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Just a few minutes stroll through the city from the main entrance to the Subic Bay Metropolitan Area is Mama’s house. It is not really a house and it is not really hers; it is a tiny, yet comfortable, apartment and she rents it. But as long as I remembered, she had lived there. Daily, after each grueling Catholic instruction, I would drop in for my share of kisses and hugs from Mama.
Land was in sight in our seventh day on board the USS Juneau. It was the Philippine archipelago and its storied shores. Balikatan would soon commence for us. Balikatan, from the Filipino word balikatan (cooperation), is an annual bilateral training evolution between the United States and the Republic of the Philippines. For my unit, this consisted of American and Filipino marines working together as a tight-knit and integrated force. Moreover, we were to learn a thing or two from them and they from us. Ideally.
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