Marine

I remember as a young child looking through old photos of my parents and grandparents and other family members and seeing alot with marine,army or navy uniformed men and hearing stories about "after World War two" or " when I got home from Vietnam...". At that time that reality seemed so distant and "ancient" to me. I remember my great-uncle telling me he could not wait to get home to his pregnant girlfriend to marry her and it seemed like a Pearl Harbor storyline.
As a young adults now we are growing up in a war time period. Now my good friend is finishing training and is ready to go off to Afghanistan. My other good friends boyfriend is away in Afghanistan and when he comes home they are going to move to North Carolina and get married and she is the same age as me. My predecessors stories have become reality to people close to me.
My friend ( we will call him Jacob , has just got home from infantry and will remain home until he gets an order. I have known him all my life and the change I have seen in him since boot camp is tremendous. Since he has been home for about 2 weeks know I have been starting to see the old Jacob. There is a small problem though. Jacob does not have a girlfriend and seems to be trying to fill that space with me. He knows I have a boyfriend but lately has been very persistant in seeing me as often as possible. He told me that he loves me but I think that he just has known me for so long and wants someone to especially care for him when he is away. I feel terrible for saying this but its frustrating for me now because I feel obligated to do certain things for him. I just dont feel that he is respecting his boundries and the fact that I have a boyfriend. I want to be there for him but just not like that. He gets mad at me when I say that because he insists that "it's not like that" But it is when I cant tell my boyfriend that I am just hanging out watching a movie with him because it would start a fight and I dont like lying.
Anyway I think my venting went on long enough. I do appreciate what these young men and women do for our country. The suprising part though is that many(not all) of them dont actually know the reason for war or why were there. All the know is to fight.