Spare Parts

Williams’s first education is from Lenny and involves how to be a Marine. At boot camp, he is educated on what it means to be a Marine, and in combat he learns what it means to fight a war. Throughout the memoir, Williams is always trying to learn more, and to use that learning to teach. He worries that he and his fellow Marines have not been trained enough. He worries about the efficacy of training. As he goes to college and takes classes on teaching, he begins to teach. He is constantly striving to learn more, find better ways to train, and to bring his teaching experience into the Marine Corps.

As Williams graduates college and takes a teaching position, he begins to bring what he has learned from the Marines to teaching. He institutes the Young Marines program. He wears his uniform to school. His education, both in the Marine Corp and in college, help shape who he is, allowing him to educate other Marines, his students, and his children, in the same way Lenny taught him.

He is also educated about war. Before Desert Storm, he didn’t understand what it would mean; after the war, he realizes most people will never know what war is like.