Please describe who or what influenced your decision to join the Marines? Growing up in San Francisco, you would not think there was neighborhood youth that wanted to join the Corps. This was not the case with our lads. With the untimely passing of my Mother when I was 16 years old, I followed the other, older friends into the Corps. With a father in the Merchant Marine in World War 2, uncle in Korean War, and a grandfather in World War 1, it seemed the right way to follow JFK's clarion call...