- If you enlisted, what were some of the reasons that you joined the military? How did you choose your branch of service?
- Honestly I didn’t even put much consideration. I was contacted by a Marine Corps recruiter and it seemed like a good opportunity to better myself.
- How did you imagine military life before you joined? How did your perceptions change after serving?
- I imagined a group of people with a sort of no nonsense mentality. Where a mission came first always. In reality I found everyone in the marines were still just people with their own motives and values, in addition to those values instilled by the Marine Corps.
- What was basic training like?
- Fun at times, seemingly never ending at others. It was definitely a test of perseverance and the challenges of it bestowed a life changing perspective on what people are capable of.
- Can you describe a funny moment from boot camp?
- During our field week of training there where many events that involved crawling through some kind of obstacle. We were in Camp Pendleton at the time so this involved getting a lot of dry dust everywhere you normally wouldn’t want such things. Our drill instructors also seemed to enjoy kicking dirt on us while we made our way through these courses. I was lucky enough to be dragging a “wounded” buddy and by the time we made it to the end we were both happy enough to flash a smile. Instead of revealing our pearly whites our mouths were full of a lovely dirt saliva mixture of mud. This of course led to more laughing and thus having to repeat the course again.
- What are some of the things you remember about adapting to military life?
- Most notably was getting used to have often I would have to just pack up all of my things and move somewhere else. This led to my tendency to prefer fewer personal possessions.
