They always come in bus-loads; wearing taut, long and worried expressions on their faces like a bride’s covering veil. Weary from the seemingly unending journey… even wearier at the thought of what lays in wait and beyond.
They stare questioningly at the wild, barren landscape in awe, at a civilization so bucolic that it could have been the Stone Age; and you can see the question in their eyes, “do people actually live here?”
They stare back at the strange new eyes that greet them and hear a new language, bizarrely exotic and far removed from theirs; they see the diets, eating habits and living conditions of their hosts; and apprehension creeps in; doubts arise, “will I ever be able to survive out here?”
For the better part of three hundred and sixty-five days, they’ll face the might of the unknown and attempt to tame lands uncharted armed only with words … words of others like themselves who are just a few months older in the terrain. Clearly far from enough!
For weeks to no seeming end, they’ve been confined to a military styled, camp-like regime and they yearned for release into the open … for freedom; release is here now, but not as envisaged; and all around is that forlorn look of jilted lover still wondering why.
A number of buddies from camping days are re-united; handshakes, hugs, high-fives and back slaps; a brief period of laughter as a few jokes are cracked but underneath this temporary joviality, is deep gut-wrenching fear … fear of the unknown, the uncertain!

But this is all in the beginning … in weeks to come, it will all fade away; all the dread would have dissolved like mist in dry season. Uncertainty would give way to assuredness.
The landscape starts to take form; no longer is it barren and no longer is the horizon flat, distant and unchanging. The strange new eyes become familiar and some even friendly.
The language is no longer exotically ambiguous – in fact, it becomes commonplace; music to a once fickle ear.
Slowly but surely, the lands are no longer alien territory but uncanny home … apprehension is replaced by calm and there’s a lightness that’s neither strained nor feigned but emanates from a heart at peace with the world around.
In the end … no matter the odds, they all still make it through unscathed.
In the end, all the fear and anxiety will vanish; replaced by joy, relief and slight tinge of regret at parting, for a friend has now been made of these foreign, once dreaded lands.
In the end true grit prevails, for tis’ Mother Nature’s divine gift to the human race; the ability to turn fear into favor and stumbling blocks into stepping stones.
In the end, their story is testament to the power of the human resolve; it always wins …
If you have your doubts, come to the POP grounds and see for yourself what it’s like in the end!

* Dedicated to all past and present Corps members who have served or serve in strange places far away from home… I salute your courage; e no easy!