The Phone Call That Changed My Life Forever The year was 2007. I was eighteen years young, uncultured, having lived in a trailer in small town Oklahoma my entire life. Now that high school was over, I was lost and confused about what I should do in this next chapter. Nearly all of my friends would follow in the steps of their older siblings, parents, and generations before them. They would start a family young - usually by the time they are nineteen or twenty years old - and find a blue collar job in the oil fields, construction, plumbing, or electrical work. Some would inevitably become addicted to methamphetamines or other illegal drugs. I looked around and did not want any of what my friends had, or would end up having. All I wanted was an escape, but I did not know where to start. I would like to think that most people can go to their parents or family for guidance on what steps to take after high school to be successful. That guidance did not exist for me. College was not spoken of in my house, so further education was the farthest thing from my young mind. I did not know my biological father, my mother was a drug addict, my stepfather was emotionally and verbally abusive, and I did not have anyone to mentor or guide me after I graduated high school. An escape from such a cycle of poverty is difficult to imagine when you are young and surrounded by generations of people who stay in a small town with a population of less than eight hundred people. At that point I felt helpless, alone, and afraid. To say I was disappointed is an understatement. However, unbeknownst to me, my stepfather passed my phone number to a Marine Corps recruiter and my phone began ringing off the hook. After dozens of ignored phone calls over weeks and weeks, I finally decided to answer a call from the recruiter. Little did I know, by answering that phone call I was making a decision that would ultimately change my life forever. Fast forward to the year 2010. I had completed three years of service, was a Corporal in the Marine Corps, and I was on my way to Afghanistan for the first time to fight in Operation Enduring Freedom. I was finally going to war! I would tell myself, “This is what you signed up for. It’s time to go get some!”. I was excited, nervous, but above all eager to experience the thing that so many Marines before me idolized and glorified, war. Now I was a real member of the gun club, I told myself. After two days of flying across the world and sitting through layovers, we finally landed in Afghanistan. It was like a different planet in the mind of a young man who had lived his whole life in small town Oklahoma. I had watched war movies and thought I had a good idea of what Afghanistan would be like. To put it bluntly, I was utterly wrong. Afghanistan was like taking a step into a time machine and going back thousands of years. I remember the dust was overwhelming and there was not a tree in sight. I heard one senior Marine shout, “Oh, how I love the moon dust!”, as he trounced around in the dust, creating a brown cloud so thick you could barely see him in his desert camouflage utilities. The dust was so fine you couldn’t help but create a cloud of it in your wake as you walked around. I had no idea why the senior Marine loved it, or did he? He was probably flexing his experience to us young guys who had never deployed before. After landing in Afghanistan, my unit was moved to a Forward Operating Base (FOB) in Helmand Province. Helmand Province is in southern Afghanistan and is flat, dusty, and a hub for Taliban harvesting of black tar opium. When we arrived at the FOB we had electricity, air conditioning, all the food you could eat, a gym, with a place where you could get on the internet and even call back to the U.S. free of charge! The accessibility to the internet and comfortable amenities is not at all what I was expecting on a combat deployment. I was an Intelligence Analyst by trade and for the first six months of my deployment I found myself planted behind a desk, staring at a computer screen, trying to read and interpret intelligence reports so the real war fighters could kill or capture high value enemy combatants. I considered the real war fighters to be infantrymen who were not stuck at computers all day typing and reading, but rather out “hooking and jabbing”, fighting the Taliban. There I was, excited to go to war, only to find myself doing nothing different than I was doing back in the U.S. To say I was disappointed is an understatement. I wanted to fight! I wanted to see combat! That is what my twenty-one year old self desperately wanted, or so I thought. My desire to actually fight the Taliban quickly consumed me. I wanted to send bullets down range in defense of my country, my brothers and sisters, and ultimately myself. I would ask my Gunny on a daily basis to send me to a more tactical level unit so I could go fight. I was told no, repeatedly, for months. I remained persistent in my requests and one day my request was granted. I was headed to 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, to fight in Trek Nawa. Trek Nawa was an area just east of a city called Marjeh. Many iconic battles took place in Marjeh, so surely I was going to get to see actual combat action. When I arrived at 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, I ended up at the Battalion Headquarters on a small FOB doing the same tasks I did for the unit I initially deployed with. I was stuck behind a computer for at least twelve hours a day, reading intelligence reports, and creating target packages so the real war fighters could go kill or capture high value enemy combatants. To say I was disappointed is an understatement. I thought to myself, “If begging to get to a more tactical level worked at my previous unit, then maybe it will work here.” The worst thing they could tell me was no, right? So began my incessant requests to go to an even more tactical level, still in the hopes I could stand to the left and right of my brothers and fight the Taliban with bullets, not strokes of keys on a keyboard from an air conditioned room. This time it did not take months for my request to be granted. It took only a couple of weeks. I was typing at a computer and my Staff Sergeant came to me, almost in a panic saying, “Grab your things, you’re going with that convoy parked outside.”