USMC 09/23/02-09/22/06 First contact from the recruiter was about a month before 9/11. I was just starting my senior year of high school, I didn't actually sign up until Feb 02 and went to boot camp 3 months after graduation.
Boot/Marine combat training in San Diego, Ca and Camp Pendleton, CA until Feb 03. Then it was onto my job school (MOS 0651 Data Network Specialist, basically computer geek) at Twenty Nine Palms, CA from Feb-May 03.
June 03-Feb 04 Camp LeJeune MCB, Camp LeJeune, NC.
Feb 04-Sep 04 Deployed to Camp Fallujah Iraq (the bad guy hotbed of the time) for Operation Iraqi Freedom 3-1 (the one is for first shift out of two)
I spent my deployment on the base working on help desks and setting up networks, switches, routers, etc, running cat 5 and helping Officers who "couldn't print" lol. The shifts were 12 on 12 off so basically 13 hour days all day everyday (actually got one day off the whole deployment) taking incoming RPG and Mortar rounds almost daily (duck and run to the nearest bunker) but never had to fire my M16 that we carried everywhere (along with 180 rounds of 5.56 mm ammo). Temps in the summer time reached up to 140 degrees which was fun but most of the buildings had
A/C thankfully so we weren't out in the heat all day just sometimes. Spent the first and last 2 weeks of the deployment staging in Kuwait so it was only 6 1/2 actual months of work.
Sept 04-Sept 06 Camp LeJeune, NC.
Spent most of my time at Camp LeJeune with 8th Communication Battalion (nicknamed 8th Crime lol) with a short stint with the 22 Marine Expeditionary Unit (22 MEU). Separated as an E-4 Corporal honorably discharged with the option to re-enlist in the future. I've thought about going back in but never pulled the trigger. Seriously considered the Air Force but apparently they want 18 year old fresh meat, not experienced personnel and I'd have to go back to school anyway to retrain in a new MOS or adapt to their version of my MOS in the Corps. I also almost joined my local Army National Guard about 5 months after I got out but never did. I'm 40% disability rated by the VA so I'm not sure how that would work or if they would even take me back. I get roughly $700 a month disability from them, for tinnitus (ear ringing), chronic shin splints (both legs) and a lower back issue, nothing too debilitating but it adds up I guess. I got out partially because small issues were adding up, I'd imagine if I did 20 years I'd be getting out at 38 but feeling like I was 68.
Thank you to everybody else who served/is serving.
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