Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Marines!!!! 250 years of service!! Wow, My first blog on a special occasion. I’ll give you a short summary of my experience in the Corps.

After I graduated High School in May of 2001, I left for bootcamp a month later. I went through Hell to say the least. It was tough but necessary. I graduated bootcamp on September 21st, 2001. Yes, that’s right. Just 10 days after 9-11. It was quite the reality check for us. It gave a real purpose as to why we were there in the first place. None of us thought something like that would ever happen. The world was changed after that.

I completed my MOS training in Fort Leonard Wood Missouri and was stationed at Camp Pendleton California. In 2003 I deployed to a small advanced party for pre-deployment preparations to Iraq.

A few months later I came back stateside. A few more months after that, 2004, my entire unit got deployed. We flew into Kuwait and push up North into Iraq with all of our equipment we had pre-staged.

We were the first support unit out there supplying Forward Operating Bases with the essentials of food, water, and ammo. It was an experience of a lifetime. One I hope to never experience again. It’s like in the movies but in real life. You feel everything. There’s no pause button, forward, or rewind. Everything is Live all the time. Even when you sleep.

After coming home in 2005, back to the states, my EAS was a few short months later. My End of Active Service was up June. If I were to reenlist, who knows how many more deployments there would have been. But that was an experience I didn’t wish to re-live. So I have nothing but respect for the people who make it a career.

24 years later here I am.

The Logo I created was an actual picture of me taken in the middle of Iraq, in a small room, in a broken down building just before we went to sleep for the night.

With the assistance of Ai, I perfected the shape of the photo for consistency.

So this Logo has meaning for me. It’s really not just a logo.

It’s a reminder of how hard life can get, How far down we as individuals can get in our minds, How low we go when we feel like our life is at its worst.

But with Focus, Purpose, and a few people who give a damn, You can come back from anything.

You are stronger than you think you are. As a Corporal of Marines, I helped a lot of guys regain clarity. They helped me just as much. Through purpose we find life.

I truly hope what I have created in this logo gives you the strength to keep fighting no matter what.

When things get hard, just keep pushing forward.

Run Hard my friends.