. I asked what I should bring and how long I would be gone and I was met with, “Bring everything. I don’t know how long you’ll be there.” At this point I did not know where I was going, who I was going with, or what we would be doing. Would I be stuck behind yet another computer doing the same thing, or would this be my moment? I would find out soon enough. Approximately twelve hours after I was told to grab all of my gear and join the convoy, I found myself in a situation I had never experienced before. I was now the intelligence analyst attached to an infantry platoon of approximately thirty Marines. The mission was to establish a new patrol base (PB) in an area where U.S. troops had no presence whatsoever. PBs are small and typically house anywhere from thirty to forty Marines. The PB we were establishing was a local national’s mud house that they were in the process of building. During the pre-mission brief I found out that the roads leading to the new patrol base were laden with Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) so we would have to travel approximately fifteen kilometers on foot before reaching the objective. Let me remind you, I was not an infantryman. I had been sitting behind a desk typing intelligence reports and creating briefings for senior leadership for months on end. This change in dynamic did not scare me though. I was in great shape, went to the gym daily, was overall physically fit, and I was confident in my abilities. My confidence would be quickly deflated, more like demolished, and I soon found myself second guessing all my life’s decisions up to that point. We began the movement early in the morning to establish the new PB. I was unsure of my role in the movement and tagged along with one of the infantrymen, named K, who pulled me under his wing knowing I was inexperienced. He did not know how inexperienced I was though. I followed him through the middle of wet fields, jumping over six plus feet deep canals measuring anywhere from four to six feet wide, with upwards of eighty pounds of gear on my back. I was not used to this type of conditioning, but my ego would not allow me to show my fellow Marines how exhausted I was. At the peak of my exhaustion was when it happened. The cracking and snapping of rounds started flying overhead and the other Marines and I were caught in the middle of a poppy field. We could partially conceal ourselves in the poppy plants, but there was no protection or cover. As I lay on the ground all I hear are the Marines yelling instructions on where the rounds were coming from, how far away the enemy was, and who needed to move and where they needed to move to. These Marines were seasoned war fighters. Some of them were on their second combat deployment and still could not enjoy a beer when they returned home because they had not turned twenty-one yet. While these brave young men stood tall at the face of potential death, I was face down in the dirt scared beyond measure. I felt paralized. I had never experienced being at the end of another man’s firearm. I will never forget the adrenaline rush I felt when the firefight first began. It tasted as if I had tossed a handful of pennies in my mouth. It seemed like an hour had passed with me laying as flat as possible in the poppy field, but it was more like thirty seconds. As I came out of the panic, K ran up to me and asked in the most calm manner, “Is this your first firefight?” I told him yes and from then on during the engagement I stuck close with him. Everything that followed was a blur. The human mind is an amazing thing. So much had happened, but I was on autopilot. During the chaos that day, we lost a young man. He was twenty years old and had his entire life ahead of him. That day was filled with pain, sorrow, and mourning. Our nation lost a hero. A family lost a son. His brothers in arms lost a brother. Decisions have a profound impact on where we end up in life. Unbeknownst to most people, sometimes the smallest decisions can set you on a path that you cannot fathom. One of my most impactful life altering decisions was to answer a phone call from a recruiter when I was eighteen years old. When I answered the phone call from the Marine Corps recruiter, I did not know what I was getting myself into. I knew I wanted a way out of that small town in Oklahoma. I knew I did not want to follow in the footsteps of my parents and family. I was tired of being disappointed. The decision to answer my phone would lead to one of the most life-altering experiences I have endured, war. We lost many honorable men and women in Afghanistan, but it was not in vain. Their memory lives on forever in the minds of not only those who served alongside them, but in their families, children, and all those who knew them. They touched more lives, in more ways, than I can put into words. My experiences in war play a large part in who I am today. I have seen first-hand how swiftly this life can end. War taught me to value life. War gave me a perspective on life that most people will never understand. Fast forward nearly twelve years. Today I am out of the Marine Corps, have a family, and do my best to make decisions that I believe will guide me, my wife, and my children on a path to happiness and success. Now, when I sit down and smell the fresh air, cuddle my children, and kiss my wife, I tell myself, “To say you’re blessed is an understatement.”