Pinning on the bars

By Christian Lowe / Times staff writer

Watching her son march down the parade deck in his crisp camouflage uniform, rifle on his shoulder, Sheila Amalfi knew it might not be long before her son Patrick would be leading young Marines into combat.

But that didn’t seem to bother her. In fact, the headstrong mother of two was so enthusiastic about her son becoming a Marine that she threatened to skip the graduation ceremony if he got cold feet and didn’t take his commission.

“I told him it wasn’t worth it to have gone this far and not see it all the way through,” the cheerful blonde from Houston recalled.

For most of the families packing the bleachers that flanked the parade field at Officer Candidates School at Quantico, Va., this warm, overcast August day, the thought of sending their loved ones to war loomed large.

During his commencement address, Brig. Gen. William Catto — whose son was graduating with Alpha Company — ticked off the long list of famous Marine Corps battles — “Saipan, Tarawa, Inchon ... Beirut, Fallujah, Najaf ...” — as if to magnify the significance of the commitment these new second lieutenants were making.

Marching past in review, the candidates of Charlie Company, Class 186 of Officer Candidates Course, bore little resemblance to the civilians who tumbled out of buses to begin their transformation here June 6, just 10 weeks before.

The arduous hikes, the long runs, the tired nights of studying for tests with flashlights propped on their shoulders brought them to this day. Almost everyone doubted at some point whether they’d actually make it through; more than 60 either left voluntarily or were dropped by the Marine training cadre. It definitely wasn’t easy.

But the relief as they began graduation day was palpable.

Standing at the back of the dimly lit auditorium at Little Hall before the start of the commissioning ceremony, Aloysius Boyle reflected on the accomplishment of his brother Dan.

Just getting here was a struggle for Dan, 24, of Cape May, N.J. He failed several tests to get into OCS on a flight contract, his brother said, but was admitted at the last minute after accepting a ground contract that another potential candidate had decided to reject.

Now in his last year at the U.S. Naval Academy, Aloysius still has to make a decision on what he wants to do with his own commission: follow the special operations track of a Navy SEAL commando or go green and become a Marine Corps officer like Dan. Their other brother Charles, a Navy ROTC midshipman at the University of South Carolina, already made the call to become a leatherneck.

“I like the Marines because they do pretty high-speed stuff,” Aloysius said, wearing the summer whites of an Academy midshipman. “And it would be pretty cool if all of us were in the Corps.”

Charles and Aloysius have always looked up to older brother Dan, and today was surely no different.

After the commissioning ceremony, the Boyle family — six boys, six girls and their parents — filed out a side door of the auditorium to find a private place to pin Dan’s new gold lieutenant bars on the epaulets of his green “Service Alpha” uniform.

Bars affixed, 2nd Lt. Dan Boyle stepped back as his midshipmen brothers straightened up and snapped a rigid salute to a big brother who now outranks them.