolized his older cousin, misses Ethan. Part of me is so angry that he died! Why?? He was only 16 and had his whole life to live for.
But, my pain is minor compared to that of my sister.
I ache for her and don't know what to do to help her.

Ethan was her only child. She struggled to have him and wasn't able to have any more after him. Right now, even though thousands of mothers have lost children, no one's pain compares to my sister's. It's only been two months. Does the pain get easier to deal with?

What I think of now is what a wonderful Marine our country will miss. Ethan wrote for one of his classes about becoming a Marine and the fact that he could die protecting his country. It didn't bother him. He was ready for it. His attitude towards death and dying was so much more mature than any of ours.
One day, I'll post his paper here for all the world to see. His maturity would shame many men twice his age.

Regardless of the fact that Ethan never went to boot camp, he is a Marine in spirit. His patriotism rivaled that of his grandpa's. God saw what a loving, fair person he was here on Earth and needed him to be one of his ultimate warriors in heaven. Ethan and his grandpa, my dad, are there now protecting our souls.

I miss them every day and wonder, always....why?