Today’s post was guest-written by my brother Lt. Cale Magnuson, a U.S. Marine   currently assigned to the Marines Aviation Program. You can connect with Cale on LinkedIn or Twitter. If you would like to be featured on this site, click here.

I distinctly remember the first time I ever heard Captain Tucker tell us that he loved us. Captain Tucker was the platoon commander charged with instilling in us the art and science of becoming Officers in the Marine Corps. As you might imagine, this raised some eyebrows. Captain Tucker is still to this day the hardest Marine I have ever met. As a Purple Heart recipient, he could have ordered us to follow him to hell and back, and none of us would have hesitated. So why would such a man openly tell a bunch of new Lieutenants that he loved us?