[3/27/03] He has three uncles and two cousins who have served in the U.S. Army, but Anthony McLemore of Vicksburg chose to join the Marine Corps after high school.

McLemore, 23, a lance corporal in communications and a five-year member of the U.S. Marine Corps, has been in Kuwait since January, his mother, Lavern McLemore Bryant of Vicksburg, said Wednesday.

“One day we were at Sack and Save (next door to the U.S. Armed Forces recruiting offices) and he just got out of the car and went in there on his own,” Bryant said of one day during her older son’s senior year, at Warren Central High School.

Bryant said McLemore likes challenge.

“He’s going to try to outdo you,” she said of her son. “I think that’s why he chose the Marines.”

One earlier indication of his competitiveness Bryant saw was how he played video games growing up, she said. And now, when he comes home, he likes to wrestle against his uncles, she said.

Bryant said when she last talked with McLemore, in February, he was stationed behind the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division in Kuwait. Parts of the 3rd Infantry have since moved into central Iraq.

“He didn’t go into detail,” she said. “He told me he was doing OK. I’ve got faith in God that God’s going to bring him back.”

Bryant said McLemore did his basic training in San Diego, Calif., and has served in Australia, Hawaii, Japan and San Francisco.

McLemore has one child, a 15-month-old daughter, who lives with his ex-wife in California, Bryant said.

“It’s a career move,” Bryant said of her son’s joining the Marines. “The training, the discipline that he went through taught him to respect others.” She added that, within four months after Sept. 11, 2001, McLemore had re-enlisted in the Marines.

“I think he knew that the war was coming,” she said. “I don’t think he was surprised.”

Bryant, who works as a medical aid at the Warren County Health Department, has one other child, a 16-year-old son at Vicksburg High School, which McLemore also attended before graduating from Warren Central. She said she did not know if her younger son would choose to join the military.

“I used to talk to him when he was little to make sure he made the right decision, because I was a single parent,” Bryant said of McLemore.

“I told them, You can’t stay and let somebody take care of you, you’ve got to take care of yourself,'” she said. “I made them cleakn up and cook. It’s just like I was teaching my kids responsibility.”

Bryant said she has a mailing address for her son in Kuwait, and she and her co-workers have sent him letters. She has received one letter from McLemore, which took three weeks to arrive. McLemore also has access to e-mail, she added.

When the war first started, Bryant did not want to take any phone calls, even from friends, she said.

“At first I was worried, but then I prayed about it,” she said, adding that a visit to her pastor at her church, Word of Faith Christian Center, helped. “I’ve got faith in God and that is my strength. My strength and my salvation.”

“I feel good about it,” she said of the effort based on news reports.

Bryant said that last time she spoke with McLemore he expected to be in Kuwait until at least June, but she understands that he may be deployed there longer.

“I’m proud of all of them,” she said of U.S. servicemen.

McLemore also has a grandmother, Beatrice Thomas, and a great-grandmother, Lucille Elmore, living in Vicksburg, Bryant said.

“I hope to talk to him soon,” she said of McLemore. “Just to hear his voice, it’ll put a smile on my face.”